Adults prepare to test their flexibility as part of the launch of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports new national adult fitness test. (Brendan Hoffman/Associated Press)The President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, which routinely recognizes the physical fitness efforts of elementary school students, now offers a new fitness assessment for adults.
The test, for people 18 and older, was created because the council received so many requests for an assessment of adult fitness. Using an online form, exercisers can log their scores to find out how they rank among other Americans. For instance, a 40-year-old woman who can run 1.5 miles in 15 minutes (a 10-minute-per-mile pace) ranks in the 65th percentile — meaning she’s above average, but 35 percent of similarly aged women are in better shape.
To complete the aerobic component of the test you need your time for a 1.5-mile run, or your time and heart rate after a one-mile walk. The test also asks you to do as many push-ups as you can and measures the number of “half” sit-ups you can do in a minute.
A stretching exercise called the “sit-and-reach” is used to measure flexibility. For that, you need a yardstick or a friend to measure the distance from your fingers to your toes as you reach for them. Age, gender, height and weight are also part of your health assessment.
The good news is that you don’t have to complete all the test components to get a score for just one or two of the exercises.
To calculate your score, click here and enter your data.
Are you surprised by your ranking? Post your comments below.
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From 1 to 25 of 53 Comments
I don’t believe these data. Twenty pushups at age 54 puts me in only the 65th percentile. Are they measuring all comers, or just non-sedentary populations?
And a 40-yr-old woman running 1.5 miles in 15 minutes put her in only the 65th percentile? I don’t believe that one, either.
— jackmy good friend jeff siegel once asked at an x-mas dinner table if the idea behind presidential fitness award was that the president could meet all the standards. this was especially funny as it was the mid-nineties and the airwaves were full of images of bill clinton waddling around in a jogging get-up. i say if they’re going to call it the presidential fitness award, and then put all that pressue on 12 yr olds to meet the standards, then the president damn well better be able to do the sit ups.
— mkAh yes, the GOOD news is that you don’t have to complete ALL the exercises, we wouldn’t want to get too much exercise!
I actually just had this assessment done at my gym recently. I have always been lousy at the sit and reach, so I take yoga to try to learn how to relax my muscles and get more flexible.
Anyway, I am not too suprised at my ranking, for a 30-yo female. It was up there, but I also work to maintain my health through exercise and try to eat healthy for the most part; thanks to Advair I can breathe now and don’t have to take albuterol before I do everything, which always made my heart race. I would rather be less fit than have asthma. It sucks, but whattagonnado?
Do I get my “President’s Award” certificate now? hee hee.
— mbThe test is ok, but the BMI is the dumbest thing ever. I scored 95% percentile on every measure except the BMI, which says I will die of a heart attack. I understand that the BMI states that it will be too high for athletic people and too low for old people but in my mind it should be ignored all together. An example of a poor use is on the USAF physical fitness test where I would be penalized for muscle weight that puts me over the “optimal” BMI, all of this with a 12% body fat percentage.
— CoriDoyle Rules!
— DoyleI try to make the calculation and I got an error message. Maybe I am to dumb to fill in the form or the form instructions are not clear enough or there is a happy medium in between.
— Anthony M. AlbaOn-line evaluation has some flaws. I am very flexible and don’t have so much upper body strength. So my data for both the sit-and-reach and the pull-ups was 0(zero). When I input those values the input screen re-presented itselfwith messages that each of these needed to be a number between 1 and 100. (I estimated the other test numbers because I wanted to see how it workked.)
— Carol GWhat irritates me about this new test is that it has women completing “girl” push-ups, rather than actual push-ups, with no accommodation for those of us women who are happily able to do real push-ups, and probably beat most of the boys out there too. In fact, this very column reported recently on the whole body benefits of being able to do push-ups and that they are a fitness goal we ought to aspire too.
I can’t say, though, that I’m too surprised that this very “Presidential” test is so closed minded.
— LisaThis is all well and good, but I seriously wonder where the population fitness data comes from. All we’ve been hearing for years is how out of shape Americans are, but these results imply a very fit nation, and I’m dubious.
I’m in my early fifties and and run 1.5 miles in 12 minutes (that’s an 8 minute mile.) The “calculator” reports that I’m in the 80th percentile, which implies that 20% (1 out of 5) of the male population of my age group can run faster than that. I don’t have hard data, but I certainly have enough friends and acquaintances around my age, and can look around me well enough, and I’d be shocked if 1 of 5 men my age could outrun me. In fact I’d guess that at least 1/2 of my peers never even think about running.
Strength data was similarly strange. It appears that 20 pushups is considered average (50th percentile). How is “average” defined when most men I know of my age did their last pushup in junior high school?
— Ken L.This brings back memories. I remember being in elementary school and completing the various parts of the test and it was pretty tough. But I was quite proud when I got my presidential phsyical fitness test patch..which I still have to this day!! So at 41 I can look back at this award periodically and beem with pride:) lol
— Robyn DAny test that utilizes BMI is a fatally flawed one. Way to go President Bush!
— VictorIs that guy on the right in the blue shirt wearing leather shoes? That’s ridiculous!
— JoeLots of people already mentioned it, but I am interested in seeing where they got their data from. I regularly run 6+ miles, bike, swim, hike, kayak, workout, etc and am apparently less fit than most guys my age?
— JohnnieI have to agree with the poster above about the BMI. I am well above-average in the fitness exercises, but terrible with the BMI. I admit, I could lose ten pounds, but even when I was 5% body fat and would work out for several hours a day, I was considered overweight on the BMI. Not a good measure.
