FitChecks with FitTec

 

What is it?

Every couple months FitTec will have quick health and fitness checks in the lobby. It is fun and educational.


What kind of tests?

Easy tests that take less than a few minutes; some just a couple. Such as strength, flexibility, reaction time, circumferences, disability index, balance, and so on. Check out each month to find out.


Get Educated, Get Motivated.

More Info.


Quick Flexibility Measures

How far you can reach beyond your toes from a sitting position – normally used to define the flexibility of a person’s body – may be an indicator of how stiff your arteries are.


A study in the American Journal of Physiology has found that, among people 40 years old and older, performance on the sit-and-reach test could be used to assess the flexibility of the arteries. Because arterial stiffness often precedes cardiovascular disease, the results suggest that this simple test could become a quick measure of an individual’s risk for early mortality from heart attack or stroke.


“Our findings have potentially important clinical implications because trunk flexibility can be easily evaluated,” said one of the authors, Kenta Yamamoto. “This simple test might help to prevent age-related arterial stiffening.”


It is not known why arterial flexibility would be related to the flexibility of the body in middle age and older people. But the authors say that one possibility is that stretching exercises may set into motion physiological reactions that slow down age-related arterial stiffening.


Arteries should be elastic


Healthy blood vessels are elastic, and elasticity helps to moderate blood pressure. Arterial stiffness increases with age and is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and death. Previous studies have established that physical fitness can delay age-related arterial stiffness, although exactly how that happens is not understood. The authors noted that people who keep themselves in shape often have a more flexible body, and they hypothesized that a flexible body could be a quick way to determine arterial flexibility.


The researchers studied 526 healthy, non-smoking adults, 20 to 83 years old, with a body mass index of less than 30. They wanted to see whether flexibility of the trunk, as measured with the sit and reach test, is associated with arterial stiffness. The researchers divided the participants into three age groups:


* young (20-39 years old)

* middle aged (40-59 years old)

* older (60-83 years old)


The researchers asked participants to perform a sit-and-reach test. The volunteers sat on the floor, back against the wall, legs straight. They slowly reached their arms forward by bending at the waist. Based on how far they could reach, the researchers classified the participants as either poor- or high-flexibility.


The researchers also measured blood pressure and the speed of a pulse of blood as it flowed through the body. They measured how long the pulse takes to travel between the arm and the ankle and between the neck and the leg. They also measured aortic pressure in some participants and tested the participants for cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength and endurance.


The study found that trunk flexibility was a good predictor of artery stiffness among middle age and older participants, but not among the younger group. In middle age and older participants, they also found that systolic blood pressure (the peak pressure that occurs as the heart contracts) was higher in poor-flexibility than in high-flexibility groups.



Read more: http://musclemecca.com/training-exercise-101-227/flexibility-arterial-stiffness-215846/#ixzz2LRhTvZKa



Quick Strength Measures

Grip Strength

The grip strength test measures the muscular strength of your upper extremities. There is a strong correlation between grip strength and overall upper body strength. Strength training is an important component of a physical fitness program. CONCLUSION: In older disabled women, handgrip strength was a powerful predictor of cause-specific and total mortality. Read more below.


Back/Leg Strength

The Back Leg Chest Dynamometer is a heavy duty strength measuring tool typically used by strength trainers and physical therapists to determine peak strength and rehabilitation progress. Able to test the major muscle groups of the legs, back and chest, the large base provides a safe sturdy base for accurate and repeatable evaluations.


Grip strength has long been thought of as a possible predictor of overall body strength

 



According to an article from UConn:

 

a grip strength test can be an important screening tool in assessing a person’s overall health,


grip strength gives you an overall sense of someone’s vitality.


By obtaining a reading of a person’s overall muscle mass and strength level, health care practitioners can prescribe nutritional guidelines, exercises, and other interventions in an attempt to increase strength if necessary and improve the person’s overall health and vitality.

There was a study done that looked at folks’ middle age. The authors found that weakness in middle age was predictive of problems later, predictive of the onset of disability. Those who were weaker in their 40’s and 50’s were more likely to demonstrate an onset of disability in their 60’s.”

http://today.uconn.edu/blog/2011/06/grip-strength-is-good-indicator-of-overall-health/