Coach Jake and I did something this week that we ask of you all the time. We got the data!

Before we kick off our HYROX training, the two of us drove over to DexaFit in Nashua to have our DEXA scans done and our VO2 max tested, so we could establish an accurate baseline, so we can build our training around the bodies we actually have instead of the ones we wish we had. One of my favorite lines (the DSC crew can attest to), you cannot manage what you do not measure.

DexaFit in Nashua is owned by Camille and Stuart, who are longtime members of DSC and two of the most genuine humans you will meet. They opened their doors about a year and a half ago, and they have built a premium testing facility with a staff who are, in the best possible way, total fitness and wellness data nerds. That is exactly who you want walking you through this stuff, people who light up explaining what your numbers mean and why they matter.

What a DEXA scan is, and why it is not scary

Let’s start with the DEXA scan, so that you can know it is not scary at all. A DEXA scan is the gold standard for body composition testing, with a margin of error of roughly 1 to 2 percent, compared to body fat calipers, the BodPod, or the bioelectrical impedance scales you see in gyms and home settings, which can be off by anywhere from 4 to 15 percent. In one quick pass it gives you bone density, lean muscle, body fat, where that fat is stored, visceral fat, and even left-to-right muscle imbalances. It is the most complete picture of your body you can get outside a hospital.

If the word “scan” makes you nervous, it is completely non-invasive, and it is nothing like the closed-in MRI tunnel you might be picturing. You lie flat on an open table, feet together, hands at your sides, which is how they keep the body composition reading accurate. A scanner arm passes over you a little at a time, and the whole thing takes six minutes. That is it. It is not confining, it is not intimidating, and I had to fight to stay awake lol. You get your results instantly in a beautiful report, and there is an amazing app that lets you track everything over time.

What VO2 max testing measures, and what it feels like

Then we moved on to the VO2 max test, which measures your aerobic capacity, the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during hard effort. Think of it as your aerobic ceiling. Just as importantly, the test pinpoints your ventilatory thresholds, the points where your body shifts from cruising on oxygen to leaning on stored energy. Those thresholds are what tell us where your easy steady-state work should live and where your hard intervals need to push, which is gold for building a smart training plan.

At DexaFit you can do the test on a treadmill or a bike, and Camille and Stuart talked us through every single step before we started, including how to stop the test the second we wanted to. No surprises. They hook you up with a chest-strap heart rate monitor and a mask that sits over your nose and mouth. That mask measures the oxygen you take in and the carbon dioxide you breathe out, and from that breath data they read your effort and your thresholds.

Jake went first on the treadmill. He found a comfortable pace, and then the incline climbed step by step while he held that same pace, all the way until he could not go anymore. I chose the bike. I settled into a cadence that felt easy at first, the kind where you think you could pedal all day, and then every couple of minutes the resistance bumped up while I held my cadence steady. You keep going until you hit the point where you simply cannot sustain it aerobically, and then you stop. My legs were burning and I was hungry for air by the end, but it was over before I knew it.

We Put Ourselves on the Table: What Our DEXA Scans and VO2 Max Tests Taught Us 4

What the numbers said, and a lesson about genetics

Jake scored a 55, which lands him in the ELITE category for the 40 to 49 age group. The funny part is, he will tell you he does not do cardio. I came in at a 44, which is excellent for the 50 to 59 group. (I will drop a photo of the chart right here so you can see exactly where we fell.)

Jake’s score brings up something pretty cool and worth digging into. Genetics plays a real role in your aerobic engine. The landmark HERITAGE Family Study trained nearly 500 previously sedentary adults and found that how much your VO2 max improves with training is roughly 47 percent heritable, with your starting point about 50 percent written into your genes. Some people are simply gifted responders, and our buddy Jake is one of them. That is a beautiful advantage, and it also comes with a caution, because no matter how gifted you are, running rewards patience. Push your mileage up too fast and you buy yourself an overuse injury. So Jake’s plan is to build his running base slowly while he leans into the bike, the rower, and the ski erg to get real cardiovascular volume and push hard where his joints can handle it.

