THE UK’S SMARTEST SELF-TEST
The rising popularity of inclusive, social fitness events is making competitive athletes out of us all. Now, as part of a mission to test the UK’s mettle, the National Fitness Games have designed an algorithm to rank every person’s physical prowess. Want to know where you stand? Our writer crunched his numbers to see how he stacks up
Iadmit that I’m not as fit as I should be. I have excuses: work, kids, a recent house move, the pandemic, my evolutionary hard-wiring to conserve energy. But, even allowing these, I’d be lying if I said that I’d pushed myself as hard as I could have.
But numbers – assuming the integrity of their compilers – don’t lie. This makes the prospect of having my fitness tested, after 12 mostly locked-down months, far from enticing. Unlike the idling muscles that I’m foam-rolling in a bid to undo the damage of a morning’s train journey to Harpenden, the figures will not be massaged. I am to be measured – and I suspect I’ll be found wanting.
Still, following what seems like forever of half-baked home training with only a kettlebell, resistance bands and my bodyweight, it feels good to be back in a fully stocked performance facility such as Marchon Athletic. Having the place effectively to myself feels as indulgent as rows of power racks, assault bikes and dumbbells can get.
Why am I doing this? It’s the fault of Mark Morgan, a sport industry veteran of two decades and the founder of the National Fitness Games, a nationwide events platform that exists to “define the nation’s fitness”. Morgan loved the idea of hosting a CrossFit Open-style fitness competition. But having to pay for membership at a certified box and learn uncommon, technical exercises struck him as a problematic barrier to entry.