Introduction:
I sit down to write this blog, days after writing a blog looking at the link between Adlerian psychology and endurance. Coming from this esoteric topic, I must admit my mind is still in a state of philosophical contemplation , so I am personifying fitness through my own philosophical and psychological lens. From this view I sit squarely in the ‘no man zone’ of my own personal fitness. I consider this place to be the equivalent of the exact center of a temperature gauge on an old school car (image below). It can be said that my fitness is operating in a perfectly functional state of homeostasis. I am neither sliding into an irreparable bad state where the whole cast of biggest loser and home rescue call me dead on arrival. Nor am so fit that I am gracing the cover of men’s health or vying for Olympic selection in four different sports. As the gauge states, I am in a running state.
So as we move forward with this blog it is the gauge above that I want you to constantly refocus on. In fact, this image is so important it is the only picture I will put on this blog post. The good thing about this, I will keep it short. As you read through all the aspects which makes you a fitter version of yourself, try to image you never leave the green zone. You always want to take every element of the aspects of fitness and place your needle a nanometre away from the hot zone. As soon as you enter the hot zone, you will cook yourself. You also don’t want to slip into the white cold zone. Enter this zone and you will become comfortable! Once you become comfortable your mind and body will try and keep you there. In my opinion the most critical part of fitness is feathering that gauge to be on the front edge of the green in every single aspect of the following steps of fitness. So without any further ado allow me to talk about fitness.
Defining Physical Fitness:
What is a blog without a definition? We need to know that physical fitness is the ability of the body and mind to carry out chosen activities with the highest level of performance in a given condition. Needless to say that this performance is relative to the person performing the activity. Phelps showing his fitness over 200m freestyle is different than Edward Simpson swimming the 200m freestyle at the under 11’s regional championships. Fitness involves a combination of several components that collectively contributes to your improved health and performance. These components can be broadly grouped under the heading of health-related fitness.
Health-Related Fitness Components:
The first aspect of health related fitness is cardiorespiratory endurance. This component relates to the efficiency of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems to deliver oxygen and nutrients to tissues during sustained physical activity. Think Forest Gump running across America - Long Slow Distance – is the catch cry.
What is the point of having a great set of lungs matched to a high performance heart if you haven’t got any muscular strength. Muscular strength refers to the amount of force a muscle or group of muscles can exert. Think how all those deadlifts helped you to flatten that hill in your last race. Hit the gym to enhance performance with resistance training and weightlifting.
Let’s now add some muscular endurance to your muscular strength. This muscular endurance allows your strong muscles, from the last step to exert force repeatedly over an extended period. If one rep max gives you your peaks strength then high-repetition weightlifting or bodyweight exercises gives you muscular endurance.
I can actually see you all visualizing Arnold Swaggernager waddling sideways through doors. His bulging lats and biceps making it near impossible to get a cup of tea to his lips. Obviously muscular strength and endurance is nothing without flexibility. Think of flexibility as your ability to move the joint through the full range of motion. Engaging in stretching exercises, yoga, or Pilates can enhance flexibility, so you can get all that muscular strength and endurance to move you further and faster.
Finally you need to dial in your diet so you can match your body composition to your fitness activity of choice. You want to be able to maximise the ideal sport specific proportion of body fat relative to lean body mass. Maintaining this healthy body composition is crucial for overall well-being and performance in your individual sport. Every sport is different and every person within that sport is also different. So I highly recommend a sport specific dietician so you can work out the balance.
In term of my own journey through these health-related fitness components I have always struggled with diet and gym work. There is a tendency for us to embrace what we love to do. For me that has always been endurance activities. Running, riding and swimming long is my drug of choice. I became and continue to be averagely fit as a result of this. I pushed into the red zone for every cardio session and remained in the white comfort zone for my gym and diet work. This enabled me to sit dead in the centre of my fitness performance dial. Neither getting worse nor getting better. I was and continue to be in a slump. To escape from your own slump, you need to be on the edge of the green for all five of these components to maximise your performance gains. And unfortunately, this takes the sixth and most important element of fitness, which is mental fitness. Which is a blog for another time.
Thanks for reading.