What To Expect During Your 1-on-1 Health & Fitness Assessment with Vigor

Discover what happens in Vigor's comprehensive health assessment. Learn how vitals, body composition, and lifestyle screening create your personalised fitness plan.

Beginning an exercise programme when you have a chronic condition, past injury, or simply haven't exercised in a while can feel scary. What if you injure yourself? What if exercise makes your condition worse? How do you know where to start?

A proper health and fitness assessment answers these questions. It creates a clear picture of where you are physically and medically, identifies any risks, and provides the data needed to design a safe and effective programme for your body.

Vigor's 1-1 Health & Fitness Assessment, conducted by our qualified physiotherapists, reviews your complete medical picture, from blood pressure and body composition to your stress levels and eating habits. In this guide, learn how we ensure your exercise programme is medically informed and tailored to your needs.

Step 1: Pre-Assessment Preparation - Gathering Your Medical Story

Your assessment with Vigor begins with a discussion of your overall health,  covering:

Medical History: Any chronic conditions (diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, arthritis, asthma, cancer history, etc), past surgeries, previous injuries, and current symptoms. This helps us identify what your body has been through and what precautions we need to take.​

Current Medications: A comprehensive list of everything you're taking - prescription medications, supplements, vitamins, and over-the-counter medicines. Different medications affect how your body responds to exercise (some affect heart rate, others affect blood sugar or balance), so we need to know what's in your system.​

Lifestyle Habits: Questions about smoking, alcohol use, sleep quality, stress levels, and your typical daily activity. These aren't judgmental questions; they're essential for understanding your overall health, and what barriers might prevent you from being consistent with exercise.​

Step 2: Health Assessment - Measuring Your Current Status

During this step, we take objective measurements that become your baseline for tracking progress.

Vital Signs Measurement

Physiotherapists at Vigor checks your:

• Heart rate (pulse): How many times your heart beats per minute, assessed while resting. A normal resting heart rate is 60-100 bpm; lower is generally better and indicates cardiovascular fitness.​

• Blood pressure: The force your blood exerts on vessel walls, recorded as systolic/diastolic (e.g., 120/80 mmHg). High blood pressure increases disease risk. We measure this to track whether exercise and lifestyle changes improve it.​

• Blood sugar levels: Fasting or random glucose measurement, which is especially important if you have diabetes or prediabetes.

• Respiratory rate and oxygen saturation: How efficiently your lungs deliver oxygen to your blood; this is critical for assessing cardiovascular and respiratory fitness.​

These vital signs tell us how your heart, lungs, and circulation are currently functioning, and become reference points to measure improvement.​

InBODY Assessment: Body Composition Analysis

The InBODY is a non-invasive device that uses bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA). It sends a painless, low-level electrical current through your body to measure:

• Body fat percentage and mass: The portion of your weight made up of fat​

• Skeletal muscle mass: The portion of your weight made of lean muscle. This is critical for strength, metabolism, and independence​

• Total body water: Hydration status and fluid balance​

• Segmental analysis: Fat and muscle composition in each arm, leg, and trunk, showing whether muscle loss is symmetric or concentrated in certain areas​

• Metabolic rate: How many calories your body burns at rest​

This breakdown reveals far more about your health than weight or BMI alone. For example, two people weighing 80kg might have completely different body compositions: one with 25% body fat (healthy) and one with 45% body fat (increased disease risk). The InBODY shows us these measures.

Review of Medical Reports

If you have recent blood test results (cholesterol panel, HbA1c for blood sugar, liver function, etc.), we review these alongside your vitals to create a complete health picture. These measurements show us your cardiovascular risk, metabolic health, and whether chronic disease is progressing or improving.

Step 3: Lifestyle and Nutritional Assessment - Understanding Your Daily Habits

Your assessment also includes a thorough evaluation of lifestyle factors that directly impact health outcomes.

Dietary Habits and Nutrition

We ask about your typical eating patterns: What do you eat on a regular day? How many meals per day? Are there foods you avoid or can't tolerate? Are there recent changes in appetite? Any weight changes, intentional or unintentional?

This isn't about judging your food choices; we just want to understand what support you might benefit from. If someone is managing diabetes and eating irregular meals, or if someone has high cholesterol and is unaware of heart-healthy fats, we identify this early.​

Physical Activity Levels

How much do you typically move in a day? Do you have a desk job or physically demanding work? Do you exercise now, and if so, how often? What activities do you enjoy or dislike?

This helps us understand your starting point and what types of exercise might feel sustainable for you rather than forced.​

Sleep Patterns and Stress

Do you sleep well or struggle with insomnia? How many hours? Do you wake during the night? How would you rate your stress levels? What stresses you most?

Sleep and stress directly impact recovery from exercise, metabolism, and disease progression. For example, if someone is sleeping 5 hours per night while managing prediabetes, we need to address it along with exercise.​

What Happens Next: Your Results and Personalised Plan

At the end of your assessment, physiotherapists at Vigor reviews all findings with you, explaining what the numbers mean and what they show about your current health.​

Then, we design a personalised exercise programme based on what we've learned. Rather than a generic "beginner" programme, your routine is tailored to your medical conditions, fitness level, medications, any movement limitations, and your actual goals.​

We also set short-term and long-term goals together. For instance, for someone with diabetes, this might be reducing HbA1c by 0.5% within 3 months. For someone recovering from injury, it might be regaining strength to climb stairs pain-free. For someone with heart disease, it might be improving cardiovascular fitness as measured by heart rate recovery.​

Ready to Begin Your Health Journey?

Your health and fitness assessment is the foundation for your long-term wellness.

Book Your Health & Fitness Assessment with Vigor's physiotherapists today. Discover where you are now, and let us help you move forward with confidence.