Fitness

What is fitness exactly?

So almost everyone of us would have come across the term “fitness” for altleast once in
our life span.
This word has been tossed around by many leading brands and atheletes throughout many
years. But what exactly is fitness?
If I ask you that whats the 1st thing that comes to your mind when I place the word
“fitness” infront of you?
If you picture a guy with around 18inches of biceps and washboard abs and a huge stature
with a model like smile, then I would like to say that your perspective towards fitness is
probably wrong. Asthetics is just a part of fitness and not the whole term. The
bodybuilders, physique competitors, or the models you see on different magazines and
videos are actually just focusing on one part of this term fitness.
So what is fitness exactly?
On a simple term fitness is everything, from touching your toes without bending your
knees to climbing a tree, from running across the road to throwing a ball i.e. Anything that
a human body is capable of performing to its extent without breaking itself. To get the
best out of your body abilities is fitness. So what are the abilities of our body? Well for
that lets dive a bit deeper into this term called fitness.
Fitness can basically be divided in two categories, mainly General fitness & Sports
specific fitness.

GENERAL FITNESS

General fitness is a basic form of fitness which every human being should have to be able
to do their day to day work and activity.These are as follows:-

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● Strength– your ability to lift or move things can be considered as your strength.
Strength varies from person to person keeping in consideration other factors such as age, weight, gender. But i consider that if you are able to handle your own bodyweight than you can be considered fit. Their ain’t a fixed rule to calculate it but I feel that if you are able to perform the 3 basic exercises without exerting
much, then you are generally fit, so if you are able to perform 20 squats, 10-15 push-ups and least 2 pull-ups that I feel you are fitter than 60% of the general population, ofcourse I’m not considering the weight or age of person here, but you get the basic idea .
● Endurance– Other important factor for a general fitness is endurance or stamina which we use commonly. Its important to note that endurance is classified in two types i.e. Muscular & and cardiovascular. The amount of time your muscles can keep exerting force can be termed muscular endurance whereas the continuity of doing
an activity without a rest can be considered cardiovascular endurance i.e. Your heart stamina. lets take a quick example; the number of reps you can perform in one

go in pushups can be considered your muscle endurance, wheras you running for a
period of time without a pause can be considered cardiovascular endurance.
● Flexibility– The ability of your muscles to lengthen to its extreme without breaking
the muscle fibres can be considered flexibility. Ofcourse you can increase your
flexibility by practice over a period of time just like your strength and endurance.
● Body composition– One of the important factor which is actually considered to
distinguish between a healthy and non healty person. Body composition is basically
the ratio of fat to muscle in your body. A body fat percentage of 20% and below
can be considered as healty, ofcourse taking the muscle density into consideration.

Sports specific fitness
Once you achieve the basic fitness which is considered important for everyone, you can
also consider to get better and get most out of your body by focusing on your sports
specific factors.
You have to push yourself more in order to achieve this kind of fitness than you needed to
achieve a general fitness. But we all want to get better and keep growing right? So lets
dive into its factors to uderstand what exactly is a sports fitness.
● Power– I know most of y’all would be confused to distinguish between muscle
strength and muscle power, but muscle power is the explosive force the muscle can
create in a short amount of time, basically the most power you can exert to move
the maximum weight you can for a single rep. Sports like competitive power/ weight
lifting and wrestling are best examples for it, ofcourse other athletic sports such
as high jumps or 100m dash even also requires its athletes to use their explosive
strength or power.
● Agility– Many people confuse to distinguish b/w flexibility and agility sometimes,
but they both are completely different. Agility is your reaction time when you are
in motion. For eg. Dodging or catching a ball when thrown at you, or punching
someone quicker than them is basically your agility. Its not a constant speed which
you increase gradually but a quick change of motion when you are following a course
of action. Sports like football, boxing etc requires agility.
● Coordination– Coordination is basically how well you can use your senses and limbs
in a situation, the basic mind to muscle connection can be termed as coordination and it used in almost all kind of sports activity. Without it you cannot even run or walk properly.
● Balance– Ofcourse balance is required for you in your day to day activity. But if we
talk it with consideration with sports, it’s more than just standing or walking,
gymnasts, calisthenics athletes etc. Use balance along with strength to perform
certain kind of movement which feels like defying the laws of gravity.

Once you are able to identify where you stand along this spectrum you’ll be able to
analyze your fitness level and thus, work to elevate your level up. Hope this will help you to
actually identify what actual fitness is and how you should be working out to achieve it.