5 COMPONENTS OF FITNESS
To prepare; make ready. A combination of physical and mental attributes that allow you to:
Meet the demands of everyday life and perform tasks that require ABOVE
Being physically and mentally Fit, decreases the chance of injury or bodily harm. Most importantly it can
improve your quality of life.
There are 5 parts of fitness:
1)Cardiovascular Endurance, 2)Muscular Strength, 3)Muscular Endurance, 4)Flexibility and 5)Body Composition.
C - CARDIOVASCULAR ENDURANCE
The most important part of fitness!!! Having conditioned HEART and LUNGS that can supply
the body with oxygen without stress to the heart. We develop it by doing Aerobic Exercise. Aerobic
Exercise is continuous exercise lasting 2 or more minutes. In order to improve cardiovascular endurance,
aerobic exercise should be performed at least 3 times per week, 15-20 minutes each day. Examples of
aerobic exercise-swimming, running, biking, shoveling snow and raking leaves.
MS - MUSCULAR STRENGTH
The amount of force produced by a muscle. Needed for activities that require above normal effort. Having
poor muscular strength will increase the chance of getting hurt when doing activities that require above normal
effort. To increase your muscular strength, you would perform exercises using heavy weight and do the exercise
3-6 times. The muscles get stronger when they keep working past the point of fatigue (when the muscle
has very little or no energy left). This forces the body to adapt (muscles get used to doing something,
what was hard is now easy for the muscle). Remember it takes time to allow your body to adapt!!
ME - MUSCULAR ENDURANCE
The amount of force produced by a muscle over a period of time. This is also if the muscles are doing
something over and over and over. Muscular endurance is also closely related to cardiovascular endurance. Why?
Because in order to perform aerobic exercise long enough (at least 15 minutes) to benefit the heart and lungs,
you need muscular endurance to be able to exercise continuously for this long. We improve muscular endurance
by using light weight and do the exercise at least 15 times.
F - FLEXIBILITY
The looseness or elasticity of a muscle, which allows the joint to move through a full range of motion.
This is the most neglected part of fitness. Flexibility is affected by: 1.Gender, 2.Age, 3. Size and condition of muscle
(tone v. bound) & 4.Level of activity. Muscles should always be warmed (by cardio) before they are stretched.
Poor flexibility increases risk of injury.
BC - BODY COMPOSITION
The percentage of body fat compared to lean body tissue. Lean body tissue is: muscle, bone, water & organs.
Can be a health problem if body fat percentage is not in the 5-30% range. Scale weight means nothing unless
you know your percent body fat, dont be mislead by height/weight charts-they are inaccurate.
Last Modified on December 7, 2012