What is fitness? What does being physically fit mean?

What is fitness? What does being physically fit mean?

What does fitness actually mean? What specific attributes make people fit?

According to the The United States Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS)¹, physical fitness is defined as "a set of attributes that people have or achieve that relates to the ability to perform physical activity".

This description goes beyond being able to run long distance or lift a lot at the gym. Fitness is more than simply a questions of listing which activities you do or how long you do them for.

Despite being important, these attributes only address single areas of fitness.

This Medical News Today information article provides details on the five main components of physical fitness, which include:

Contents of this article:

1. Cardiorespiratory endurance
2. Muscular strength
3. Muscular endurance
4. Body composition
5. Flexibility

Cardiorespiratory endurance

Jogging can help improve your cardiorespiratory
endurance.

Cardiorespiratory endurance is how our body is able to supply fuel during physical activity via the body's circulatory and respiratory systems.

According to Folsom Lake College², there are two parts of cardiorespiratory endurance:

1. How efficient your heart and lungs are at delivering oxygen to your body
2. How efficient your body is at creating the ATP, or energy, your muscles need in order to contract.

Activites that can help improve your cardiorespiratory endurance include those that cause an elevated and safe heart rate for a sustained period.

These activities include swimming, brisk walking, jogging, and cycling.

It is important to begin these activities slowly and gradually increase the intensity.

Muscular strength

The USDHHS defines muscular strength as the ability of muscle to exert force during an activity.

You can strengthen your muscles by making them work against resistance, hence the term "resistance training". A muscle has to be overloaded to be strengthened. This can be achieved by lifting weights.

Alberta Education³ recommends starting with a resistance of around 80 percent of the maximum weight you can lift at one time and doing 3-9 repetitions of this weight through 3-5 sets for effective muscular benefits.

Muscular endurance

Muscular endurance is the ability of a muscle to continue exerting force without tiring out.

According to Dixie State University⁴, muscular endurance training helps develop the slow twitch fibers in your muscles.

As opposed to hard twitch fibers, slow twitch fibers handle low levels of force over relatively long periods.

Endurance can be improved by cardio-respiratory activities such as jogging, dancing, and cycling.

Body composition

The relative amounts of muscle, bone, and fat make up body composition, i.e. the body's muscle-bone-fat ratio. Despite someone's weight not changing, that does not mean that their level of fat is the same.

People with a high muscle (lean mass) ratio weigh more than those with the same height and waist circumference who have less muscle. Muscle weighs more per cubic inch of volume than fat.

According to The University of New Mexico⁵, common methods of calculating body composition include: skinfolds, circumference (girth) measures, hydrostatic weighing, bioelectrical impedance, and near-infrared interactance.

Flexibility?

Flexibility is the range of movement across a joint. Flexbility is important because it improves the ability to link movements together smoothly and can help prevent injuries.

The different types of flexibility, according to The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)⁶, are:

• Dynamic flexibility (also called kinetic flexibility) - dynamic movements of the muscles to allow a limb through its full range of motion in the joints.
• Static-active flexibility (also called active flexibility)
• Static-passive flexibility (also called passive flexibility).

To improve your flexibility try stretching or engaging in activities that lengthen the muscles such as swimming.