Need a little inspiration to go to the gym? Check out Work Out on Bravo.

And if you are in the area, you may want to head over to Sky Sport & Spa, or better yet, see if you’re tuff enough to hang with the big boys and Jackie Warner at the Beach Boot Camp.

But this is not what this post is about.

Once reserved for elite athletes, and fancy gyms like Sky Sport & Spa, high-tech physiological testing is now available to help weekend warriors find out what they’ve got under the hood – and how to get a tune-up.

Most casual gym-goers measure progress with one tool: the bathroom scale.

But if the spread of athletics stores, gyms, and personal training studios that offer elite physiological testing is any indication, more men than ever are paying attention to their VO2 max, resting metabolic rate, lactate threshold, and other once-obscure fitness metrics.

These guys are learning what competitive athletes have long known: With the right numbers you can fine-tune your regimen to get better results more efficiently. But what do all these numbers mean, which are worth the trouble, and how do you use them?

Check back tomorrow to find out which physiological tests are the most important, how they’re done, and how to put them to work for you. [source: Men's Journal]