As a personal trainer, I strongly believe it is my duty to educate others about fitness and the correct way to work out. So I put together a Fitness Quiz, where you can see how your fitness knowledge stacks up. If you haven’t taken the quiz, I strongly encourage you to do so before going over the answers below.
Quiz: Test your fitness and workout knowledge
Ok, now that you’ve tried answering all questions by yourself (or were too lazy to click the link above and do the quiz) let’s see how you did:
1. When you start working out:
A. You start doing things at high intensity right away. After all, you want to get as much out of it as possible. No time to waste!
B. You take the time to do a proper warm-up to get some blood flow and oxygen going to your muscles.
C. What’s a warm-up?
Correct answer: B!
A warm-up is super important. It’s the link between you just hanging out and you working out. It brings blood and oxygen to your muscles, synovial fluids in the joints to help lubricate them and helps you mentally prepare for the task at hand. It also helps prevent injury. Don’t skip it!
2. During your workout, you find that most of the time:
A. You don’t really count your reps. You just keep going until you either feel a slight burn or get bored of the exercise and then you move on
B. You count your reps and they’re mostly above 20-25 reps each time
C. You count your reps and you can do 15 reps at most for the majority of exercises
Correct answer: C!
Anything more than 15 reps is for rehabilitation purposes. So unless you’re specifically told by your physiotherapist or doctor to do 20 or 25 reps, make sure you pick the right weight or exercise that will allow you to perform 15 reps max. And if you aren’t counting your reps, you really should. How else will you know if you’ve improved over time?
3. When it comes to intensity:
A. Most exercises are not hard. Working out is so easy!
B. Most exercises are quite hard. The last 3 reps are always intense and leave you feeling the burn
C. You haven’t really thought about how intense your exercises were until now.
Correct answer: B!
Your workout needs to leave you feeling like you worked out. Thus the name “workout”. If it’s easy you’re not getting anything out of it. And if you haven’t thought about intensity until now, it’s not too late! You want to use the weight that will make the last 3 reps hard.
4. Breaks between exercises:
A. Are an opportunity to chat with your friends and instagram your workout experience. Another set can wait!
B. Are needed to allow muscles to recover before starting another set
C. Are only for the weak!
Correct answer: B!
Taking too long of a break between sets will cause you to cool down too much and will essentially ruin your workout. So leave the instagraming until after.
On the other hand, it may seem like jumping from one exercise straight to the next will allow you to keep the intensity going but actually short breaks are needed to allow your muscles to recover between sets. If you’re doing 15 reps per set, you only need about 30s recovery. If you’re doing 10-12 reps per set you need about 1.5-2min.
5. What working out means to you:
A. Cardio all the way! Running, biking – these are all activities that will get me in shape. If I go to the gym, the treadmill and elliptical are my best friends
B. Weights! Gotta make them muscles pop!
C. I’ll take a combo of cardio and weights
Correct answer: C!
Both cardio and weights are important and should be part of your program. If you answered B, I do feel for you! Cardio is definitely not my favorite either. My suggestion is to try a few different things until you find a cardio you like. Not everyone enjoys running. For myself, a combination of mixed martial arts and HIIT does the trick.
6. For your workout you need:
A. Phone, headphones and water
B. Training log and program, as well as the items mentioned above
Correct answer: B!
You absolutely need to have a plan for the day! What body parts are you working? What exercises? In what order? How many reps? What are your weights? If all of that sounds daunting, a personal trainer such as yours truly can help put that together for you and take all the thinking out! That way you can just focus on doing. A personal trainer can also also ensure that you are always using the right weights and always exercising properly.
7. At the end of the workout you:
A. Wait, aren’t I done? What more is there?
B. Take at least 5 minutes to stretch and cool down
C. Absolutely need another instagram/snapchat pic. How else will the world know you worked out?
Correct answer: B!
A few minutes of stretching are very important. Stretching helps you work on your flexibility and helps with stiffness and soreness. It also helps increase your range of motion, which means you will be able to go deeper into the moves and get more out of your exercises. Just like the warm-up, this last piece is super important. Don’t skip it!
Summary
How did you do? Did you get most of these questions? If not, that’s ok because you just learned something by taking this quiz! And the next time you work out, hopefully you will start thinking about the number of reps, intensity, as well as making sure you do a warm-up and stretch.
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