Physical Fitness Definition: What Is It? Factors, Types, Components and Health Importance, Easy Tips to Measure and Improve It

Physical Fitness Definition

Physical activity defined: simple ways to measure and improve it.

What is physical fitness and how can it be improved by you?

Let’s start by first defining the true meaning of physical fitness and then discussing what you need to work on specifically for better overall health, conditioning and wellbeing.

The Components

Physical Fitness Components Defined

There are several components to physical fitness. These things are either skill-related components of health-related.

For most people, they will be looking at developing their health-related components, unless they are training for a specific sport.

For that reason, and because it’s probably more relevant to you, we will focus on the health-related components first.

The 5 Health Components

The 5 Health Components of Physical Fitness Defined

1. First Physical Fitness Component: Cardiovascular Endurance

If you are trying to develop overall fitness and health, you need to focus on cardiorespiratory endurance.

♥ This is the ability for your heart, lungs and blood vessels to transport oxygen and to remove the waste products from the muscles (or muscle groups) you are exercising.

2. Second Physical Fitness Component: Muscular Endurance

The next thing that you need to work on is your muscular endurance.

♥ This is defined as how well a muscle or muscle group can contract over a period.

3. Third Physical Fitness Component: Muscular Strength

Next is another component of overall health. It is muscular strength. What is this?

♥ Muscular strength is the maximum force that can be generated by a muscle.

4. Fourth Physical Fitness Component: Body Composition

The next thing that you need to work on is your body composition.

♥ This is something that almost everyone tries to target first. This is probably going to be a high priority and one of the major reasons for exercising.

We all want to look better and vanity is a strong motivator.

5. Fifth Physical Fitness Component: Flexibility

The final component of health-related physical fitness is flexibility.

The level of flexibility is very important as it has an impact on many other factors associated with health.

You see, it will prevent you from getting as many injuries when you train and add strength (as you can exercise a wider range of motion in the muscle).

Skill Related

Skill Related Physical Fitness Component, Ability

For those people interested in the skill-related components of physical fitness, they include agility, balance, coordination, speed, power and reaction time.

Measuring Progress

Measuring Physical Fitness Progress

Truthfully, the great thing about the components of health is that they can be measured.

This means you can keep a record of how you progress over time and measure your improvement in each component.

♥ Your goal should be to increase your level in each area.

♥ If you can do this, then your health will certainly improve.

♥ As you can probably see, there is certainly an overlap between many of the different fitness aspects, so once you start improving one component, you will be positively affecting a range of others.

The Tips

Tips for Improving Physical Fitness

There are several principles that you need to consider when you are improving your physical fitness and conditioning.

♥ It is not enough to just repeat the same routine each time you go to the gym. You need to consider the overload principle. This principle states that you need to exercise at a higher level than you previously did, to increase your level of stamina, strength or other aspects of fitness.

♥ You also need to think about the results that you are getting from a specific training program.

♥ You should try a certain training plan for several weeks and measure the changes. If you are not getting the desired improvements, then you need to make an adjustment to some part of the routine.

This is the best way to approach any type of fitness training. By doing so, each week you will have consistent and measurable progress and will experience firsthand the true benefits of physical fitness.

Get Help

Physical Fitness Help

We do not guarantee that you will lose three pounds daily. You already know that crash dieting does not work long-term. In fact, we do not recommend anything that has not been validated by research, no matter how trendy it is.

We are certified fitness trainers that design workout routines and nutrition workouts based on people’s distinct needs and help them develop strategies for lifelong success.

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