by What are the 5 points of physical fitness? : Health-related fitness encompasses cardiovascular and muscular endurance, flexibility and your body’s ratio between fat, muscle and bone mass.
Physical fitness has long been recognized as an integral component of good health.
Everybody knows they should get more steps in, lift some weights and limit sitting; but understanding exactly how this relates to health and what being fit means is often confusing.
Here, the five health-related components of physical fitness come into their own. By subdividing fitness into these five areas, dividing fitness can help you more easily design an exercise program to support better overall health.
This article covers everything you need to know about five health-related components of fitness, why they’re necessary, and how they should be integrated into your workout program.
An introduction to physical fitness. An explanation of basic components.
Though being physically active may bring numerous health and lifestyle benefits — like reduced risks of chronic diseases, improved mental wellbeing and an enhanced quality of life — you might still wonder what being physically fit means.
The five health-related components of physical fitness provide an effective roadmap to attain physical fitness and enhance wellbeing. Each element highlights five areas to focus on in your fitness journey for a well-balanced approach to active living.
Health-related fitness encompasses five core areas.
- Cardiovascular endurance refers to your ability to sustain moderate-to-vigorous intensity exercise for extended periods, often years at a time.
- Muscular strength: the force your muscles can exert or the amount of weight they can lift is measured in terms of muscular strength.
- Muscular endurance refers to your muscles’ capacity for exercise over an extended period of time.
- Flexibility: the capacity to move muscles and joints through their full range of motion.
- Body composition refers to your ratio of fat mass vs. nonfat tissue such as muscle and bone mass in your body.
Why are they important?
Exercise provides many health advantages.
Certain benefits can be immediately realized, such as enhanced mood, sleep quality, insulin sensitivity and blood pressure regulation. Meanwhile, others become evident over time, such as increases in muscle mass, strength, flexibility and lung capacity.
Studies have also demonstrated the benefits of physical fitness on health in terms of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, depression and dementia – not to mention certain forms of cancer.
Physical activity can help support healthy aging and extend your active years, such as strength training into late adulthood to preserve lean muscle mass – an indicator of both falls and quality of life.
Maintaining an active lifestyle regardless of age is essential to supporting overall health.
Cardiovascular endurance
Cardiovascular fitness refers to your ability to maintain exercise over an extended period of time and is also known as cardiorespiratory endurance or aerobic fitness.
Cardio fitness allows for longer performance in various activities because your heart and lungs can deliver oxygen and nutrition directly to working muscles.
Examples of activities which develop cardio endurance include walking, jogging, swimming, cycling and other sports requiring continuous motion.
Each week it is recommended that adults should engage in 150-300 minutes of moderate intensity activity or 75-150 minutes of vigorous intensity activity or some combination thereof.
Moderate intensity exercise can last longer, though its exact duration depends on each person and their fitness levels.
One simple way to determine whether you are exercising at moderate intensity is through the talk test. If you can comfortably talk without pausing for breath breaks while talking without singing along to any track or playlist, that indicates moderate intensity; otherwise it indicates vigorous intensity.
What may seem moderate intensity for one individual may be considered vigorous by someone else; thus it’s wise to create goals according to your current fitness levels and meet them accordingly.
If your body becomes fatigued too soon during exercise, reduce either intensity or duration accordingly and build from there. Any increase in cardio exercise will benefit both physically and psychologically – set realistic goals to make sure you reach them successfully!
Muscular strength
Muscular strength refers to the ability of muscles to exert force or lift and move weight. As your muscle strength increases, so does its capacity for lifting heavier loads.
Muscular strength may vary across muscle groups. For instance, your glutes and quads might be strong while your biceps may be less developed.
To develop comprehensive muscular strength, it is vital that strength training be incorporated into daily lifestyle. Training all major muscle groups (legs, arms, core, shoulders back and hips) should take priority for optimal results.
As an indicator of muscular strength, one-rep max testing is an ideal way to assess your muscles. Simply lift as much as you can within one rep (in pounds or kilograms).
Your one-rep max may not be the only indicator of strength improvement; progressive overload — defined as gradually increasing weight, volume, training frequency or intensity over time — is also an excellent way to assess progress.
As well as strengthening, you may also aim for muscle hypertrophy – or building mass. To do this, aim for 8-12 reps per set; once you can easily complete 12 reps without much difficulty, increase weights as this indicates progress and growth in strength.
If your goal is to increase your one-rep max, focus on your maximal muscular strength by engaging in exercises utilizing heavy weights with low repetitions — usually 2-6. Be sure to practice proper form to minimize risk of injury.
Add strength training at least 2-3 times each week into your workout program for optimal results.
Muscular endurance
Strength is measured in terms of how much you can lift or move; endurance refers to how long the muscles can last through an activity.
As well as strengthening, ensure to include muscle endurance activities into your training schedule, such as:
Weight Training. Instead of opting for low repetition ranges, try lifting lighter weights at higher repetition counts – 20 or more reps until your muscles fatigue out.
Isometric exercise involves holding one position for an extended period, for instance holding a plank for as long as possible.
Longer duration training. Engaging your muscles over long durations – like cycling, running, swimming or stair climbing – relies heavily on muscular endurance for success. The more often you train, the longer your muscles can endure before reaching fatigue.
Those seeking to increase general endurance should focus on low-intensity bodyweight exercises as an entryway into fitness. Pilates, yoga, stair climbing and long distance activities such as running can be excellent places to begin their efforts.
