{"id":129,"date":"2008-05-05T01:31:08","date_gmt":"2008-05-04T23:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/wordpress\/not-so-great-expectations\/"},"modified":"2015-02-12T20:18:46","modified_gmt":"2015-02-13T01:18:46","slug":"not-so-great-expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/not-so-great-expectations\/","title":{"rendered":"Not-So-Great Expectations&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When\u00a0I do\u00a0a body comp assessment, I use calipers and the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.exrx.net\/Calculators\/BodyComp.html\" rel=\"noopener\">7-site calculator over at exrx.net<\/a>.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a handy little tool, and saves a lot of number crunching.\u00a0 Did one on John this morning, as a part of the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/the-test-test-day-25\/\">IsaTest test<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I have the calculator page bookmarked, but Internet Explorer was acting up this morning, so I\u00a0switched to\u00a0Firefox, and navigated to the page\u00a0via the menus instead.\u00a0 While scanning the &#8220;fitness testing&#8221; page for the right link, I noticed they also had a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.exrx.net\/Calculators\/PushUps.html\" rel=\"noopener\">push up test for upper body muscular endurance<\/a>.\u00a0 So just for the hell of it,\u00a0I challenged John to do the test with me.\u00a0 When\u00a0we looked at the instructions,\u00a0however, it was clear that the\u00a0&#8220;rules&#8221; were stacked against him:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><em>Subject performs as many repetitions as possible without pausing. Subject should be encouraged to perform one or two trial repetitions before test.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Elbows fully extended <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Male subject (See <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/media.urbandictionary.com\/image\/page\/pwned-56302.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>animation<\/em><\/a><em>) <\/em>\n<ul>\n<li><em><font color=\"#ff0000\"><strong>forefoot or toes on floor<\/strong><\/font> <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>legs, hips, and back straight <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>tester places upright fist below chest of male subject <\/em>\n<ul>\n<li><em>contact with testers fist <\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><em>Female subject (See animations: <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/media.urbandictionary.com\/image\/page\/pwned-56302.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>feet down<\/em><\/a><em>, <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/media.urbandictionary.com\/image\/page\/pwned-56302.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>feet up<\/em><\/a><em>) <\/em>\n<ul>\n<li><em><font color=\"#ff0000\"><strong>knees on floor or mat<\/strong><\/font> <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>hips and back straight <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>tester gives verbal feed back to female subject on depth of push-up <\/em>\n<ul>\n<li><em>shoulders the same height of elbow <\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(Emphasis mine)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In other words, the men\u00a0have to do\u00a0full, &#8220;regulation&#8221; push ups, while the women get to cheat!<\/p>\n<p>Screw that.\u00a0 I did the &#8220;men&#8217;s&#8221; test, and &#8211;\u00a0just to make it more sporting &#8211;\u00a0went all the way down to the\u00a0floor on each rep.\u00a0 This\u00a0added a good 3 &#8211; 4 inches to the range of motion, as there was no tester&#8217;s fist in the way (or any other body parts, for that matter: small breasts are\u00a0a fringe\u00a0benefit of being very lean).\u00a0 I knocked out 34 before my arms froze up &#8211; which was equivalent to a score of 82 for a man my age.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, I need to do more endurance-type arm\u00a0work.\u00a0 While I still beat John by 8 reps, I would have preferred a larger margin of victory. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n<p>Beyond that, however, the whole test set up annoyed me, as the expectations for women&#8217;s fitness were so much lower than for men&#8217;s.\u00a0\u00a0 Sure, men are\u00a0&#8211; on average &#8211; larger and stronger than women are &#8211; so\u00a0lower performance standards are to be expected.\u00a0\u00a0 But\u00a0that much lower?\u00a0 And\u00a0for a fitness test, no less?\u00a0 That&#8217;s\u00a0downright insulting. \u00a0We&#8217;d be upset if &#8220;the system&#8221;\u00a0employed a\u00a0double standard\u00a0for intellectual achievement.\u00a0 It shouldn&#8217;t be acceptable to have such\u00a0&#8220;dumbed down&#8221; standards for women&#8217;s strength\/endurance either.<\/p>\n<p>Women can &#8211; and should &#8211; be able to manage\u00a0basic bodyweight exercises&#8230;we don&#8217;t need special &#8220;gurl&#8221; variations.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.seattlepi.com\/lifestyle\/health\/article\/Living-Well-Push-ups-are-simple-effective-1249002.php\" rel=\"noopener\">Victoria Scott understands this:<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Every three months, Seattle personal trainer Victoria Scott starts a new early morning conditioning class at Sand Point Education Center in Magnuson Park. Her summer class, all women, finished up the term last Friday at 6 a.m. sharp.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Those women averaged more than 20 perfect-form push-ups apiece. Back in June, the class best was about five and some of the women couldn&#8217;t do more than two.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In just three months of training, all the women in her class could manage 20 push-ups in good form.\u00a0\u00a0They&#8217;re not special, either &#8211; it&#8217;s something any reasonably healthy woman can train up to.\u00a0 And the payoff is more than just\u00a0improved physical strength\/endurance&#8230;there&#8217;s also\u00a0a tremendous\u00a0increase in physical\u00a0confidence that goes along with it.\u00a0 As one 52-year old female member of the &#8220;Bodybuilding Revealed&#8221; forum wrote to me:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Godddd damn <img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bodybuildingrevealed.com\/members\/images\/smilies\/smile.gif\" class=\"inlineimg\" \/> 10 count em 10 nice neat pushups. I stopped at 10, didn&#8217;t want to get too crazy. That means I am in the BEST upper body shape of my life &amp; not even close yet to where I want to be.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Got down on the mat, went to town&#8230;<img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bodybuildingrevealed.com\/members\/images\/smilies\/biggrin.gif\" class=\"inlineimg\" \/> well to 10.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Thanks Elissa, without your suggestion I would never have known I CAN DO PUSHUPS! Awesome! I am flying on Cloud 9! I can see 20&#8230; around the corner&#8230; LOL <\/em><em>(and yea, i have been asked this question TWICE in last 30 minutes, they were regulation pushups none of those weird &#8220;girl&#8221; pushups they foisted on us in gym class).&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When you know you can do things you never thought you could, it can change your whole outlook on fitness.\u00a0 To hell with\u00a0not-so-great expectations: we can do better than &#8220;they&#8221; think!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When\u00a0I do\u00a0a body comp assessment, I use calipers and the 7-site calculator over at exrx.net.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a handy little tool, and saves a lot of number crunching.\u00a0 Did [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,28],"tags":[584,610,1357,1544,1803],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7927,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/7927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}