juttajudith: What is Health & Fitness?

বৃহস্পতিবার, ১৫ নভেম্বর, ২০১২

What is Health & Fitness? | Physioroom Blog

In its constitution the World Health Organisation defines health as, ?a state of complete physical, mental, and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.?

On that definition how many of us could say that we are truly healthy? It could be argued that only top level athletes could claim to have achieved complete physical well being. The rest of us keep working away at our bodies sadly aware that perfection will never be achieved.

Clearly if you are injured and wearing an ankle support you are not healthy. Yet it seems from that definition none of us are fit and healthy. So just what are the components of fitness?

The components of fitness

There are four main components of fitness. They are strength, speed, stamina and flexibility. If you are blessed with all these then you are probably an Olympic athlete. If you have all these and are not an Olympian get on the phone so that you are on the plane to Rio.

exercise Some sport scientists say that there are actually nine components. These are strength, power, agility, balance, flexibility, muscle endurance, cardiovascular endurance, strength endurance and co-ordination.

If you want to improve your fitness you should identify the fitness component that you want to improve and design a training programme that will help you to achieve that aim.

It is important that your training programme is designed in such a way as not to exert too much stress on the body at first. Otherwise you will get injured, need a first aid kit and worst of all put yourself out of action for weeks if not months.

Core exercising

To build up your core strength you could use a Swiss ball. Exercise ball routines make use of core muscles which improves the general condition of your body.

You often hear television pundits talking about an athlete?s core strength. The main components of fitness stem from having stability within the core. The core consists of your abdominal, oblique and lower back muscles.

Your general condition can be improved by simply improving your core muscles. Once you have this basic strength you can than go on to condition the rest of the body and improve your other fitness components.

So using your Swiss ball you should try doing squats, knee tucks and push ups. Also by using a ball you can do all of them all in the privacy of your home. After a while you will be able to show off your super conditioned body.

Normal exercising

Once you are happy that you have built up your core strength you can then do the sort of exercise that you enjoy. Whether you like jogging, swimming, pilates or yoga it does not matter so long as you get out there and keep your body moving.

Exercise is the key to health. We are built to move and just by making that bit of effort we can keep ourselves free from diabetes, high cholesterol and heart disease. That fact alone must make it worth all the effort.