are you a MAN?

According to this website, a truly fit man should be able to live up to the following ten "ultimate performance standards":

1. bench 1.5 times his own body weight
2. run 1.5 miles in 10 minutes
3. have a vertical leap of 26 inches or more
4. leg press 2.25 times his own body weight
5. swim 700 yards in less than 12 minutes
6. do 40 pushups
7. have a waist-to-hip ratio of .81 or less
8. run 300 yards in less than a minute
9. touch his toes
10. throw a basketball 75 feet (while on his knees)

A few remarks:

I'm hoping to adopt these performance standards to my own training. While I realize that criteria (2) and (5) and (8) are all testing somewhat different things (as the article explains), I'm going to drop (5) and (8) and stick with (2), which is a variant of the old formula given to us by Ken Cooper, in whose 1970 classic The New Aerobics we read that, to rate in "excellent" aerobic shape, one must be able to run 1.65 miles or more in 12 minutes (I've had this book for years; I read it periodically, then do nothing athletic). That's 1.375 miles in 10 minutes, which I suppose means that Cooper's standards for excellence were slightly lower in 1970 than they are in 2008.

40 pushups strikes me as a disappointingly low standard, especially when compared to the bench press and leg press standards (I've leg-pressed 400 pounds before, but according to the above standard, I'd need to be able to press 652 pounds, which is a scary, hemorrhoid-exploding prospect). All the same, I have no intention of raising the pushup standard: I'm basically a lazy bastard.

I can already touch my toes. Thank you, taekwondo!

I had to laugh when I read the waist-to-hip ratio. That .81 standard is my ratio, all right-- my hip-to-waist ratio. Gonna need some serious industry to set things right, but I expect most of this will happen during Kevin's Walk itself.

Conspicuously absent from the above list are abdominals and obliques (situps, crunches, etc.) and pullups. From a martial arts perspective, pushups and bench presses are essential for increasing your punching power, but training the biceps and lats will help you in grappling/holding situations. I think these need to be added to the list.

I'm not sure how much I can relate to the vertical leap. If white men can't jump, and I'm only half-white, it's safe to say I'm a lost cause. So let's remove the vertical leap and revise our list of ten criteria this way:

1. bench 1.5 times his own body weight
2. run 1.5 miles in 10 minutes
3. do at least 20 pullups (palms facing outward, full extension to full flex, chin clearly over the bar)
4. leg press 2.25 times his own body weight
5. do 250 standard abdominal crunches
6. do 40 pushups
7. have a waist-to-hip ratio of .81 or less
8. do 250 oblique crunches (125 per side)
9. touch his toes
10. throw a basketball 75 feet (while on his knees)

Let's assume that the ability to do all the above constitutes 100% manhood. Now we need to find out just what fraction of a man I am. Stay tuned. Results by this weekend, I hope.

To be sure, I don't plan to meet any of these standards by the end of April; I doubt I'll be anywhere close to meeting them. All I plan to do is start, and to forge ahead from there. Wish me luck.


_