By now, vacations are a distant memory of at least a few weeks. Life has begun again as it did some time ago (lockdown excluded, that is), and even sports habits are now the same as they once were.<\/p>\n
Upon returning from vacation, you think wistfully about the past time and look fearfully at the scale. How much will certain overindulgences of the past few weeks weigh – literally?<\/p>\n
Instead of punishing and mortifying yourself, we invite you to look at it from another perspective: don’t beat yourself up with the observation that the weight has increased (if it has increased at all) but take the opportunity to understand your body better and do something to make it feel better and better.<\/p>\n
We have talked about this many times before, but weight is a false problem. Or rather: weight is a number. That takes in several things, simplifying a lot. The weight indicated by the scale does not distinguish between fat and muscle, so much so that after a while you have changed your diet and intensified your workouts you may not see decreases in weight but even increases. Actually your weight has redistributed, only you need more sophisticated scales to figure it out.<\/p>\n
The first step toward understanding one’s own state of health is then to listen to one’s body to understand how one really feels: <\/strong>weak, strong, drained, full of energy, etc.<\/p>\n Then you can proceed to do some tests that you can also perform on your own or with someone’s help.<\/p>\n There are more or less extensive scientific tests. Their purpose is to give us back a snapshot of our health status and athletic ability at a given time. Let’s first divide them for simplicity between those you can perform on your own and those that sometimes require the help of an outside observer and other diagnostic machines and specialized personnel.<\/p>\n The most famous and simple ones are Cooper’s,<\/a> Conconi<\/a> ‘s, and the“quiet 10 km<\/a>.” All you need to run them (apart from the last one, which has to be done on the road) is an athletic track and a GPS. Who doesn’t have an athletic track in their backyard, after all?<\/p>\n Joking aside, it is appropriate to perform these tests on a track because the distances are known and the measurements more accurate. In fact, you will not have to care about the road but only about the times: in fact, each time measurement will have an accurate correspondence in the distance traveled.<\/p>\n Another interesting test is the Magic Mile test. In fact, in addition to providing you with data on your health and athletic fitness, it also provides an estimate of the times you will be able to run in races, both 10k and half-marathons and marathons.<\/p>\nTests<\/h3>\n
The “self-administered” tests<\/h4>\n