My bone numbers – Especially important for the ladies!

Now for the part that means the most for both my self and all of my perimenopausal, menopausal and post menopausal homies. My bone density came back with a T-score of 1.10, which is excellent, my visceral fat was 0.22 pounds, my lean mass was 99.9 pounds, and my body fat was 22.3 percent. My physiological age came back at 37.

I’m not trying to flex. I am sharing it because as a menopausal woman, that bone density is the cumulative payoff of years of resistance training, and that is the great news. Perimenopause and menopause are exactly when women lose the most bone, on average 1 to 2 percent a year and sometimes as much as 3 to 5 percent, with the possibility of losing up to 20 percent in the five to seven years after menopause as estrogen drops. The single most reliable thing we can do to defend the skeleton during that window is lift challenging weights. And it’s not my opinion, the research backs it up, and it is the same DEXA scan your doctor uses to screen for osteopenia and osteoporosis.

But this is the best part! You do not need years behind you to start. A 2026 review of 126 studies and over 4,000 women found that resistance training improves strength and body composition in women regardless of age or menopausal status, with nearly identical results before and after menopause. The second you start lifting weights that are challenging for your ability, those bone changes become available to you. It is never too late. Same with visceral fat, the metabolically dangerous fat around your organs that research consistently ties to all-cause mortality and shorter longevity. That is reversible too, starting now.

This is fitness as medicine, and after 23 years in nursing, working my way from the med-surg floor up through critical care, it is the hill I will die on. It’s not chasing a look. We are building bodies that resist disease and carry us strong into our 70s, 80s, and beyond. Think independence at age 90 and above. That is absolutely priceless.

A note on your home scale

A cool aside, because I use a home scale too. When Jake and I compared our DEXA results to a bioelectrical impedance body composition scale, the body fat reading was off by about four percent for each of us, while lean mass tracked surprisingly close. So if you use a smart scale at home, do not panic about the exact number. As long as you weigh in consistently, on the same scale under the same conditions, you can absolutely watch your trend over time. You do not need a DEXA every few months. But for a true, accurate starting line, it is the gold standard, and it is worth doing.

our ForceDecks baseline

DEXA and VO2 max told us a lot, but they do not tell us the whole story, so Jake and I have one more baseline test on deck, and this is the one I am most excited about, because it is coming home to DSC and will be available to you all. We are adding VALD ForceDecks to our toolkit, and they are going to change how we coach.

So what are ForceDecks? In plain terms, they are a pair of high-precision force plates you stand on while you perform a few simple movements, and the software reads exactly how much force you produce, how fast you produce it, and how evenly you produce it between your left and right sides. VALD’s plates automatically detect over 20 different movements, and they are validated against gold-standard laboratory force plates to within about 1 percent across more than 200 metrics. Translation, this is research-grade data, at DSC, in real time.

Here is roughly what our baseline panel will look like:

A countermovement jump, our workhorse test, which measures your lower-body power and explosiveness, and just as importantly shows us how symmetrical you are from left to right.
An isometric strength test, like a mid-thigh pull, which lets us measure your true strength capacity safely, without you ever needing to grind out a one-rep max.
A balance and stability assessment, which reads your center of pressure to show how steady you are, something that matters enormously for fall prevention and confident movement as we age.
For our athletes, reactive and landing tests like drop jumps and land-and-hold, which tell us how well you absorb force and how ready you are to cut, jump, and land.

Here is why this is so great. Force plates expose asymmetries you often cannot see with the naked eye. As someone with a right hip labral repair in my own history, I know I carry a compensation pattern, and for years the only tools we had to catch that were feel and guesswork. ForceDecks puts a number on it. That means we can train around it intelligently, protect the joint, and close the gap over time, which is the entire DSC philosophy made measurable. Safer, not easier, and progress you can actually see.

