Written by: Drew Schultz, Personal Trainer/Kinesis Instructor, O2 Fitness-Falls
When asked his age, Satchel Paige, one of baseball's greatest pitchers once replied "Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter." Satchel was fifty-nine years old when he pitched his last major league game in 1965. He pitched against Carl Yastrzemski, whose father Satchel pitched against a generation earlier!
We now have a new tool for O2 Fitness members to help you determine your "health age" and map out your goals.
O2 Fitness' Visual Fitness Planner
Your health age is calculated by looking at your chronological age and seven risk factors. These risk factors are cited by the American Medical Association, American Dietetic Association, and the American Heart Association.
- Age
- Family history
- Activity level
- Smoking
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- BMI (body mass index)
Body Mass Index (BMI)
The one risk factor that time and again has been shown to be the most detrimental is BMI.
Your body mass index is a number that is based on your weight to height ratio. It is a general way to categorize a person's physique as underweight, normal, overweight, or obese. It does not take into account lean mass vs fat mass, so a more heavily muscled person may technically come out in the overweight category, but there is a general correlation between high BMI and overweight/overfat physiques. BMI is also used by health insurance companies and employers to assess an individual's health risk.
Body Composition & Family History
Family history includes diabetes, stroke, heart disease, and cancer.
At O2 Fitness, we also take into account your body composition (lean mass vs fat mass), anaerobic test (resistance training), blood pressure, and recovering heart rate.
We have a personalized avatar for you to see how your physique will transform from how it looks now to how you want to look. There are three categories to choose from to fit your goals: Weight Management, Healthy, and Performance.
Did You Know?
Only 5% of people who join a health club achieve their goals! 80% of people who set specific goals and have a plan of how to do so actually achieve their goals.
Your Blueprint to a Healthier You!
The Visual Fitness Planner is a blueprint to help more members realize their ideal outcomes and see how they can have a younger health age. Numerous organizations such as the AMA, AHA, American Dietetic Association, Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research, Harvard School of Public Health, Yale University, and the American College of Sports Medicine correlate exercise with a reduction in life-threatening risk factors. This research is the basis of the VFP's health age concept. Do you know your health age?
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