There are 5 components of physical fitness. They are cardiovascular fitness, body composition, muscular strength, muscular endurance and flexibility. The first component which is cardiovascular fitness refers to the health condition of your cardiovascular system, comprising of the heart and its arteries and veins. The heart pumps blood and delivers it through the arteries to the lungs and other parts of the body. The blood will circulate and returns to the heart.
The human body comprises of water, proteins, minerals and fats. There are essential fats and excess fats and lean body mass and fat free mass. Body composition is a term to describe the ratio of the fats and body mass using certain measurements.
Muscular strength stands for the ability to exert the muscles against physical object or resistance at any one time. And muscular endurance is the ability to use or sustain the muscles or muscles groups against the resistance repeatedly over an extended time. Flexibility is the ability to move joints easily and smoothly.
If you pass the tests that measure these five components, you can consider yourself fit. But it is still important to maintain your fitness. The benefits of physical fitness include maintaining a healthy heart, reduce the risk of health problems and complications, have the energy and enthusiasm, keep your bones strong and continue to be flexible.
Prolonged physical inactivity will not only cause a decline in energy and vigor and make you unfit and lethargic, it will also result in weight gain. If you think you are unfit, you still can improve your physical fitness through exercise and fitness training.
If you are out of shape and feel unhealthy, you can begin to plan an exercise program and start your workout sessions. Before you begin with your fitness program, make sure you check with a physician. This is especially so if you are over the age of 35, have health related problems or have been going through a sedentary lifestyle.
"Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic creative intellectual activity." - John Fitzgerald Kennedy
You can tell whether you are fit or otherwise by looking at how you feel when you move your body upon waking up in the morning, after a long day at work or when you exert your muscles to climb up the stairs or walk a certain distance. If your feel drained, out of breath and experience fatigue and unable to exert yourself further, you are obviously unfit.
What you can do to improve your physical fitness is to start something small and light. If you have not been doing any kind of exercise, push yourself to at least take a brisk walk for about 15 minutes. Take a short rest and start over again. If you consistently do this, you will gain momentum and it gets easier and you can stretch further.
If you are obese, the possible causes are improper nutrition and lack of physical activities. Going on a crash diet might help you lose weight temporarily. There is a possibility that you might gain that back. However, dieting alone will not improve physical fitness.
To know your body mass index, you can check using the BMI calculator here. The body mass index (BMI) is commonly used to measure the percentage of body fat. The purpose of this measure is to determine the right weight for your height. When you know that you are either overweight or underweight, you can take the necessary action to correct it. A BMI of under 18.5 is too thin. Normal weight is between 18.5 to 24.9. A BMI between the ranges of 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight and over 30 is obese.
Another way to determine it is to measure you waist and hip ratio. Measure the circumference of your hips at the widest part of your buttocks and then divide by your waist measurement. A waist circumference greater than 80cm or 32 inches for women and 94cm or 37 inches for men indicate increased risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease. A measurement of 88 cm or 35 inches in women and 102com or 40 inches for men is at the danger level.
If you are prone to injuries, stiff joints, muscle aches and pains after a workout or training, seek help from a physical trainer to learn the proper sequence. Your enthusiasm to build muscles and gain strength may backfire if you are ignorant on the basics like stretching, your program choice, frequency, cooling down stretches, and etc.
Your body movements can affect your moods too. Training or exercising the wrong way will make you weary after each session. If this happens too often, check if you are breathing properly during your workout. Many people are either ignorant or confused when to breathe in and when to exhale during training.
It is best that you start your physical fitness program with stretching followed by aerobic exercise before getting into weight training. What's the point of working out excessively and then falling ill or injuring yourself that keeps you for days away from training? Once you've picked the momentum, include strength training. When you do both aerobic and weight training, you will burn both fats and calories.
You can check your cardiovascular and muscular endurance by attempting to check on how you manage from long distance running and doing pushups. You can practice endurance training by doing your exercise and taking short breaks in between.
Let's just say that you can only do 5 pushups; take a few minutes break and then add to the number that you have previously done. Intervals between each session will allow you to improve your ability to do more and you will improve your physical fitness. If you are lifting weight, you could try with something you are comfortable with and increase it as you progress.
Aerobic exercise is still the best physical activity because abundance supply of oxygen is being circulated in your body. You can start to by taking brisk walks, then alternate it with jogging. When you have gained the momentum over a period of time, you might want to start running.
You tend to inhale more oxygen during aerobic exercise and you heart rate increases as it pumps more oxygen to your body system to provide you with the energy. At the same time it increases your waste elimination process.
It simply means the number of minutes it takes you to get back to your resting heart rate after an aerobic exercise and it is counted in minutes. The faster you recover means the more fit you are. The best time to find out your resting heart rate is when you get up in the morning. You determine your resting heart rate by counting your pulse beats for six seconds and multiplying it by ten. The lower it is, the better is your condition.
By monitoring your heart rate during training or exercise and the time it takes to recover, you'll know if your heart is working hard or otherwise. It will then enable you to either reduce if you are over exerting, or increase your training.
Unless you know what to do and have your own personal fitness training plan, get a personal trainer to help you out. A trainer will help you set and determine your health and fitness goals. She will do the necessary tests to ascertain your fitness level before preparing a workout program. And she will guide you through.
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