And the best part, this is not just for our competitive athletes. We are making ForceDecks testing available across the board, to our adult coed group coaching members, our private training members, our HYROX training crew, and of course our athletic development athletes. Whether your goal is a faster HYROX, a stronger squat, staying steady on your feet, or coming back smart from an injury, you will have objective data guiding every step. No more guessing. Just the facts, and a plan.

So what is next?

HYROX is really a running race with strength work folded in, and running is my weak spot. With my history of a hip labral repair, there is only so much pounding my hip will tolerate, though it can handle the roughly 8.7 kilometers a HYROX race demands, the trick is how I accumulate training volume. I plan on doing small, amounts of running to keep my muscles, tendons, and joints patterned for the movement, and I will build the bulk of my steady-state cardio, my endurance, and my high heart rate work on the road bike, the gravel bike, and my bike trainer.

(I am a Zwift devotee, so I owe you a whole post on that soon, because if you have never ridden in that world, you are missing out. Bike nerds, if you know, you know.)

If you want to go deeper on my approach, I broke it all down in [LINK TO PODCAST EPISODE], and next week Jake is coming on the podcast to talk through his own HYROX journey, so stay tuned for that.

Your turn

A baseline is not a grade or a judgment on who you have been. It is a starting line, and there is something freeing about standing on it honestly. Jake and I put ourselves on the table this week, results and all, because we will not ask you to be brave about your numbers if we are not willing to be brave about ours.

If you want your own baseline, go see Camille and Stuart at DexaFit in Nashua and tell them we sent you. And if you want the lever that actually moves those numbers, that part is waiting for you right here, with us, the second you walk through the doors at DSC!

Let’s get to work crew

P.S. Not a member yet, but feeling that little nudge? Come see what we are about, no strings attached. Our free 7-day trial gets you in the door, onto the floor, and coached by the best, with every modification you need to feel safe and capable from your very first session. You do not have to be fit to start, you just have to start. [Claim your free 7-day trial here]. Your starting line is waiting, and so are we.

Frequently asked questions about DEXA scans and VO2 max testing

What is a DEXA scan? A DEXA scan, short for dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, is the gold standard for body composition testing. In about six minutes it measures your bone density, lean muscle mass, body fat, where that fat is stored, and your visceral fat, all from one quick, non-invasive scan.

Is a DEXA scan accurate? Yes. A DEXA scan has a margin of error of roughly 1 to 2 percent, which is far tighter than body fat calipers, the BodPod, or the bioelectrical impedance scales found in most gyms, which can be off by 6 to 15 percent. It is the most accurate body composition reading you can get outside a hospital.

Where can I get a DEXA scan or VO2 max test in Nashua? We had ours done at DexaFit in Nashua, owned by our longtime members Camille and Stuart. They offer DEXA scans, VO2 max testing, and resting metabolic rate testing right here in southern New Hampshire.

Does strength training improve bone density after menopause? It does, and it is never too late to start. Research consistently shows resistance training improves bone density at the spine and hip in postmenopausal women, and a 2026 review of more than 4,000 women found the benefits hold regardless of age or menopausal status. Lifting challenging weights is one of the most reliable ways to defend your bones as estrogen declines.

What is a good VO2 max by age? VO2 max is scored against your age group and sex, so “good” is relative to your bracket. For context, Coach Daria’s 44 lands in the excellent range for the 50 to 59 group, and Coach Jake’s 55 is elite for the 40 to 49 group. The real value is using your number as a baseline to train smarter and track progress over time.

What is force plate testing and who is it for? Force plate testing, like the VALD ForceDecks we use, measures how much force you produce, how quickly, and how evenly between your left and right sides during simple movements such as a countermovement jump or an isometric pull. It reveals strength, power, balance, and side-to-side asymmetries that are invisible to the naked eye. It is for everyone, not just athletes, from our adult group coaching and private training members to our HYROX athletes and our athletic development crew, because objective data helps us train smarter, prevent injury, and track real progress.