Components of Fitness

People often mistake health for fitness. In fact, being healthy and being fit are two different things all together. A person is considered healthy when he is physically, mentally, spiritually and socially fit. On the other hand, fitness is used to describe just a small part of being healthy, i.e. physical fitness. Do you know that the exercise scientists have further divided physical fitness into a number of small components to make it easier for common people to understand it? If you have never heard of these components of physical fitness, continue reading to find out.

Components of Physical Fitness

There are in all, five health related components, namely, cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, muscular strength, muscular endurance, and body composition. Here is the scientific explanation for each of them.

Muscular Endurance: It is defined as the ability of a particular muscle or a group of muscles to continue to exert force or to sustain work for an extended period of time.

Body Composition: It is defined as a measure of the percentage of the body fats in relation to the total body mass of the person.

Muscular Strength: It is defined as the greatest force that a muscle or a group of muscles can exert by making a single effort, when faced with a resistance.

Cardiovascular Endurance: Cardiovascular endurance depicts how effectively the heart delivers blood and the oxygen and nutrients present in it, to the working muscles. It is also a measure of the muscles ability to use these nutrients supplied by the body to it.

Flexibility: It is the ability of the body to move a group of joints or a particular joint through an entire range of motion, without any hindrance of excess fats or muscles.

Out of the above mentioned fitness components, a person should lay great stress on his body composition, as excess of fats in the body can have a very negative effect on the overall health. By engaging in physical activities regularly, a person can increase his cardiovascular endurance, muscular endurance and muscular strength. This will help the person to achieve the right body composition, by getting rid of fats from his body.

Performance Related Fitness Elements

Performance related components are defined as the ones that affect a person's athletic ability. There are five such components, namely, speed, agility, power, motor skills and balance. By regularly training, following a regular fitness program, losing weight, and following a healthy and balanced diet, one can greatly improve upon these components of physical fitness.

This was in short about the various components of physical fitness. In addition to these components, there are certain principles of exercising too, which should be followed by everybody, especially the athletes, to be truly physically fit. Some of these principles are, exercising regularly by including cardiovascular endurance, muscular endurance, flexibility and muscular strength in the exercise program. Another important principle is to maintain a balance of all these components in the fitness program and to increase the intensity of training from time to time, to build endurance. Along with exercising, giving the body rest is equally important. So, strenuous activity days should be followed by either a rest day or a light exercise day. Keeping all these important principles in mind, along with the components of fitness, is very important while designing a fitness program.