How do you assess health?
When you think about your health or what healthy looks like, what does that bring to your mind? As humans we are generally driven to aesthetics, what pleases our eye. However, does this always relate to health or as a we like at Resilient Human to our true internal health?
Biomarkers and Risk Factors.
Look, we all know there is more to health than the way we look, but we're never informed of how we can measure this or then how we interpret the results for us to understand in real life. Let's start simple, these results also know as biomarkers and are a way of grouping results to allow us to understand our level of all the risk factors such as cancers, heart disease, strokes, metabolic disorders and so on.
Health Partners
As part of our online personal training program, we believe that we should offer our online clients the exact same level of service that we can offer in house clients, and this is where we bring in our health partner offers. We will be working with various health partners wherever you're based to best support you as an online client gain the most from your 12 months of online training to become a Resilient Human. (*This is an extra and totally up to you as the client to undertake). Meaning, we can offer you any and all testing, and the point in this article and couple future articles is to show how these tests and the biomarkers you receive aren't just for athletic performance, but to increase your level of self awareness and will help improve the solutions we can create for your life.
Transparency.
One of our aims with this is transparency, and as personal trainers and physios, of course we also run these diagnostics on ourselves, but we will also always release our biomarker data and what it means to our life, training and health. You may wonder why, but some of us have risk factors from genetics and staying on top of these type of biomarkers allows us to know what we're doing is right or some changes need made. Here's our Results.
My Vital Metrics.
So let us tell you a bit about one of our health partners that we as a team at Resilient Human just had some fun at, and got some great results to work with. My Vital Metrics, based in Finsbury Circus near Moorgate, which of course makes it simple for us also being based in Central London. Our day consisted of Dexa Scans to allow us to know more about our body composition which includes, bone mass, muscle mass, and fat mass (subcutaneous and visceral). Then on to our vo2 max test (run or bike) this allows us to see maximal oxygen consumption, anaerobic threshold, and carbohydrate vs fat energy utilisation.
Of course if you're doing the majority of the right things, exercising regularly, eating well, sleeping well, low alcohol intake and basically all the good things, then you're probably be in a good place. However, what about being optimal, especially if it can fit in with your lifestyle?
Coaches have a go.
Our day started with the dexa scan, which is pretty simple, lie down, minimal clothing, sign a radiation waiver (it's about the same level as your phone) and off you go. This gave us some great feedback, we all had above average bone density (to be expected as we've all played sport and strength trained our whole lives) but a great result for Joana as females you will go through menopause and of course this has been linked with bone loss from osteoporosis, this is where strength training for females is a huge benefit for health. Next we're into lean mass, Anthony as you can tell from images, has some extra muscle mass lying around, so it's no surprise his lean tissue numbers are in a very healthy range and why BMI is not always a great indicator of health. Finishing with fat mass, as a group we're all pretty lean 14-16% good healthy levels, but 1 increased risk factor popped up for Anthony and his visceral fat (this is the fat build up inside your muscular wall beside your organs). We look to be below 100cm² for healthy individuals and between 100-160cm² for increased risk and over 160cm² for high risk individuals. So Anthony was at 116cm², which as we can see from all his other health markers and his current age, isn't an instant risk, but some changes will help reduce this and bring it back to a safe level. (Next article will deep dive into this)
The test that had us all a little nervous, Vo2 max test, seeing just how much capacity we all have, but due to being there as a team, it made us also all a little competitive with a feeling of support. This is a test of cardiovascular fitness but it also shows details of maximal oxygen uptake, the great feeling of a maximum heart rate and how you utilise energy substrates as you're training at different exercise intensities. Now you ask why is this useful to me? Of course you don't need to be hitting in the superior level for peak oxygen intake, however it's pretty useful to have some capacity here. The two interesting points that came from our group was that of Joana's capacity sub anaerobic threshold and Scott's utilisation of fat at near maximum heart rate. As you can read in out team article, Joana is a pretty keen Brazilian Jiu Jitsu player (won gold at euros), and this sport is played in 70-90% maximum heart rate intensity, so for Joana, it shows that she cannot develop this point much higher, so she can develop other skills to improve her game to the next level, if she chooses. As Scott had a high level of fat utilisation at higher heart rates, this does not mean he burns body fat faster but that he has an increased fitness level towards fat use for energy, this is known as metabolic flexibility, what's useful about this, decreased chance obesity and type 2 diabetes from insulin resistance. (Both these points will also get deep dive articles).
Benefits of Knowing.
We know these tests aren't for everyone, but it's one of the great things about health care and technology building together, it's continuing to give us more knowledge and scope to improve our own health. Of course us as a group of personal trainers and physios we love doing this stuff, we choose it as our careers, but being able to really help others understand how much better they can be supported by having a few tests done and plotting their biomarkers over time, well then you get the benefits.
Looking to test yourself, check out My Vital Metrics and get booked in using the code RESILIENT, the team there will also take you through all your results giving you in-depth feedback on your personal solutions.
Otherwise it's time to start your online personal training journey with Resilient Human then sign up or book a call.
Resilient Human