FITNESS

 Fitness is the state of being healthy. It can also be defined as the ability to fulfill a certain task or role. Fitness can be achieved through physically exercising and proper dieting. Although it is difficult to achieve fitness effectively, it is advisable to be fit so as to keep a healthy mind, body and heart.
Fitness is the ability to meet the demands of the environment. The difference can be illustrated by athletes who over-train their bodies and weaken their immune system that makes them more susceptible to illness. Being fit may not help you live longer, but it can make you feel healthier, mentally and physically, for as long as you do live.

When you are training for a particular sport, you must ensure that you practice the skills of that sport and follow a fitness regime that is specific to that sport. Physical fitness can be divided into two groups, health-related and skill-related fitness.

Physical Fitness:

Physical fitness is to the human body what fine-tuning is to an engine. It enables us to perform up to our potential. Fitness can be described as a condition that helps us for better look, pleasant feel and do our best. More specifically, it is:

Physical fitness refers to the organic capacity of the individual to perform the normal task of daily living without undue tiredness or fatigue having reserves of strength and energy available to meet good health and well-being.

Elements of Physical Fitness:

Strength: The extent to which muscles can exert force by contracting against resistance.(holding or restraining an object or person)

Power: The ability to exert maximum muscular contraction instantly in an explosive burst of movements (jumping or sprint starting).

Speed: The quickness of movement of limb, whether this is the leg of a runner or the arm of the shot putter.

Agility: The ability to perform a series of explosive power movements in rapid succession in opposing directions (Zigzag running or cutting movements).

Balance: The ability to control the body’s position, either stationary (e.g. a handstand)or while moving(e.g. a gymnastics stunt).

Flexibility: The ability to achieve an extended range of motion without being impeded by excess tissue. i.e. fat or muscle(Executing a leg split).

Local Muscle Endurance: A single muscle’s ability to perform sustained work (Rowing or cycling).

Cardiovascular Endurance: The heart’s ability to deliver blood to working muscles and their ability to use it. (Running long distances).

Strength Endurance: A muscle’s ability to perform a maximum contracture time after time (Continuous explosive rebounding through an entire basketball game).

Co-ordination: The ability to integrate the above listed components so that effective movements are achieved.

Physical fitness is the most easily understood by examining these components, or elements, or “parts”.

Health-Related Fitness:

Health related fitness is what everyone should have whether they play a sport or not. Keeping the body fit for health incorporates the following components:

Cardiovascular fitness: It requires the heart and blood vessels to supply the working muscles with oxygen for long periods of time.

Strength: It is normally measured by the amount of weight the muscles can lift, or applying a force against a resistance.

Flexibility: An important part of fitness that we need to keep into our old age. Babies have a natural suppleness and can suck their toes (not that as a teenager you would probably want to do this still), we lose flexibility as we grow older. We should always remember to warm up before competition to stretch our muscles and tendons.

Muscular endurance: The ability of the muscle to work for long periods of time without tiring. A marathon runner is an extreme case of a person who has muscular endurance in the leg muscles (Hamstrings and Gastronomies in particular).

Skill-Related Fitness

Agility:  Is the ability to change the direction of the body quickly. Goalkeepers and gymnasts are good examples of people who have this ability.

Speed: It is the ability to perform a movement or cover a distance in a short period of time. It is not just leg speed, that a sprinter would have, but athletes throwing a javelin require arm speed as well.
Reaction time: It is the time it takes to respond to a stimulus. The stimulus could be a starting pistol, or a ball being returned over the net in tennis, or a goalkeeper moving to get her body in line with the ball to save a shot in hockey, or a slip fielder catching a ball. In a car, the driver is reacting all the time to different stimuli and poor reaction time could lead to a crash.

Balance: It is the ability to keep upright while you are standing still or moving. We naturally think of gymnasts balancing on their hands or on a beam, but we all have to balance when we are standing or riding a bike. In football, when we are dribbling a ball, an opponent may shoulder charge us. We need to shift our body weight to prevent us falling over. We have all tripped up; and to stop ourselves falling over we have to move our centre of gravity (centre of mass), quickly.

Power: In simple terms this is "strength x speed" or doing strength movements quickly. A shot putter uses power when moving a shot from his/her neck. A high jumper needs power in his/her legs to lift their body, vertically, over the bar. A weight lifter powers the bar up over his head.

Co-ordination:  It is the ability to use different senses and body parts together. Hand/eye co-ordination is needed when hitting a moving ball in tennis, cricket and baseball. Foot/eye co-ordination is needed when volleying a football.

Body Fat: Another fact of health is maintaining a good body fat percentage. It can be difficult to reach a good level of fitness in the above areas if you are carrying extra weight. It can also be difficult to reach a good level of fitness if your body is underweight, not storing enough energy to keep you going. Being underweight can also mean that the body does not build muscle tone, and can cause joint injuries as fat pads cushion the joints. You can measure, with skin fold calipers, the amount of our body weight which is fat.

Classification of Muscles:

The muscles in the body can be divided into three distinct groups:  

• Voluntary muscle
• Involuntary muscle
• Cardiac muscle

           Voluntary muscles: Voluntary muscles are attached to the skeleton and move the bones at joints when the voluntary muscles contract and relax. Our brain sends messages to the muscle through the central nervous system when we consciously decide that we want the muscle to contract. Voluntary muscles allow us to walk, throw a ball, grip a pen, and play the piano, in fact any action where the skeleton is moved.

Voluntary muscles also contract to keep the body stable when we are sitting and standing. The muscles are always in a state of slight tension. This state is called muscle tone.

Involuntary (Smooth) muscle: These muscles are found in the walls of our internal organs. Their contraction is not under our conscious control. We have involuntary muscles in the eyes, diaphragm, intestines, blood vessels, bladder and the stomach. It is sometimes called smooth muscle because it lacks the characteristic stripes that are apparent on the above diagram. It is these muscles which line the walls of veins to push blood back to the heart from the lower body. These muscles line the uterus and are used during childbirth.

Cardiac muscle: This involuntary muscle is found only in the walls of the heart. Cardiac muscle contracts the heart to pump the blood through it. The average heart rate is 72 bpm (beats per minute), but the heart can increase this when extra demands are placed upon it - for example, when we are exercising. It is different from other involuntary muscles in that it contracts rhythmically. When the heart muscles do not contract in rhythm, it results in a condition called arrhythmia. We can tone cardiac muscle through regular exercise.