In our mission to create fully personalized fitness experiences for each of our clients, we need to first understand WHERE you are right now. In our previous post we outlined the initial consultation and starting to connect your fitness goals to your WHY. The next step in getting to know you is analyzing where you are physically with a movement assessment.

The movement assessment measures your fitness where you sit now, and is split into two parts ‘MOVE’ and ‘WORK.’ Once completed your Coach will be ready to design the perfect program for you based on your goals, lifestyle, and current level of fitness.

MOVE

This part of the assessment has 4 levels, with each level building on the previous.

• Level 1 - Stability Strength: This is our base level designed to test your basic stability and function with exercises such as planks, air squats, and step-ups. Starting here allows us to customize a plan to develop your stability strength and truly help you explore your maximum physical potential. Many programs neglect these basics, which can lead you to plateau and possibly injury.
  
• Level 2 - Relative Strength: Here we start to test your strength in relation to your own body-weight with exercises like push-ups and split squats. This level of assessment will allow us to identify areas of focus that will enable you to build a more robust base of support for advanced strength training.
  
• Level 3 - Absolute Strength: At this level, we venture into more advanced weighted movements measured relative to your body weight -- think pull-ups, back squats, and deadlifts. This helps to build an awareness of how you move in relation to controlling external loads, an essential step in the quest for maximum physical potential.
  
• Level 4 - Balance Strength: The top level of our MOVE assessment looks at how your strength balances up across a number of different lifts and movements. Here we compare performance in different exercises like the back squat and front squat. This information helps create balance in your overall strength and ultimately creates direction for your program design.

WORK

For this phase of assessment, everyone starts with a simple test of aerobic capacity. We do this because having a good level of aerobic function is highly beneficial to your long term health or performance goals. We use this test, combined with your personal goals, to determine if a more in-depth aerobic or anaerobic assessment is necessary.

Some of the testing elements for WORK could include:

• 10min Assault Bike Test for max calories
• 30sec on, 30sec off x 4 sets at Max effort on the Concept 2 Rower
• 5k Row Test

IN SUMMARY

At OPEX, we believe in the motto of "assess don't guess," which is what this process is all about. To provide the best design possible for you over a lifetime, we embark on this assessment process together with a thoughtful and process-driven method. We need to get to truth about where you sit now so that we can truly help you move forward in fitness over a lifetime and explore your potential.

Taking into account the information from your consultation, your body composition, and the movement assessment we are able to build an appropriate and personalized plan for how we can help you achieve your goals. Nothing is left to guesswork, we don’t just throw things at you to make you sweat, and we don’t follow templated programs. Everything we do at OPEX Baltimore has a purpose that is personalized to your abilities and your goals.

IF  YOU WOULD LIKE TO FIND OUT WHAT ALL OF THIS FEELS LIKE AND HOW WE CAN HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS THEN CLICK ON THE LINK AND FIND OUT ABOUT OUR 4 WEEK TRIAL OFFER.

About the Author:

Sean is an OPEX CCP coach at OPEX Baltimore South with 15 years of fitness experience ranging from Rowing, Powerlifting, Olympic Lifting, Adventure Racing, CrossFit.