Functional Biomarker Assessment 

What do we measure?

Our screening uses a series of practical assessments to evaluate different aspects of physical fitness and function.

Maximal Aerobic Power/VO2 Assessment

The VO2 max is the single strongest predictor of long-term cardiorespiratory health and lifespan. It represents your body’s ability to take in, transport, and use oxygen during increasingly demanding exercise. It provides a powerful, objective measure of aerobic fitness and gives insight into the combined performance of your heart, lungs, circulation, and working muscles. And this number matters far beyond athletic performance. Higher cardiorespiratory fitness is strongly associated with better long-term health and a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and premature mortality.

Grip Strength

Grip Strength provides an objective measure of upper body strength and overall
muscular function. It is a simple but valuable metric that can be tracked over time as strength and conditioning improve

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• Push-Ups

Push-ups assess upper body strength and endurance while also requiring trunk stability and coordinated movement of the shoulders, arms, and core.

• Plank Hold

The plank evaluates trunk muscle endurance and the ability to maintain a stable
position under sustained demand. Adequate trunk strength and endurance support
efficient movement during both everyday activities and exercise.

• Sit-To-Stand

The sit-to-stand assessment evaluates lower-body strength, muscular endurance,
coordination, and functional capacity. The ability to repeatedly rise from a seated
position is particularly relevant to maintaining independence and physical function
throughout the lifespan.

• Single-Leg Balance

Single-leg balance provides information about postural control and stability. Balance is important for everyday movement, athletic performance, and maintaining physical function as we age.

• Partial Curl-Up

The partial curl-up assesses abdominal muscular endurance and provides another
measure of the trunk’s ability to repeatedly produce and control movement. 

• Sit-and-Reach

The sit-and-reach assessment provides an objective measure of flexibility, particularly throughout the posterior chain. Mobility and flexibility can influence movement options, exercise technique, and overall physical function.

• Deadhang

The dead hang evaluates grip endurance and ability to support body weight through the upper extremities. It can also provide useful information when developing goals related to pulling strength and upper body performance. 

• Squat Movement Assessment

Rather than simply counting repetitions, our squat assessment looks at how you move. We observe areas such as trunk position, hip and knee control, foot and ankle mechanics, and upper-body positioning. This helps identify movement patterns that may benefit from targeted mobility, strength, stability, or technique work.

Body Composition & Physical Measurements

We also evaluate body composition and relevant circumference measurements when appropriate.  Body weight alone does not tell us whether changes are occurring in muscle mass or body fat. Tracking body composition alongside physical performance provides a more complete picture of progress. For example, the scale may change very little while an individual gains lean mass, loses body fat, becomes stronger, improves cardiovascular fitness, and move better. Those are meaningful changes that body weight alone can miss.

Why Establish a Baseline?

You cannot accurately measure progress without knowing where you started.

Baseline testing allows us to identify current strengths and areas that may benefit from additional attention. More importantly, repeating these assessments gives us objective evidence of how your body is responding to your program.

Instead of relying solely on how exercise feels or what the scale says, we can answer more useful questions:

Are you getting stronger?
Has your muscular endurance improved?
Are you moving better?
Has your balance or flexibility changed?
Is your cardiovascular fitness improving?
Are you gaining or maintaining lean mass?

Those answers allow us to make more informed decisions about what comes next.

What Makes Our Approach Different?

Many fitness programs begin with a workout. We begin with an assessment.

The program is in synch with your Concierge Family Medicine Doctor’s visits in reaching your health and life goals. It marries your doctor’s office visits to your true health, not just waiting for disease to treat you.

By combining strength, muscular endurance, balance, flexibility, movement quality,
cardiovascular fitness, body composition, and individual health goals, we develop a
broader understanding of the person in front of us. Your results aren’t simply numbers to place in a chart. They help guide individualized exercise recommendations and provide
objective benchmarks that can be reassessed over time. 

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This creates a continuous process:

Assess → Individualize → Train → Reassess → Progress

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The goal isn’t simply to exercise more. It’s to understand your current capabilities, train with purpose, and objectively demonstrate that your health and physical performance are moving in the right direction. 

Measure what matters. Train with purpose. See your progress.