in many cases, a fitness assessment is what you make of it. In my case, I started at the gym to supplement and encourage weight loss, I started with a trainer immediatly because I knew that I didn't have the discipline to do it without being responsible to someone else for the results.

That was 5 years ago, and my first trainer sat down and spent time with me defining what I expected to do with my results. Since one of my goals was to lose a lot of weight, increase general health, in addition to being able to ride more than a mile without feeling like I was dying.

Then he had me do squats, balance on one leg and then the other, touch my toes with my legs straight standing and sitting, sit ups to burn out, ditto push ups, and some work on the treadmill for cardio numbers and endurance- Then he did both circumference measurements and body fat caliper measurements for LBM and body fat %. He set up the training according to progressing from the base line.

Every couple of month he would weigh, measure and have me do basic muscle group exercise to burn out to see what my max was. We would also discuss how I was feeling and what I was looking for in both short term and long term goals. To me at this point, the re evaluation of goals and what is working and what isn't is almost more important than the physical goals since I can clearly tell whether or not I am lifting more, running more longer without feeling like dying etc.

This year we are working on increasing everything, weights, resistance, distance, time, cardio by 10% every three months. In addition , since I am doing several centuries in the spring and summer,we are fine tuning biking muscles and focusing on the dietary balance because I am still a bit heavy and the body fat is a bit high.

Having said all of that, it does work, or at least it did for me since I have managed to lose 125 pounds and gone from a size womens 2x to a petite 10. Mind you it takes time and lots of gym hours and riding time (for me it's a minimum of 90 minute a day, 6 days a week, plus at least one good long 4 or 5 hours in the saddle ride or the equivalent on the trainer per week, but it is so worth it because of how I look and feel.