— SteveAnother example of BMI flaws. I’m 6-2, 195 pounds, 34″ waist, can run a 5K at just over a 6 minute pace and, although I can pinch an inch (or two), I am called “overweight.”
— msAssessment of adult fitness that is easy and gives test results even when you can’t perform all the tests is a great idea. It could become a great tool for people trying to become more fit on their own. Hopefully it can help researchers who investigate physical activity behavior, such as myself — a budding student researcher. Because self-report of physical activity can be inaccurate for various reasons, fitness assessments are often used to check for consistencies between fitness status and reported activity levels. Maybe this new adult fitness assessment can contribute to cross checking self-reported physical activity once the kinks are ironed out. The kinks mentioned by Ken L and jack concerning possible inaccuracies of standards are important ones but maybe can be fixed. I join them in questioning the standards: who was tested and how were these standards set? How do these assessments compare with work capacity measurements such as V02max measured in a lab?
— Tamara StamAlso, Cori’s questioning of the use of BMI as a gauge of fitness has lots of backup within health and fitness literature — it is apparently still used a lot by health professionals, but waist size is thought to be better: just today I clicked on a link accessed through an American Nurses Association newsbrief and read that BMI is thought to be one of the poorest indicators of cardiovascular health (Tara Parker-Pope citing the Journal of Epidemiology), that generally one is at lower risk when waist size is a better indicator of risk for hypertension, diabetes, and cholesterol (See “Watch Your Girth” by Tara Parker-Pope published May 13, 2008 in the New York Times).
I want to know 1) where they get their data and 2) why they insist women are measured by “knees-down” push-ups.
The percentiles seem VERY skewed. I know that my 9:30 miles aren’t particularly fast, but are they only comparing to others who take the test? Seems like quite a selection bias.
— rsI’m a 50yo male and I could probably do better than my current 11 minute mile if I didn’t ruin my knees from running most of my life. I could have done more pushups if I didn’t have recurrent shoulder and elbow problems from lifting weights for years to stay in shape. As it stands, I’m in something like the 20th percentile in running. I’d like to see those 4 out of 5 who are supposedly beating me even try to run a mile and a half.
— jpI just punched in the numbers I knew (running 1.5 miles and BMI info). I also knew that I’d come out fine in their standards.
I also just took this test recently at my gym. Very important but not mentioned in the article was how the instructor gives the test. For the sit up portion, full sit ups, the trainer didn’t hold my feet, and I didn’t remember from doing them in junior high. How can I do a full sit up, quickly, without holding my feet, so I got a lousy score.
He also tested flexibility but hadn’t told me I should warm up before the whole test. Had I don’t some kind of warm up and stretching first, I could have gotten a couple more inches, at least, from the flexibility test.
— CarolQuick point: For the reach test you do not enter the distance between your fingers and toes, as implied in the article. Instead, according to their how-to, you place your heels at the 15″ mark of a yard stick and measure how far along the yard stick you reach.
So if your fingers and toes are 15″ away, you enter a zero. If they touch, you enter a 15. If you go over, you enter something over 15.
A little confusing, and will partially answer Carol’s question above. The article should make this more clear.
— Samage 63, 77%ile. OK, that about matches where I would place myself among a hundred reasonably fit 63 year olds. But it does NOT match what I see on the street or walking through an airport. Where did they get these %iles, and how many years ago?
— WallyI was fascinated reading the descriptions of the exercises after I input what I can typically accomplish (and scored pretty low, regardless of the fact that most indications are that I am stronger and in better shape than 90% of the women I know). First of all, you’re supposed to leave your arms at your sides while doing sit-ups, and placing them across your chest is harder. I didn’t know that crossing your arms across your chest was harder, and always do sit-ups this way. Also, for maximum results from your sit-ups, you should do them kind of slowly. Make your muscles really work hard both up and down. The sissy push-ups for women really annoy me. Is this really a good indication of total body strength like a traditional push-up is? And if you just go for the men’s test, then you’re going to probably score low. It’ll probably take me all night to find out how many girl push-ups I can do. :) Finally, it says to stretch and warm up before completing the flexibility test. I guess the golden rule from school still applies: read all the directions FIRST.
— Mrs. DThe Presidential Fitness Test is now and always shall be an utterly stupid measure of physical fitness. All the pressure of meeting absurd standards in activities that no one would do were it not for the test is exactly the WRONG message to send to most Americans, who often give up as hopelessly out of shape when they underperform. The government, gym classes, “experts” need to encourage healthier eating habits and lifelong activities that get people moving and doing things they can enjoy and be successful in — not whether they can do the sit-and-reach. The perverse fixation on competitive benchmarks heavily influenced by the ultra-in-shape outliers (who alter what “average” means) is utterly counterproductive for a nation facing serious health and obesity issues. This is a joke and should be treated as such.
— BarryThis is a flawed test because it makes invalid assumptions about the values that may potentially be entered within the fields. For the sit and reach, the tips of my fingers extend about 8 inches PAST my toes. The sit and reach field in the form does not allow negative values, so I’m left only with the option to drastically underestimate my flexibility.
— Shoaib RahmanPeople! Stop complaining about BMI. It’s used for two good reasons: it works most of the time and the average person knows their own height and weight. If you know your body fat content, BMI is not for you. It is for the average person who knows their height and weight but not their body fat. In those cases where BMI does not work, you are probably an athlete and know your body fat anyway. It’s a simple metric; it’s not supposed to be rocket science (or anatomical biometrics).
— Xerxes