WHAT IS FITNESS?

- fitness can be described as a condition that helps us look, feel, and do our best; it is the
foundation for health and well-being.

Defining Physical Fitness

Physical fitness refers to your body system's capacity to function effectively together to
allow you to be healthy and perform daily living activities. Being physically fit means
completing everyday tasks with the minimum possible effort. A fit person can do school
work, do duties at home, and have enough time to enjoy sports and other leisure activities.
Looking fit does not automatically mean being fit. Given the many aspects of health and
wellness, it is important to see physical fitness from a more holistic perspective. When you
follow your physical fitness program, it's important to remember that health is an individual
attribute that varies from person to person. Age, sex, heredity, lifestyle patterns, exercise,
and eating habits are some of the factors that influence it. There is nothing you can do about
the first three factors, but it's within your control to modify and improve the other factors if
only you desire to.
WHAT IS EXERCISE?

- Planned, structured, repetitive movement of the body designed to improve or maintain

physical fitness.

WHY EXERCISE?

The term hypokinetic describes many of the diseases and conditions associated with inactivity
and poor fitness and first originated in the book Hypokinetic Disease (Kraus & Raab,1961).

Hypokinetic Diseases include:

Obesity
High blood pressure
High cholesterol
Osteoporosis
Osteoarthritis
Lower back pain
Type 2 diabetes mellitus
The Eleven (11) Components of Physical Fitness
It is easier to understand physical fitness by analyzing its components or parts. Health-
related fitness is fitness programs that are prescribed to improve the general health of the
individual. The five components of physical fitness related to health include:
1. Cardiorespiratory endurance
The lungs, heart, and blood vessels capacity to supply the cells with enough quantities of
oxygen to meet the demands of sustained physical exercise.
2. Muscular endurance
The capacity of the muscle to exercise force continuously over time.
3. Muscular strength
The ability of a muscle to exert maximum force against resistance.
4. Body composition
The fat and nonfat components of the human body, are important in assessing
recommended body weight.
5. Flexibility.
The ability of a joint to move freely through its full range of motion.
Health-related fitness standards are the lowest fitness requirements for keeping good health,
reducing the risk of chronic illnesses, and decreasing muscular-skeletal injuries. In contrast,
motor-skill-related fitness are fitness programs that are used to improve athletic ability. Skill-
related fitness components consist of:
1. Agility
The capacity to rapidly and efficiently move and change the body direction and position
while under control.
2. Balance
The power to stand upright or remain in control of body movements, whether stable or
moving.
3. Coordination
The ability to effectively and efficiently control two or more body parts.
4. Power
The capacity to move rapidly across the ground or grab or throw the legs and arms instantly.
5. Reaction time
 The ABILITY to respond rapidly to stimuli.
6. Speed
The capacity to apply full power in as much short time as possible.

EFFECTS OF EXERCISE ON POSTURE

Poor posture is common in both children and adults, which is usually caused by muscular
imbalance. There are many causes of poor posture within a modern lifestyle. These include work
such as desk jobs (which can cause a shortening of the pectorals) and driving (which can lead to
a shortening of the hip flexors), these in turn can affect spinal posture.
Through a combination of stretching and strengthening specific muscle groups postural
abnormalities can be improved. Below are a few exercises that can be completed to improve
some spinal abnormalities, for more detail on these abnormalities refer to the anatomy and
physiology section.
Posture- is the position in which you hold your body in relation to gravity.

PROPER WARM-UP, COOL DOWN AND STRETCHING EXERCISE

PURPOSE OF WARM-UP AND COOL DOWN

When designing an exercise program, it is essential that a specific warm up and cool down are
included. These are often neglected by gym users but have an important role in preparing and
returning the body to a pre-exercise state to reduce the risk of injury.

WARM UP
A warm up is an exercise that gradually builds in intensity at the beginning of a workout. This
prepares muscles, heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature for the forthcoming exercises.
A typical warm up may include cardiovascular exercise with a gradual increase in intensity. This
is often referred to as a pulse raiser. Mobilisation exercises to promote joint movement and pre-
exercise stretching (static, dynamic or ballistic) may also be included.
A warm up is prescribed to raise the body temperature to 39/40 degrees. This small increase in
temperature has many benefits to exercise performance:
1. This heating effect will allow the muscles and tendons to become more extensible. This in turn
will create more supple muscle fibres and enhance stretching.
2. An increase in oxygen and essential nutrients to muscle tissue, which occurs due to an
increase in blood flow through vasodilation.
3. Specific warm ups that mirror the activity about to take place will enhance neural pathways,
which speeds up reaction time.
4. Secretion of synovial fluid helps lubricate joints.
5. Psychological preparation for physical activity/exercise.
The risk of injury can be reduced by about one third and the risk of severe injuries by as much as
a half. (Soligard T, Myklebust G, Steffen K, et al. 2008).

TYPES OF WARM UP
Passive Warm Up – increases body temperature by some external means, for example a bath or
massage, this however is not the most appropriate method to prepare muscles for exercise.
General Warm Up – increases body temperature by using general rhythmical body movements
which use large muscle groups, examples of movements include jogging, cycling and rowing.
Exercise Specific Warm Up – increases body temperature whilst using specific muscle groups
that are going to be used within the exercise following the warm up. For example in football a
warm up would include drills and exercises (turns, jumps and lunges) which replicate the players
movement patterns within a game.

