What is Fitness?
Before I can really answer this question… Here are the basic fitness parameters as per ACE for general health:
- Cardio-respiratory (Aerobic) Fitness
Ability to endure long periods of physical activity
- Muscular Strength
Ability to generate maximum force through muscle contraction
- Muscular Endurance
Ability to maintain muscular contractions or consistent muscular force for extended periods of time
- Flexibility
Ability of a joint and surrounding muscles to move through a specific range of motion with ease and without pain
- Body Composition
The proportion of fat and non-fat or lean mass in your body. A lower fat: lean body ratio is ideal for good health. (Lean body mass consists of muscle, organs, bone.)
(Maintaining a balance of all of the above would be an ideal fitness plan.)
Working on your fitness makes activities of your daily life easy, improves metabolic function, improves posture and movement patterns, avoids injury. It also improves your cognitive functioning.
Back to the question: So what is fitness? To put it simply, to be fit is to have a healthy body and mind, the ability to move well and not get tired or breathless, have enough strength to lift and carry heavy stuff, be flexible enough to move without pain, look good and feel good. 💪
Fitness is a spectrum and all of us are on different levels. Instead of aspiring for pre-determined ideals of fitness (dictated by anyone else), we should work towards increasing our baseline (of fitness parameters above) gradually. Everyone deserves to be fit and we are meant to be (made by nature that way). And we are already equipped with the tool but have just forgotten how to use it! 🙂
source credit: acefitness.org
