Reasons to Do Fitness Assessment:

Develop and individualized fitness program that is safe and effective.
Help your client understand his or her individual fitness abilities.
Establish a fitness and skill baseline from which progress can be assessed.
Assist in setting realistic fitness and health goals.
Identify potential injury or health risks.
The purpose of the assessment is to establish a baseline of a client's abilities and to monitor progress. Fitness assessments are usually performed every 6 - 8 weeks for the first 6 months of an exercise program, then less often as the individual becomes more fit. It is important to use the same battery of tests on an individual over a course of time to monitor true progress.

There are many fitness assessment protocols available. It is important to select the assessments you will use with each client based on your initial interview of his or her health history, activity experience, and goals. It is acceptable to modify assessments or even develop new ones based on the client's needs. For example, some very sedentary people may do the first few step tests on a height lower than 12 inches. When you modify an assessment, the scoring tables no longer apply to the test. However, modified assessments can still indicate progress that the client makes with each successive time you administer the assessment. A good idea for trainers is to keep a fitness assessment notebook, collecting various tests and protocols.

Always duplicate the assessments exactly as the first time:

Same technician administering the test
Same testing equipment
Same scoring table
Same time of day
When you are administering a modified assessment and decide that the client's fitness level will allow a more advanced assessment administer the first advanced assessment as a baseline, shortly after the final administration of the previous protocol. This will allow the client to see that it's all right if the more advanced assessment produces a lower score.

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PERCEIVED OR PREFERRED?

Rating of Perceived Exertion is a method of estimating heart rate during exercise. Unlike taking the pulse and determining if it is within a target heart rate, perceived exertion is based on the person's self-observation of how hard he or she feels the intensi