Have you lost your mind? Your marbles? Your sanity?

If your reality bites, it may be time to put a few things in check and evaluate those you find yourself doing over and over that progressively get you nowhere; like sleeping with your ex, eating snacks rather than meals, surfing the web when you should be working, telling yourself “just one more time and I will stop” or, my personal pet peeve, doing the same old workout routine every time you go to the gym.

It’s true that insanity is just repeating the same thing, over and over and expecting a different outcome. But let’s face it; we’re all a little insane. It’s easy to fall into a rut without even realizing it, especially when it comes to your workout. It’s something I witness often.

Are you guilty of doing the very same workout each time you go to the gym? Maybe 30 minutes on the treadmill followed by 20 minutes of upper body; or do you go to the very same fitness classes each week; perhaps you use your favorite weight machines each time you workout or maybe you just spend your time running around stalking the same hottie over and over (and how’s that working for ya?).

If you’ve reached the point of stagnation in your workout, then I suggest you add a few checks and balances to your efforts to help get you back on track. You simply won’t improve and won’t realize you’re not improving, if you don’t chart your progress.

You need a baseline of information to measure your results and to analyze the effects of your efforts.

Three simple fitness tests you can do (and my favorite) are the one-mile walk/run, push-up and sit-up test.  These are the tests I use to evaluate my boot camp participants each month at the beginning and end of the program. The good news is these are not pass or fail tests. You just get out there and do the best you can that day.

The one-mile run measures your aerobic fitness. It tells you how long your body can sustain work, like walking, running, climbing a hill or screaming at the top of your lungs at the bad driver in front of you. You simply run, jog or walk a pre-determined one mile path as fast as you can and record the time it takes you to finish. I like doing this test outdoors on a set path, usually at Balboa Park or the Embarcadero South behind the Convention Center.

As your aerobic fitness improves, you can do more physical activity without becoming out of breath or feeling like your heart is about to jump out of your chest. You’ll be amazed how much you can improve in just four weeks with a good plan in place.

You can laugh so hard you feel like your sides might just split and think you have just had a great ab workout, until you encounter the two-minute ab test. “Crunch time” takes on a whole new meaning when you test the endurance of your abdominal muscles and hip-flexors, which are both important for your back support and core stability.

Usually you partner-up for the abs test, so one person can anchor the other’s feet to the ground while the other performs the sit-ups.  You should cross your arms at your chest so you won’t strain your neck. The curl is performed correctly when your chest reaches your knees and your trunk returns to the floor making sure the upper back or shoulder blades also touch the floor. Do this test for two minutes and record your results.  It will probably be the longest two minutes of your day.

The push-up test measures your upper body strength and endurance. You literally push yourself up off the ground with your upper body from a face down position. Of course Chuck Norris doesn’t push himself up, he pushes the world down, but that’s another topic all together.

For your purpose, let’s just see how many complete push-ups you can do.  You’ll need to keep your body and legs in a straight line with your arms at shoulder-width apart and lower your body down until there is a 90-degree angle at the elbows, with the upper arms parallel to the floor. Then push yourself up back to the starting position.  You can time yourself and see how many you can do in a specific amount of time, or you can do them until you physically can’t do anymore. I like that route the best. Record your results and set your new push-up goal.

So there you have it. Take the tests. Record your results and re-test yourself every four to six weeks to stay on track. Make notes on your performance and the test conditions, and re-test later under the same conditions to see how you’ve progressed. You can also mix it up with other kinds of fitness tests (for example, pull-ups and running stairs) to make it even more comprehensive.

We all tend to be creatures of habit, so you have to make it a point to change-up your workout and keep yourself motivated and moving forward. In fact, change is necessary in life to keep us moving, to keep us growing, to keep us interested. Life without change would be static, boring and dull. Just do something new and go with it 100% – even if it feels a little crazy!

Connie Cook is the fitness director and the Perx and Event Coordinator at Fit Athletic Club, located at 350 10th Ave., Suite 200. She can be reached at [email protected].