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There is a wide range of things we equate with fitness – it’s the latest buzzword in athleticism, the newest craze on Instagram, a way of life, an entire philosophy, or even a status symbol. However, the truth is somewhere in between. Fitness is much more than working out in the gym and flexing your muscles in front of a mirror. It’s a journey that helps you reach a higher state of physical (and mental) aptitude than you had before.

A large number of people embrace fitness because they want to achieve a certain look. Still, fitness means directing your physical and psychological potential toward a healthier lifestyle – not becoming a slave to a perfectly-looking physique. It is here that many misconceptions appear and mislead people by showing that the main principles of fitness are strictly esthetics-driven.

Don’t be mistaken by thinking fitness is a modern invention. Physical aptitude has been vitally important across civilizations, from ancient Spartans to Roman gladiators. Additionally, it reflected the performance of military forces across empires and borders. Although what we have today is a vestige of the bygone millennia, the sheer essence of fitness still remains.

What is more, it wasn’t until the late 19th century that specialized sports made the scene, ushering the world of fitness into a new and more commercialized era and making all sorts of machines and equipment a prerequisite. It is now in the 21st century that we can hardly go about discussing fitness without painting a picture of a well-decked gym.

What is Fitness?

Components of Fitness

Types of Fitness

Health and Fitness

What is Fitness?

When we say someone is fit, we mean that the person is able to perform activities that mirror the balance between their physical and mental abilities. Surely the dominant place in fitness belongs to physical activity. As long as it’s repeated, any physical activity can be viewed as a form of fitness - gardening, brisk walking, hiking, swimming, dancing, or any recreational sport.

Most incredibly, fitness goes beyond that to such an extent, we may say that each person defines their own levels of fitness. If you’re a professional bodybuilding athlete, your level of fitness will be measured with regard to the weight you can lift. If you’re a ballet dancer, the grace and perfection of your pirouette will define your fitness absolute. It is that relative.

Definition of Fitness

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) defines physical fitness as “a set of attributes or characteristics individuals have or achieve that relates to their ability to perform physical activity.” As a complement to this, the World Health Organization doesn’t provide the actual definition of fitness but does provide the definition of physical activity by stating that it is “any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure – including activities undertaken while working, playing, carrying out household chores, traveling, and engaging in recreational pursuits.”

Generally speaking, fitness implies a variety of physical activities, such as lifting weights, Zumba, stretching, artistic swimming, and all other variations of which improve one’s level of physical fitness. Not only does fitness help us build muscles but it also helps increase mobility, flexibility, endurance, and strength. It promotes our well-being and our overall shape.

Ideally, the highest level of fitness is achieved when our activities incorporate different movements and target different areas of our bodies. Stretching promotes muscle flexibility and releases muscle tension, weight-lifting strengthens the muscles and tones them while resistance exercises, such as cycling, running, or rope skipping promote calorie burning and keep our cardiovascular system in good shape.

Components of Fitness

Although people are usually born with the ability to perform various physical tasks, being fit is more than that. High levels of fitness are achieved through routine, systematic, and planned exercises that aim at developing each of the five components of physical fitness. These include body composition, flexibility, muscular strength, muscular endurance, and cardiorespiratory endurance.

Body composition is focused on four essential segments within our body - water, muscles, bones, and adipose tissue (fat). In comparison to BMI (Body Mass Index), it provides a more precise account of our overall health and shape.

Flexibility is rather self-explanatory. This component refers to our ability to move joints easily within the full range of motion. Certain factors can limit flexibility, including muscle strength, bone structure, and the condition of connective tissues and ligaments.

Muscle strength refers to the highest level of tension a muscle or a group of muscles can produce. It is the amount of force our muscles generate and it is directly dependant on the number of muscle fibers and their performance.

Muscular endurance is seemingly equal to muscle strength but the truth is, these are two distinct components and one doesn’t necessarily imply the other. Bulky muscles imply that a person can lift a significant amount of weight while lean muscles imply that one can lift lighter weight but over an extended period of time. Some bodybuilders will be able to bench press a 300-pound barbell 2-3 times which represents their muscle strength. A professional ice skater won’t be able to do that but will easily do 3 series of 30 squats. This is muscular endurance some heavy lifters don’t necessarily have.

Cardiorespiratory endurance is the ability of our heart, lungs, and circulatory system to distribute oxygen and nutrients to the muscles during any physical activity. Activities such as swimming, jogging, or cycling increase our heart rate and strengthen the heart muscle which increases our ability to sustain vigorous physical exertion.

