A battery of low-cost, standardized self-tests mapping to each of the nine adaptations, used to find 'performance anchors' before applying targeted protocols.
Movement quality screen (run first, cost-free): film 3–10 slow, unloaded reps of representative movements (push-up, pull-up, row, squat, deadlift) from front and side; score each major joint (shoulder, elbow, low back, hip, knee, ankle) 0/1/3 on symmetry, stability, awareness, and range of motion, to flag acute injury risk before loading anything.
Power: broad jump (distance should roughly equal height, ~15% less for females) and vertical jump via two highlighter marks (target 24+ in., 20+ in. for age 50+). Lab-grade alternatives: force plate testing (force, rate of force development, impulse, speed) and force-velocity curve profiling (barbell speed across 40–100% of 1RM) to determine whether a power deficit is force-dominant or velocity-dominant, rather than assuming a generic 30%-of-1RM load is optimal.
Grip: hand grip dynamometer (men 40–60+ kg, women 35–50+ kg, flag >10% left-right asymmetry) and dead hang for time (<30s weak, 30–50s good, 60s+ excellent).
Strength: leg extension 1RM (lower-technique-barrier alternative to back squat; bodyweight is a rough benchmark, ~10% decline per decade after 40) or goblet/front squat hold for time (~half bodyweight for 45s goblet, ~a third bodyweight for 30s front squat). Rep-max conversion formulas for estimating 1RM are reliable only below ~5 reps.
Muscular endurance: standardized no-break push-up test (full ROM, zero pauses; men 25+, women 15+, severe flags below 10/5) or a 75%-of-1RM rep test — below ~8 reps reclassifies the issue as a strength problem rather than endurance.
Anaerobic capacity: Wingate Test (30s max effort, stationary bike, lab) or Bosco Protocol (60s max repeated vertical jumps on a force plate); heart rate recovery after any max effort (target ~30 bpm drop by 1 min, ~60 bpm by 2 min) is a more useful everyday marker than the generic 220-minus-age max-HR formula.
Maximal aerobic capacity: VO2 max lab test (mask + metabolic cart, gold standard) or field alternatives — Cooper's 12-Minute Test (max distance run) and the one-mile walk test (time + heart rate fed into an online VO2 max estimator).
Long-duration/steady-state: 20+ minutes of unbroken effort at any non-walking modality; 30 minutes on nasal breathing alone is a strong positive marker.
Body composition: DEXA scan (48h rested, no prior hard exercise) → FFMI (fat-free mass index): men target 20+ (severe below 17), women 18+ (severe below 15).
Scheduling: run the full battery at least annually (six months in the guest's own practice), spread over 2–3+ days; 48h rested before body-composition testing; fresh-state tests (skill, power, strength) early in a session, fatiguing tests later; anaerobic-capacity and VO2 max tests usually isolated to their own days. Retest weaker qualities more often than strong ones — reliability (consistency for tracking your own progress) matters more than strict scientific validity for this kind of self-testing.
Historically, exercise science under-studied women (rodent studies skewed male on estrus-cycle assumptions); an NIH mandate now requires both sexes in funded research unless the condition is sex-specific, but dedicated funding and female-specific normative data (e.g., birth control's effect on training) still lag.
Two self-administered diagnostics from Galpin's endurance/fat-loss framework, used to identify whether fat or carbohydrate fuel-utilization is the weaker system:
Cross-reference against Metabolic Flexibility — the result doesn't mean one fuel system needs "fixing" so much as should be trained toward what the athlete's actual goals demand.