Why Testing Doesn’t Matter (and why it does)

by Michael Plank

A couple of times each year, we run through a complete testing cycle using the Level Method framework that’s a part of how we do things at our gym. It involves doing 15 different workouts that assess everything from raw deadlift strength to aerobic capacity to flexibility and everything in between. It’s comprehensive, to say the least. Testing (or, if you’re not at our gym, testing your own Personal Records) can be fun. It can also be stress-inducing and sometimes even disappointing.

But here’s why it doesn’t matter…

1. No result you could possibly get on any fitness test will make you less fit than you are right now. Quite the opposite. Did you do a workout? Congratulations, you built or maintained your fitness.
2. No result you can imagine will tell you whether or not you need to keep exercising. Spoiler alert: you do. Stay as active as possible for as long as you live.
3. Fitness is not linear. If you stay at this for long enough, your numbers will go up and down over the years. If you stay at it until time really starts to get its hooks in you, those numbers will start to steadily go down. A slower mile time doesn’t mean that what you’re doing isn’t working or that it’s not worth doing.
4. Fitness is not singular. The fact that you can’t deadlift as much as you could a year ago says nothing about how much more efficiently you can lift, how much better you can move, or how much you’ve been able to decrease your pain, for example.
5. No fitness test says anything about your gifts as a spouse, partner, parent, leader, family member, community member, or citizen. If nothing else, remember that you are not your fitness, you are not your accomplishments, you are not your perceived failures.

I try to remind people of that stuff all the time and I don’t always do a good job. But we obviously don’t think that testing is worthless or we wouldn’t do it.

So here’s why it does matter…

1. While you’re making progress, it’s super important and fun to celebrate that. We often think that you have to be motivated to be successful, but it’s the other way around: you have to see success first, and that will keep you motivated.
2. It’s powerful to celebrate progress with others. (Check out Simon Sinek’s writing on Serotonin as “The Leadership Chemical”)
3. But those first two only matter if you are moving up in your fitness tests. It can be super valuable to test even if you’re not moving up. The best workouts – the ones that give you the most bang for your buck – are the ones that stretch you just beyond your abilities. If you want to get technical with it, the best workouts are the ones that hit all your energy systems. If you want to get really technical with it, that’s probably for another post or for a long, nerdy conversation after a workout. The point is, knowing where you are now is critical for optimizing your training. We use the Level Method as our system for that, but it’s always be valuable to know your limits (even if they’re not what you want them to be).

Here’s the takeaway: THE formula for how to be as healthy as possible for as long as possible is this: eat real food, lots of plants; sleep long and sleep well; find things and people that make you happy; move your body as much as possible. That’s it.

If testing helps you, good! Do it. If it bums you out, fine. Skip it (but work out anyway). But either way, it’s just a tool. So don’t hang onto it too tightly.