Keeping physically fit can give you the ability to function effectively throughout your day.
Being fit means you can perform your usual activities and still have enough energy
left over to handle any extra stresses or emergencies which may arise.
You will reach your desired level of physical fitness faster by understanding the five
components of physical fitness and how they fit together.
The components of physical fitness are,
Cardiorespiratory (CR) Endurance – The efficiency with which the body delivers oxygen
and nutrients needed for muscular activity and transports waste products from the cells.
Muscular Strength – The greatest amount of force a muscle or muscle group can exert in
a single effort.
Muscular Endurance – The ability of a muscle or muscle group to perform repeated movements
with a sub-maximal force for extended periods of times.
Flexibility – The ability to move the joints or any group of joints through an entire,
normal range of motion.
Body Composition – The percentage of body fat a person has in comparison to his or her
total body mass.
Improving the first three components of fitness listed above will have a positive impact
on body composition and will result in less fat. Excessive body fat detracts from the
other fitness components, reduces performance, detracts from appearance, and negatively
affects your health
Factors such as speed, agility, muscle power, eye-hand coordination, and eye-foot
coordination are classified as components of “motor” fitness.
These factors most affect your athletic ability.
Appropriate training can improve these factors within the limits of your potential.
A sensible weight loss and fitness program seeks to improve or maintain all the components
of physical and motor fitness through sound, progressive, mission specific physical training.
Principles of Exercise
Adherence to certain basic exercise principles is important for developing an effective program.
The same principles of exercise apply to everyone at all levels of physical training, from the
Olympic caliber athlete to the weekend jogger.
These basic 5 principles of exercise must be followed for good overall fitness.
To achieve a training effect, you must exercise often. You should exercise each of the first
four fitness components at least three times a week. Infrequent exercise can do more harm than
good.
Regularity is also important with your resting, sleeping, and following a sensible diet.
The intensity (how hard) and/or duration (how long) of exercise must gradually increase to
improve the level of fitness.
To be effective, a program should include activities that address all the fitness components,
since over emphasising any one of them may negatively affect the others.
Providing a variety of activities reduces boredom and increases motivation and progress.
Training must be geared toward specific goals. For example, people become better runners
if their training emphasises running. Although swimming is great exercise, it does not
improve a 3 Klm run time as much as a running program does.
A hard day of training for a given component of fitness should be followed by an easier
training day or rest day for that component and/or muscle group(s) to help permit recovery.
Another way to allow recovery is to alternate the muscle groups exercised every other day,
especially when training for strength and/or muscle endurance.
The work load of each exercise session must exceed the normal demands placed on the body
in order to bring about a training effect.
It’s a good idea to monitor your progress by writing down what you do at each
exercise session and compare your results each week with the past weeks results.
You will find it encouraging to see your improvement and also it will help you to
highlight areas that you may need to consider working on more.
Please remember to include your doctor for regular health checks should you ever
feel your exercise is not bringing the results you wanted to see.