If you want to increase your athletic performance, consider including higher rep strength training and sport-specific exercises to boost muscular endurance.
Flexibility
Flexibility can be defined as the range of motion of joints without pain or difficulty, which allows a range of movement within their respective range of motion.
Flexibility is crucial to day-to-day living. Being adaptable makes life simpler by helping maintain balance, reach for top shelf in a cupboard or pick something off the ground more easily.
gymnastics, dance and martial arts require greater mobility than others.
Stretching has long been recognized for its potential to reduce pain and injury risk; it also can increase flexibility, increasing performance in activities that call for greater pliancy.
Stretching should always be performed gently to minimise injury risks, so take great care not to stretch past what feels comfortable – avoid reaching levels that cause extreme discomfort or pain! Aim for at least 2-3 stretching activities every week.
To increase flexibility, there are three forms of stretching to consider. These are:
Static stretching
Stretch and hold muscles for 10-30 seconds before stretching again.
By stretching this way, your brain relaxes the muscles supporting your joints.
While stretching is beneficial for flexibility, too much stretching could increase the risk of joint injuries during high intensity sports activities like weight training. Therefore, this form of stretching should generally only be practiced at the end of a workout routine or workout class as part of its cool down phase.
Dynamic, or active, stretching
These exercises involve active movement designed to move muscles and joints through their full range of motion.
Stretching can either be part of a warm-up routine or done independently during breaks in work settings such as stretching breaks.
Examples include shoulder rotations, leg swings, walking lunges and trunk twists.
Dynamic exercises
These include exercises which elongate and stretch muscles during movement, such as pilates, yoga, tai chi or barre.
Dynamic stretching differs from static stretching in that muscles aren’t held still for an extended period, instead moving more dynamically through various positions in order to prepare muscles needed for exercise in an upcoming workout session. Its aim is simply awakening them up!
Dynamic stretching should always be part of a warmup routine before both endurance and strength training to prepare the body for movement.
Exercise that utilize dynamic movement include cycling, running and swimming – as well as sports such as basketball, soccer and volleyball.
Body composition
Body composition is the last health-related component of fitness. It measures the ratio between fat mass and non-fatty mass.
Body fat is essential for human health; however, having too much of it around the abdomen has been linked with worse health and an increased risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain forms of cancer.
Increased muscle and bone mass has been associated with improved health outcomes and lower risks of chronic diseases.
As everyone’s health varies, these parameters will help you assess and understand your individual body composition.
Waist Circumference. Women with waist circumferences that surpass 35 inches (85.2 cm), or 40 inches (101.6 cm) in men, indicate greater abdominal fat deposits that increase risk for chronic diseases such as cardiovascular issues.
Waist-to-hip ratio. Women who have a Waist-to-Hip Ratio greater than 0.80 are at greater risk for chronic diseases than men with ratios over 0.95, leading them to consider changes to their waist sizes as an indicator.
Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA). Bioelectrical impedance analysis is an easy but less accurate way to measure body fat percentage. You may find machines dedicated to this analysis at gyms or you can buy at-home scales that measure this way.
Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry (DEXA). When performed in clinical settings, DEXA measures bone mineral density, muscle mass and fat mass. While it provides more accurate insights into your body composition than other tests available today, DEXA remains less accessible and may cost more.
Hydrostatic underwater weighing. This technique measures your weight on land before again under water with an underwater scale. This process is typically reserved for research settings.
Air Displacement Plethysmography (ADP), commonly referred to as BodPod, can measure your total weight, fat mass and muscle mass quickly and painlessly in specialty clinics. Hydrostatic underwater weighers require far more expertise. By contrast, Air Displacement Plethysmography or BodPod testing offers much easier measurements.
Understanding the 5 components of Physical Fitness in Details
Before beginning an exercise routine, be sure to seek advice from your physician first on which exercises would be most suitable for you. Next, set an action plan in motion so you spend less time watching television/computer and more time exercising; starting small like parking in the farthest corner of your parking lot at work; taking stairs instead of an elevator when possible, walking your pet more regularly or riding stationary bikes will gradually help make you feel better over time.
5 Components of Physical Fitness
Physical fitness assessments often utilize five components to accurately gauge our level of overall physical fitness in schools, health clubs and fitness centres. These five factors comprise total fitness:
- Cardiovascular Endurance
- Muscular Strength
- Muscular endurance
- Flexibility
- Body Composition
Cardiovascular endurance refers to the heart and lungs’ ability to work as one unit to supply adequate oxygen and fuel to sustained workloads, such as running, cycling or swimming. A Cooper Run test is often employed as a means to gauge this criterion of cardiovascular fitness.
Muscular strength refers to the amount of force produced by muscles. Common methods to assess it include bench presses, leg presses or bicep curl tests – most frequently being the push-up test itself.
Muscular endurance refers to the ability of muscles to work continuously without fatigue, such as with cycling, step machines or elliptical machines. A sit-up test is frequently employed as a means of testing this strength of muscular endurance.
Flexibility refers to each joint’s ability to move through its available range of motion; examples would include stretching individual muscles or performing certain functional movements like lunging. Sit and reach tests are most frequently employed to gauge flexibility.
Body composition refers to the ratio between fat mass, lean muscle mass, bone and organ mass and water volume in your body. You can assess this using underwater weighing, Skinfold readings or bioelectrical impedance measurements – of these methods underwater weighing is widely considered the “gold standard”, yet due to size and cost issues only few locations offer it as an option for body fat measurement.
