Outside magazine called the triathlete Mark Allen as the "fittest man on earth". Well, if he is the fittest man then what would you call Mariusz Pudzianowski who also has incredible stamina and endurance while being much stronger and powerful than Allen? Whom would you consider physically more fitter - Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bruce Lee?
To answer this question, first let's takes a look at fitness itself. Fitness is a broad concept and many academicians have multiple definitions for it. However, fitness has two major categories and they are:
• Task Specific fitness
• General fitness and well being
Task specific fitness is akin to an athlete or a professional developing his or her fitness for their specific sport or task like the military personal. This requires extreme focus and skill specific training. This is, like I've mentioned before the primary domain of sportsmen and women or specific to a profession. The demands and rigour of this training are different and need to be handled in such a manner.
We, however, are going to dwell more into the second category. This deals with the regular people like you and I.
Physical fitness can be simply defined as the set of characteristics or attributes that an individual possesses which in turn helps them to perform physical activity. It is your body's ability to handle itself while it performs its daily tasks.
The ideal situation where one would be considered as physically fit would be if they were able to handle the given task while being able to prolong the fatigue threshold. Physical fitness looks at the body's ability to perform the daily tasks that involve either movement of the body itself or the movement of an external object by our body. This refers to the daily activity that may include but are not limited to:
1. Rushing to work,
2. Being able to walk and run as required with ease or without the risk of hurting yourself
3. Moving an eternal object like a medium or heavy load, say for example a laptop bag or a heavy suitcase.
All these activities need your body to be maintained in respectable condition in order to perform these tasks without the risk of injury or at the very least over stressing yourself - like excess weight can deliver on the knees.
To be able to last the day without your body giving away, you need to ensure you prepare your body by conditioning the five elements that collectively define its external fitness. These five elements are:
• Flexibility
• Muscular Strength
• Muscular endurance
• Cardiovascular Endurance
• Body Fat Percentage
Flexibility:
This is the ability of the muscle fibres in the body to stretch as required to bring about the desired extent to joint movement without the moving muscles and the tendons giving away. The maximum point to which the muscle and tendons can stretch will determine your flexibility or range of motion for that joint.
A lack of flexibility can become a major driver for issues like pain syndromes or balance disorders. While being flexible across all the joints is most desirable, it is essential that your body have good range of motion across the joint that face the most traffic, like the hip joints, the knees, the shoulders and the neck.
Remember, in order to ensure that you're flexibility is not impaired; make sure you work a movement through the entire range of motion as safely as possible. If, your flexibility is already low, work on improving it slowly and gradually. Trust me. This will go a long way in keeping you safe from related injuries.
I shall dwell deeper into the subject of how to increase flexibility in my future posts. Right now let's look the next element.
Muscular Strength:
This is determined by your body's ability to influence the movement of itself or an external animate or inanimate object. This could include picking up a toddler or a heavy suitcase or even pushing a broken down car (a lot of us have been there). There are many of us who have suffered setbacks due to injuries while lifting a heavy bag or suitcase or pulled a muscle when pushing a vehicle. If these are activities that you perform out of the blue, then such results aren't surprising.
Musculoskeletal Strength is important considering how much of it get's applied daily in not just moving an external object but also our own bodies. Let's look at the two types of strength, shall we?
• Isometric Strength - Where the force is applied to hold an object without letting it succumb to the opposite force. For example, when you pick up a toddler and hold it for several minutes on end, the arm that you use to hold it and your entire body is undergoing an isometric contraction. The objective is to hold the body without letting it succumb to the force of gravity and fall down. Another example of how isometric contractions work when you are moving your own body is when you stand for several hours and yet your torso doesn't collapse. This is because the muscles around the core area are working to support the spinal column and keep your torso from collapsing. Your entire lower body is on top drive making sure you stay up.
• Isotonic Strength - Take the above example of the baby. Before you hold it steady for a prolonged period of time, you've to pick it up from the floor or its cradle. This requires you to extend your arm out, hold the child and lift it closer to yourself. Such action that causes a movement at one or more joints is called an isotonic movement. This sort of movement needs to be accompanied by respectable strength to able to lift a weight without your muscles failing.
We need to develop both these aspect of your muscular strength. However, you never know the extent of time under which your muscles can come under tension. Therefore, it would be a good idea to develop the third element of your external physical fitness.
Muscular Endurance
You may be required to remain standing in a line for long hours or worse, remain standing in a public transport vehicle for a couple of hours when travelling. The primary body console working on overdrive here are the legs and the core muscles that ensure the entire lower body and the spinal column are held straight or in the desired position. If these muscle fatigue quickly, you begin to feel the pain in the lower back, back of the knee and/or mid-back area. Subjecting your body to regular endurance based exercises would take care of this.
Endurance is the body's ability to sustain a specific action or position over longer periods of time. In the weight training world there is much debate about how many reps to perform to get bigger more fuller muscles. But you cannot overlook the importance of doing endurance work. This is just as applicable to your Calisthenics and Isometric training. Most of your daily activities involve us exerting a little but exerting over prolonged periods of time. So, a little focus on this element would go a long way.
Cardiovascular Health
The circulatory system is an organ system that permits blood and lymph circulation to transport nutrients (such as amino acids and electrolytes), oxygen, carbon dioxide, hormones, blood cells, etc. to and from cells in the body to nourish it and help to fight diseases, stabilize body temperature and pH, and to maintain homeostasis
-As per the definition in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiovascular_health
The cardiovascular system includes one of the most important functional organs that never cease to work during our lifetime - the heart.
The heart is a muscle and needs proper exercise to improve its health and efficiency. How efficiently your heart handles itself during elevated levels of physical activity is determined by its conditioning. Simply put, it means how fast do you start to feel out of breath and a pounding in your chest when a physical activity like walking, running or consistent activity is experienced at a certain intensity.
The cardiovascular health is also gauged by the beats per minute at rest. In adults, this range is considered to be between 60 - 100 beats. A lower heart rate implies that the hearts functioning is much more efficient and depicts higher cardiovascular fitness levels. Like in the case of elite athletes with recorded heart rates at or below 40 beats per minute.
All of these above elements when combined with a proper nutritional plan and food habits will automatically delver the fifth element.
BODY FAT PERCENTAGE
The fifth and final element in the external function category, Body Fat Percentage is as much a function element as it is a fashion element. This is actually the sought after goal in most people's fitness undertaking. Even the pictures and promised results projected by most gyms speak about enhancing the look of the body more than projecting an enhanced capacity of functioning.
However, you cannot overlook the importance of Body Fat Percentage in health. The body fat is basically of two types:
• Subcutaneous fat: the fat found under the skin
• Visceral fat: The layer of fat that protects the internal organs called as visceral fat.
Excess body fat of either kind is considered risky. Excess body fat build up has been associated with major diseases of our generation like diabetes and heart problems. They can also be a limiting factor on our ability to move freely by placing undue stress on the bones and joins, especially the knees.
When the subcutaneous fat levels decrease to permissible levels the result is a lean, functional physique that not only functions well but also looks amazing. However, be aware that the goal of your training must be "function". The "fashion" will follow inevitably.
That is a general coverage of what to expect from the fit body considering its external functions. A more serious and accurate indicator of good health lies internally and the symptoms of its well being may or may not find a manifestation on the outside until it too late.
"Genetics may be a gift,
But good health has to be earned."
-Devendran Mudaliar, founder, http://www.CSIFitness.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Devendran_R_Mudaliar
