What is Fitness?
So, we have spoken every week on ‘Fitness Friday’ about fitness and exercise and how it affects our stress levels, immune system, sleep and even our memory and cognitive abilities.
But what is fitness?
Most people think that fitness is how far we can run without getting puffed out. In everyday life, I use it in the same way. When I am dancing with my young daughter and get puffed out, I remark, “Jeez, I am unfit!” (Same when I am chasing after her with her nappy as she gleefully crawls down the hallway at full speed).
But, while this is one part of fitness, it is only just one part of fitness.
There are health components of fitness and skill-related components. Over the next week’s we will look at what they are.
Health Components:
Cardiorespiratory endurance.
Muscular strength.
Muscular endurance.
Body composition.
Skill-Related Components:
Agility.
Balance.
Coordination.
Power.
Speed.
Reaction time. [i]
Cardiorespiratory Endurance (CV Endurance)
This is what we traditionally think of when we think of ‘fitness’.
It is how well our heart (cardio) and lungs (vascular),and their associated systems, can keep our body doing what it needs to do.
We improve this component of fitness by during things that elevate our heart rate for a sustained period.[ii]
Things such as:
Running.
Swimming.
Cycling.
This type of training improves our CV Endurance in several ways:
When we do this are heart muscles get stronger and can pump more blood each time it beats.
Small arteries grow within our muscles so we can use the blood more efficiently.
While, lung function does not dramatically improve, oxygen is used more efficiently.
Testing CV Endurance
There are many ways to test CV endurance such as the ‘beep test’ and the ‘Harvard Step Test’.
The beep test is a shuttle run where you have to run between two points and keep up with an ever increasing cadence of beeps played on a tape / mp3.
Meanwhile, the Harvard step test has you stepping on and off a gym bench once every 2 seconds for 5 minutes (150 steps). Your heart rate is taken at the 1st, 2nd and 3rd minute and after finishing.[iii]
Muscular Strength
What is strength? What do you think of when you think of strength?
Big muscles? The ability to lift heavy things?
Strength is quite simply “the ability of a muscle to exert force during an activity’[iv].
Think of lifting the heaviest weight you can, just one and slowly.
Testing Muscle Strength
A simple strength test uses an instrument called a handgrip dynamometer which measures how tightly you can squeeze your hand.
Muscular Endurance
Meanwhile muscular endurance is the ability of a muscle to continue exerting force without getting tired.[v]
This also relies on muscles continuing to receive enough blood (and the oxygen it carries).
An example of a sport requiring great muscle endurance (especially in the legs) is rowing where a rower repeatedly pulls against the oar over and over again.[vi]
Testing Muscle Endurance
One way to test this is the 60 second push-up test.
This is exactly how it sounds, how many push ups can you do in 60 seconds?!
Body Composition
Body composition is the relative amounts of bone, water, muscle and fat.[vii]
Someone can lose fat and gain muscle but still be the same weight (and vice-versa).
Testing Body Composition
You would think this would be easy to measure but it is actually quite hard to do it accurately.
The most accurate way to do it is via a Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry test (DEXA)
This uses the fact that different parts of our body absorb x-rays for two different types of x-ray.[viii]
Other ways include, measuring such as bio-impedance scales you can find at home are far less reliable and less accurate but can give a ball-park figure if used in a consistent manner (same time, same hydration level etc).
Conclusion
So, there you go, those are the health related components of fitness.
It is not just about not being puffed out!
Next week, we will look at the skill-related components of fitness.
[i] Donatelle, R. J., & Davis, L. G. (2011). Health: the basics. Benjamin Cummings.
[ii] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/7181#Cardiorespiratory-performance
[iii] https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zxd4wxs/revision/3
[iv] U.S. .Department of Health and Human Services cited in https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/7181#Strength
[v] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/7181#Strength
[vi] https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zxd4wxs/revision/2
[vii] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/7181#body-composition
[viii] Wells, J. C. K., & Fewtrell, M. S. (2006). Measuring body composition. Archives of disease in childhood, 91(7), 612-617.
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[i] Ochentel, O., Humphrey, C., & Pfeifer, K. (2018).
[ii] Walsh, R. (2011).
[iii] Lennefer, T., Lopper, E., Wiedemann, A. U., Hess, U., & Hoppe, A. (2019). Improving employees’ work-related well-being and physical health through a technology-based physical activity intervention: A randomized intervention-control group study. Journal of occupational health psychology.
[iv] Walsh, R. (2011).
[v] Beck, J., Gerber, M., Brand, S., Pühse, U., & Holsboer-Trachsler, E. (2013). Executive function performance is reduced during occupational burnout but can recover to the level of healthy controls. Journal of psychiatric research, 47(11), 1824-1830.
[vi] Meijman T.F. & Mulder G. (2013). Psychological aspects of workload. In: Handbook of work and organizational psychology; 1998. p. 5–33.
[vii] Salmon, P. (2001). Effects of physical exercise on anxiety, depression, and sensitivity to stress: a unifying theory. Clinical psychology review, 21(1), 33-61.
[viii] Gerber, M., & Pühse, U. (2008). “Don't crack under pressure!”—Do leisure time physical activity and self-esteem moderate the relationship between school-based stress and psychosomatic complaints?. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 65(4), 363-369.
[ix] Hackney, A. C. (2006). Stress and the neuroendocrine system: the role of exercise as a stressor and modifier of stress. Expert review of endocrinology & metabolism, 1(6), 783-792.
[x] Hackney, A. C. (2006).
[xi] Bitonte, R. A., & DeSanto II, D.J. (2014). Mandatory physical exercise for the prevention of mental illness in medical students. Mental illness, 6(2).
[xii] https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/exercise-and-stress/art-20044469
[xiii] https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/exercising-to-relax