Just like you and me, almost everyone would love to be fit.
But do you really know the meaning of fitness?
A couple of years back, my answer would be very vague. Something like I want to lose some weight and get rid of belly fat. I assume most of the people have the same vague idea about fitness.
You can be fat as well as fit. Just like Eddie Hall.
Well, fitness is a very subjective quality of a person. There is always a context. For example, a marathon runner is fit for long distance running. But he is no way fit to lift 500kg like Eddie Hall.
Each of them has mastered a completely different type of fitness. We need to know the different components of fitness to really understand the meaning of fitness and set a specific goal for ourselves.
So, here we go. The different types/components of fitness are-
1. Body Composition
2. Muscular Development
3. Strength
4. Cardio Respiratory Fitness
5. Muscular Endurance
6. Power
7. Flexibility & Mobility
8. Balance
9. Speed , Agility & Quickness
10. Mental Toughness
Body Composition
The most common component of fitness people want. Everyone wants to lose weight but the majority of people don’t understand they are actually, looking for better body composition. It is simply the amount of body fat and the lean mass in your body weight. Lean mass includes everything in our body except for body fat.
Fat loss results in better body composition. You can do that by simply eating less and spending more energy for long enough time.Body fat percentage (BF %) is the general measure for body composition. Smaller the BF % better is the body composition. A healthy range of BF % is 8-20% for man and 12-25% for women.
Muscular Development
Muscle is that part of our lean mass, which gets the most attention. Muscles make us look great (also true for women). A very lean person may have very low BF %, but he can look good only if he carries a good amount of muscle mass. Apart from good looks, muscle is also important for general health and well being.
Muscles also need more energy just for maintenance. A person with higher muscle mass can stay lean while enjoying more food. Resistance training, high protein diet and consuming slightly higher calories help muscle building.
Strength
Strength is simply the ability to produce force. Our body does it through Neuro-muscular-skeletal system. Stronger bones, bigger muscles and efficient neural control result in greater force. If you can lift more weight compared to another person, you are stronger. Eddie hall is one of the strongest people in the world.
Strength training or lifting heavy weights result in higher strength. Strength training generally includes exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench press and over head press. These exercises allow for heavier and heavier weights safely if performed correctly. Strength training also results in significant muscle gain.
Cardio Respiratory Fitness
It refers to the ability of out cardio (heart & Blood vessels) and respiratory (breathing) system to work efficiently during a sustained physical activity. Better cardio respiratory fitness ensures that sufficient oxygen reaches the muscles involved in the action to produce continuous energy.
Cardio respiratory fitness can be improved by indulging in rhythmic physical activities like walking, jogging, running, cycling, swimming, rope skipping, rowing etc.
Muscular Endurance
Muscular endurance is the type of fitness in which the muscles can keep working for prolonged duration of time. Running a marathon, for example requires a substantial muscular endurance along with cardio respiratory fitness. All the muscles used in running and keeping the body stable are continuously used for a long duration.
Muscular endurance can be built by activities which require exerting your muscles for long duration. It can be long distance running and swimming or lifting lighter weights for a large number of repetitions.
Power
Power is the display of force in a very short burst of time. Activities like jumping, throwing things and sprinting require lot of strength and power.
Power can be developed by building strength and exercises requiring display of power- Olympic weight lifting, jumping, medicine ball throwing and lifting relatively lighter weights with greater speed while maintaining control.
Flexibility & Mobility
Both these terms are often used interchangeably. But in reality, they mean different things. There as several confusing opinions on the difference between the two. Let’s keep it simple.
Flexibility is the extent to which a particular muscle can stretch.
Mobility is related to the range of motion of joint. Better mobility means, a joint involved in motion can go through the full range of motion. Flexibility is a contributing factor towards mobility.
Flexibility and mobility is important for better physical performance and reducing pain and injuries. Both of these generally improve with regular full body exercises. Static stretching improves Flexibility. Dynamic stretching improves mobility. It includes movements which repeatedly take a joint through the desired range of motion.
Balance
Balance is the ability to hold a particular position or move through a particular motion without falling. It is a right mix of muscular strength, endurance, flexibility& mobility and neural control. Regular exercise can improve all these qualities. Apart from that, there can be special exercises to improve balance like single legged exercises and performing exercises on unstable surfaces.
Speed, Agility and Quickness
Speed is the ability to move in one direction as fast as possible, like sprinting.
Agility is to be able to accelerate, decelerate and change direction while moving.
Quickness is the skill of reacting to external factors to change speed & direction.
High degree of speed, agility and quickness are an essential requirement for most sports activities. While a regular activities like moving through a crowded place or busy traffic also demand some speed, agility and quickness.
Mental Toughness
Last but not the least, mental toughness is the most important of the fitness components. Most of us are physically more capable than we think. We only get to know it, only when we push hard and break our mental barriers. This is something which rarely happens in day to day events. Only the people who indulge in hard physical activities regularly get to experience it often. The other way round, regular hard exercise can also improve mental toughness.
Almost all of these components of fitness are inter connected. Getting better at any one of these also invariably positively impact all other types of fitness. Some are more closely linked than others. For most cases, strength training along with a little bit of cardio results in a very good over all fitness.