Needless to say that nutrition can easily be enlisted as the sixth component of fitness although it is not body-conditioned. It is more like an external component without which all the other five components may not reach their full potential. Food is the fuel we need in order to perform at our best. Plenty of fluids, lean meat and fish, raw vegetables and fruits as well as whole grains are imperative in maintaining a proper and healthy diet to complement physical fitness. In addition to this, food boosts our mood and increases memory and concentration which implies it is also beneficial to our overall well-being.

Types of Fitness

Health-related fitness and skill-related fitness are two basic types of fitness. Generally speaking, health-related fitness incorporates the five basic components of physical fitness. These are body composition, flexibility, muscular strength, muscular endurance, and cardiorespiratory endurance. All of them are interconnected and when combined they contribute to our health and well-being by increasing our immune function, bodily functions, and performance. Health-related fitness is also used in the treatment of many health conditions and even prevention.

Skill-related fitness perfects our motor and cognitive skills. The six basic components of skill-related fitness include balance, coordination, agility, power, speed, and reaction time (reflexes). Balance helps us control the body movements while agility employs our dynamic balance and flexibility helping us to change directions and movements controlledly and quickly. Coordination is in charge of our movements’ efficiency and their precise execution and it is closely linked to reaction time i.e. the speed with which we react to external stimuli. Lastly, power and speed represent our ability to achieve movements with force and swiftness.

Health-related Fitness

Health-related fitness is primarily focused on the treatment of chronic illnesses where physical activity is carefully planned in accordance with the patient’s physical capabilities, individual characteristics, and the nature of the health condition.

In order to produce unified guidelines for health-related fitness, the American College of Sports Medicine came up with the FIIT protocol. This protocol focuses on the frequency of physical activity (F), intensity (I), time (T), and type (T) of activity. In other words, what counts is how frequently we exercise, how intensive our physical activities are, how long they take, and what type of activity they involve.

There are several modalities within health-related fitness. First of them is exercising for health which means fitness is a way of preventing health conditions with otherwise healthy individuals. Corporate fitness includes physical activities specifically designed for people whose professions require that they sit or stand for extended periods of time. In these instances, fitness aims at decreasing the harmful effects of such a lifestyle. Senior fitness focuses on slowing down the process of aging through physical exercise while prenatal and postnatal fitness implies work with women before and after giving birth with the aim of faster recovery after labor. Lastly, children’s fitness encourages physical activity during early development stages.

Health and Fitness

Health and fitness go hand in hand for too many obvious reasons. Among other things, fitness implies staying away from toxins, such as alcohol, refined sugar, and unhealthy fats, only to name a few. As we’ve learned from extensive studies on the impact of harmful chemicals on our health, it comes as no surprise why staying fit means staying healthy.

How fit you are is more important than your weight. Fitness is all about what your body can achieve rather than how it looks. Staying active means better immune function, flexibility, and decreased chances of serious health conditions that accompany a sedentary lifestyle. On top of that, a fit person will be more apt to perform ADLs (activities of daily living), such as taking the stairs, walking, playing with kids, or shopping.

Fitness implies building resilience and leaving your comfort zone. Not only does it help you strengthen your body, increase muscle endurance and performance while boosting your mobility and flexibility, but it also helps you stay in shape mentally. This is particularly true for people who decide to change their lives and habits for the better. Through fitness, we actually learn that strong will power can make a huge difference.

The Benefits of Fitness

One of the biggest misrepresentations of fitness is portraying it as an agonizing path toward our slimmer selves. Mass media are the biggest culprits why fitness is equated with extreme dieting, insisting on excruciatingly hard exercises, and working up a sweat until you faint. Unsurprisingly, our motivation plunges the moment we think about all the hard work fitness involves.

In reality, our path toward being fit starts with the will to change our lives for the better. Not only do we reap the physical benefits but we also improve our social, emotional, and psychological capacity. It is not a matter of starving or soreness of the muscles but a matter of perfecting your body and mind. Fitness motivation has two types of motivation - internal and external. Internal motivation drives us from within because we feel better on the inside. It secures a healthy lifestyle in the long run. On the other hand, external motivation stems from a desire to enhance physical assets which is why the majority of people take up fitness.

A staggering amount of available information confirms that the health benefits of fitness are numerous. From psychological and physical to social and emotional, the benefits of fitness improve our lives tremendously. Exercising, particularly in childhood, strengthens our bones, clears our bad cholesterol from our arteries, and dramatically decreases the chances of developing diabetes and high blood pressure. When we’re active, our brains release a number of chemicals, including endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine. Consistent physical activity improves mood and memory while preventing the severe mental condition in adulthood, depression in particular.