BCOM Fitness Assessment

I was shown the green panic button on the BOD POD. Then the door whooshed shut and I was stuck in the tiny container wearing a Speedo and swimming cap. There was a bit of clunking and clicking and a few seconds later it was over. 

The BOD POD works out the body’s density by measuring changes in air pressure. Basically, it can tell you how much of your body is composed of fat. A man’s body shouldn’t exceed 20 per cent fat. 

‘So, how fat am I?’ I asked Daphne, the research assistant who was conducting my health assessment. 

‘32.5 per cent.’ 

I do kickboxing on a Wednesday and savate (French kickboxing) on a Thursday, and sometimes I even do both in the same week, so I was slightly horrified at the reading. 

Daphne described me as ‘pre-obese’. 

Thankfully, I’d done OK on the bone density score – just below average for my age. I could have done better but all the calcium I put into my body is leached out by the copious amounts of alcohol I consume. 

Next up was the spirometry test. I had to breathe into a tube that was linked to some complicated piece of technology. It could have gone either way. 

I spluttered into the tube. ‘Good blow’, the computer screen said. Patronising machine, I thought. But then Daphne said, ‘You have the lung capacity of a 24 year-old.’ Suddenly, I was all pride. Not bad for a 43 year-old. A 43 year-old who smoked 20 a day for ten years. 

I was about even now – respectable bone density; pre-obese, but the lungs of a 24 year-old. I could live with those scores. 

They saved the worst test for last. The VO2 Max. The warm up on the static bike nearly killed me. I was fitted with a face mask to measure my oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange and a heart rate monitor to measure if I was still alive. Mark Hines, a man who’d completed a triple marathon on the weekend, administered the test. He predicted I’d max out after 10 minutes. I was just about to start when Daphne came over with a sheet of paper. 

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I entered the wrong parameters on the spirometry test. You actually have the lungs of a 50 year-old.’ 

In a last ditch effort to save the day, I pedalled for all I was worth. I maxed out after 11 minutes. My 50 year-old lungs felt like they’d inhaled broken glass. 

‘Hmmm. 26. A respectable score,’ Mark said. ‘Not a professional athlete’s score, but a respectable score.’ 

Mark got his mobile phone out and began doing some calculations. I glanced over to see what he was doing. 

‘I’m just calling you an ambulance,’ he said.

 I felt like I needed it.

Clint’s BCOM fitness assessment took place at:

British College of Osteopathic Medicine
Lief House
120 -122 Finchley Road
NW3 5HR

Tel. 0207 472 5841