Definition of Fitness

There is a big difference between fitness, health and looking fit

Many people assume that health, fitness and looking good are the same thing. Although they all work together in a synergistic way, they are very different.

Definition of fitness

Fitness refers to your body's physical ability to do a certain task. Exercise directly improves fitness. The more you can exercise, the more fit you are. Fitness generally alludes to physical capability, but mental fitness refers to how much work you brain can do and emotional fitness refers to the health of your emotional state.

The difference between health and fitness

In its plainest form, health refers to the absence of bodily issues. Your body is healthy if it is not overweight, underweight, sick or with disease. Health is a state of being. Fitness is action orientated. It refers to what your body can do.

The connection between health and fitness

The more that your body can do, the less health complications you will have - and the healthier you will be. Fitness, therefore, leads to greater health. The more fit you are, the better your body can look after itself. Fitness increases energy levels. Extra energy allows your body to fend off diseases better and improve its overall well-being.

The two types of fitness

Fitness can be broken down into two different types.

Cardiovascular fitness

Cardiovascular fitness refers to the amount of physical exertion your body can take before getting tired. Cardio is taken from the Greek word 'kardia', meaning 'heart'. Vascular refers to your circulatory system. Cardiovascular fitness, therefore, addresses how well your heart, blood vessels and lungs can pump nutrients to the rest of your body while clearing toxins away. If you get easily winded after climbing a flight of stairs, you need to focus on improving your cardiovascular fitness.

The more cardiovascular fit you are, the stronger your heart, lungs and circulatory system will be. This is why exercise is so important for preventing diseases that pertain to the heart, lungs, brain and blood circulation.

Take The Fitness Gram Pacer Test to measure your cardiovascular fitness.

Structural fitness

Structural fitness refers to the strength of the body parts that do the actual task. These parts include the muscles, joints, bones, tendons and ligaments. If you feel pain in your neck, back, leg or arm muscles throughout the day; you need to improve your structural fitness.

Exercise is important to fortify bones, keep joints supple, strengthen muscles and keep the central nervous system working properly.

An easy way to distinguish between the two is this: 

If you need to catch your breath, improve cardiovascular fitness. Aches or pains indicate a need for better structural fitness.

What are the 5 components of physical fitness?

Fitness can also be broken down into 5 separate components. Myzone explains this beautifully.

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1. Cardio vascular fitness

Cardio vascular fitness refers to how well your body can operate in a higher state of energy for a prolonged period of time. 

Exercises that aim to train this aspect of fitness will improve the way that the heart, lungs and blood vessels (along with other organs like the liver) break fat down into usable energy. They train the heart and lungs to pump fresh oxygen throughout the body while disposing of negative by-products like carbon dioxide and lactic acid (see how lactic acid affects physical performance).

2. Strength

This component of fitness refers to how much force your body can exert on a task. Strength fitness includes muscular strength, bone strength, joint strength, ligament strength, the condition of the central nervous system and the mind-to-muscle connection (the percentage of muscle fibers that can be activated by signals sent from the brain). 

Exercises that build your strength will improve muscle fiber size, bone density, efficiency of synapses between nerves throughout the central nervous system (how well your body sends messages from one cell to the next) and joint durability.

3. Muscular endurance

Muscular endurance can almost be seen as a combination between cardiovascular fitness and muscular strength. The first one determines how long you can exercise. The second one determines the amount of force that your muscles can exert. Muscular endurance, however, determines how long your muscles can exert a force before they start to fatigue. 

Cardio vascular fitness is at its limit when you are of breath. Strength is at its limit when you can't lift a certain weight. Muscular endurance is at its limit when you feel your muscles burn during an exercise or they start to lose their ability to exert any force at all.

Exercises that improve muscular endurance train your body's ability to cope with stress for a prolonged period of time. It improves your body's ability to cope with physical pressure. This is why exercise improves your overall ability to cope with pain, stress and illness.

4. Flexibility

Flexibility refers to the component of fitness that determines your range of motion. The length that your muscles, ligaments, joints and tendons can stretch away from their neutral positions will indicate your flexibility fitness levels.

Flexibility training helps to avoid injury, stimulates the kind of cartilage in the joints that are more flexible, improves signaling between muscle neurons, stimulates the recovery process and improves blood flow. In essence, flexibility improves the body's suppleness.

5. Body composition

Body composition is the part of fitness that looks at how much fat your body has, compared to muscle and bone mass. This relates to fitness because of the connection between muscle size, bone density, fat mass and metabolism. 

Metabolism is the rate at which your body turns nutrients into energy. These nutrients can come from either food or fat stores. The higher your metabolism, the more energy your body will produce on its own. In fact, metabolism will determine how many calories your body burns when it isn't exercising at all (this is referred to as your basal metabolic rate).

Greater fat mass slows down your metabolism, while greater muscle mass speeds it up. Did you know that body temperature also directly affects your metabolism?

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Fitness looks different on everybody

Don't expect to morph into a supermodel when you start to improve your fitness level. 

Weight loss is largely determined by genetics

Will improving your fitness help you to lose weight and keep it off naturally? Absolutely! Can you lose all the fat you that have by exercising regularly? Exercise will help you to burn a lot of fat if you do it properly, but how much you lose will be different to the person next to you. Your genetic makeup will determine how long it takes for you to burn those extra pounds. It will also determine how much fat you can lose in a healthy way.

Healthy is more important than good looking

Don't exercise more than what your body can handle. This will not only break your body down, but also rob of any motivation that you had to exercise in the first place. Start off small and give your body some time to adapt. Increase the intensity gradually when you feel comfortable with your current exercise routine.

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How to improve your fitness

Take the fitness challenge

If you want to improve your overall fitness, try doing our free 30 day fitness challenge. You don't need any equipment and it only takes a few minutes to complete the daily task.

Determine which form of fitness you need the most

Go through the 5 components of fitness listed above very carefully. Determine which one you feel like you need to work on, or the one that you think you would benefit from improving the most.

Go for a long walk around your neighborhood every day. This is a fantastic way to start working on your fitness levels. After a week or two, advance to running for part of the way.

If you feel like you need to improve your muscular strength or muscular endurance, try one of these programs that you can do at your local gym.

When you're just starting out on your fitness journey, be sure to include some of these fitness boosting foods to give your body the nutrients that it needs to get stronger. Remember to eat a diet that is nutritious while avoiding foods that are bad for you. Drink enough water to stay hydrated and flush away unwanted toxins. Stay Strong!

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