COOL DOWN
The purpose of a cool down is to return the body to a pre-exercise state. This may involve a
cardiovascular cool down lasting 5-10 minutes in which the working intensity is gradually
reduced by reducing the speed and resistance allowing a gradual decrease in temperature, heart
rate and blood pressure, back to resting levels. By gently working the major muscle groups
blood pooling is reduced and the removal of waste products such as lactic acid. A good
indication of when the cool down is complete would be when the participant’s heart rate is
reduced to just above the individuals resting heart rate figure.
Stretching after the cardiovascular cool down could also reduce the effects of DOMS following
exercise. It can help improve flexibility, which will have a positive effect on performance in
physical activities, or decrease risk of injuries by helping joints move through their full range of
motion more effectively.

TYPES OF STRETCHING
For Warm Up (Samson et al 2012)

Static – This form of stretching is when the client holds the stretch to the end of the muscles
movement. There is no movement during this type of stretch. Correct posture should be
maintained during stretches, which are normally held for 8-10 seconds.

Dynamic – These types of stretches are seen to be the best way of preparing for exercise. They
are controlled movements that reflect the exercise about to be performed. 8-10 repetitions of
each movement are normally completed.

Ballistic – These types of stretches involve rapid bouncing movements, which lengthen the
muscle to beyond its normal range with the use of momentum. These are not suitable for exercise
beginners as they can cause muscle damage and muscle soreness. An example of this would be
bouncing to touch your toes in a standing hamstring stretch.

Training
 the condition of being physically fit for the performance of an athletic exercise or contest
 Act or science of bringing one such a condition.

Training Principles
S – Specificity
P – Progression
O – Overload
R – Reversibility
T – Tedium
Specificity – the training must be customized to the needs of the sport to improve fitness in the
affected body parts.

Progression – Start slowly and then gradually increase the amount of exercise you perform,
while maintaining overloading.

Overload – only by training more than usual can fitness be enhanced, you must exert
considerable effort.
1. Increasing the weight used whilst decreasing repetitions
2. Slowing repetitions down during the set
3. Adding another set to the end of the section
4. Decrease the rest periods used

Reversibility – any adaptation that occurs as a result of exercise will be reversed when you cease
training. You will lose fitness if you take a break or do not work out frequently enough

Tedium – an enjoyable form of training

FITT PRINCIPLES

Use the FITT principles to add details to your fitness program planning:

1. FREQUENCY – decide how often you would like to train.

2. INTENSITY – choose how hard you want to work out.
3. TIME – choose how long you will train.
4. TYPE – choose which training techniques to employ.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines physical activity (PA) as any bodily movement
produced by skeletal muscles that involves energy expenditure. It encompasses all bodily
movements, whether for recreation, transporting to and from places, or as part of a person's
choice or career. It can be both moderate and vigorous intensity, which benefits health, quality of
life, and well-being, and lower your risk of getting diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and
diabetes. Walking, biking, skating, dancing, sports, outdoor recreation, and play are all great
options to be physically active that may be done at any skill level by everyone.
Physical Activity and Physical Exercise Differentiated
Physical activity is any movement that requires energy from the muscles. In other - words, it is
any movement made by a person. Physical exercise, on the other hand, is defined as a movement
that is planned, systematic, repetitive, and intentional. It can also be used to develop or maintain
physical fitness.

Four Different Types of Physical Exercise

Physical exercise is classified into four types: endurance, strength, balance, and flexibility.
Each has distinct advantages. Doing one enhances your ability to do the others, and variation
reduces monotony and injury risk. Exercises that improve your strength, flexibility, balance, and
mobility will keep you active, mobile, and feeling good:

Defining Body Composition

• Body composition is a combination of fat and tissues in your body. The body is made up of two
kinds of fat: body fat and storage body fat.
• Your body fat can be found in muscle tissue, under the skin or around the organ.
• Not all of the fats are bad for your body, such as essential body fat, which helps shield internal
organs, stocks fuel for energy and controls important body hormones.
• Storage body fat, also known as lean tissue, includes bone, water, muscle, organ, and tissue.
Lean tissues are "metabolically active, burning calories for energy, while body fat is not." (Scott,
2018)

Importance of Body Composition

Body composition is used in health and fitness to characterize the percentages of fat, bone, and
muscle in human bodies. The body fat percentage is of particular relevance because it can be
quite useful in determining health. Because muscle tissue is thicker than fat tissue, analyzing
one's body fat is vital to evaluate one's overall body composition, especially when making health
recommendations. Because of differences in body composition, two people of the same height
and weight may have distinct health difficulties.

Factors Affecting Body Composition

The following factors can influence your body composition:
(1) age (humans lose muscle mass as they age);
(2) sex (women have more body fat than men);
(3) genes (play a role in whether you are biologically lean or have a tendency to gain fat); and
(4) hormones (can impact on water retention and body composition) Defining Body Fat

BODY MASS INDEX

BMI is a value derived from the mass (weight) and height of a person.
A Word About Calories
A calorie is an energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water through 1 °C, equal
to one thousand small calories, and is often used to measure the energy value of foods ("Calorie -
Oxford Dictionary", 2020). The amount of energy in the foods and beverages you eat and drink
is measured by your calorie intake. Calories are not necessarily bad for you. You only have to
take them in moderation. Your body requires calorie-based sustenance. Consuming too many
calories might lead to health issues and weight gain if you do not burn enough calories through
physical activity.