The Math of Fitness!

  Fitness is a huge industry in today's society.  Look at how many gyms have sprung up, how many are into providing 24 hour service, how many other places are offering fitness.  It is a big business.

There is math in BMI (body mass index), heart rates, time needed to burn calories, loosing weight, etc.  The good thing, is that much of the math used by fitness professionals includes percentages and decimals.

Here are some examples one can share with students who want to know "When will I ever use this?"

1.  Changing percents to decimals are used to calculate the percent of predicted maximum heart rate, finding the ideal weight of a person with 30% fat, determining the percent of fat when given the amount in grams.

2. They need to use decimals to figure out what a persons body weight should be if they have a certain percent of fat. 

3. BMI provides an estimate of body fat based on height and weight. The formula for BMI is your weight in kg/height in meters.

4.  There are a variety of body fat calculations that can be done.  Body fat calculations means if you have a body fat of 25%, that means 25% of your total body weight is the amount of fat you carry.  The lean body weight is the body weight minus the fat weight.  So if you weigh 100 pounds with a 25% body fat rate, 25 pounds of that weight is made up of fat while 75 pounds is the amount that is your lean body weight.

5. Another calculation is the BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate, the number of calories needed by a person at rest.  The general equation is different for men or women, but its basically a starting number + a factor times the weight + a factor times the height - a factor times the age.  Then the BMR is multiplied by another factor to determine the number of calories needed to maintain a persons weight.

6. There are all sorts of calculations in regard to heart rate.  There is the at rest heart rate, the maximum heart rate and heart rate reserve which is the difference between the resting heart rate and the maximum heart rate.  Add to that another formula to find a target heart rate which uses the heart rate reserve divided by the percent intensity added to the the resting heart rate.

7. There are also equations associated with calories, gaining weight, loosing weight or your total caloric expenditure.  Then one has to take into account there are 3500 calories in a pound so this is good information if you want to loose or gain or even maintain your weight.

The above equations are commonly used by everyone who is into fitness.  The individual equations are easy to find and use.  It shows ow math plays an important part in fitness.  Without it, they couldn't do much. 

Let me know what you think.  I'd love to hear.