It would only be prudent of me before I go any further in this DMB Project to make a complete and thorough assessment of my current physical capabilities.  I have done that this week and have come to a rather distressing conclusion; I am in denial.

When it comes to physical ability, I was dealt with the “average” card; average cardiovascular, average agility, average strength, average skills.  Now, so far in my life I have been satisfied with that because when you are average and you exceed in anything, then it is considered an exceptional effort or amazing feat.  Maybe this was by design that I never chose to excel in the world of sport.  I can specifically remember the moment when I was in the sixth grade and I was standing on the sidelines at my junior high school football game.  I had been asked by the coach to be a part of the team (I think he was half blind), and instead of saying yes and feeling proud of being asked in the first place, for some reason I was cautious.  I once heard that caution is the better side of valor and for some reason at this moment I had no aspirations for valor.

So there I am standing on the sidelines watching the game.  It was quite a rush to feel a part of the team atmosphere.  As the game progressed, the coach would turn his head to me once in a while and give me that, “Whaddya think” expression with the glimmer of true insanity in his eyes.  I suspect anyone who has played organized sports has seen that look in the eyes of their coach.  Just then the coach turned his attention to one of his players that had come out of the game due to an injury and was sitting on the bench taking his shoe off.  I sneaked a closer peak at the goings on at just the moment when the coach reached down and tore off the players bruised and battered toenail in one swipe and followed it with the words, “Quit being a pansy and get back out there.”  After I vomited, I never went back again.

Needless to say, average has been pretty OK with me since that moment; until now.  I want to not just put my toes on the line (even though Don Mann tips his hat to those that do), I want to make sure I am no longer average.  My team and this effort deserves better than that.  I plan on giving everything I have.  I will not start average, therefore I will not finish average.

Now this is where things go haywire.  I use the Polar RS800sd heart rate monitoring system (www.polar.com).  One of the benefits is that it incorporates some very sophisticated tests to see where you are and then helps you to plan and organize your exercises to obtain goals and milestones along the way.  I have used their UKK Walking test (www.ukkinstituutti.fi) and have discovered that according to their parameters my physical ability is “considerably below average”. Now for a guy who prides himself on being physically average, this was quite a blow to my psyche.  I have trusted this wrist computer on many other occasions and it has never been wrong, so I no reason to believe it is now.  So here are the rest of my stats so that we all know how way off target I am.  I guess this is a good thing, knowing where I am.  I just don’t like it.

Height- 6 feet (183 cm)
Weight- 228.8 lbs (104 kg)
BMI- 31.1 kg/m²
VO² Max- 30.7 ml/min/kg
Max HR- 180 bpm
RHR- 55 bpm

So it looks like my focus is going to be on cardiovascular conditioning, core training, and functional strength. Now all I have to do is get my Polar RS800 to tell me how to do that, unless someone else has any other suggestions. See you on Wednesday which is when I switch gears and share a travel story I hope you will find interesting.

Until next time…..TODD

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 18th, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under Primal Quest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.