The first thing that comes to most of our minds when we hear the term “fitness”, would be a gym. Of course, gym is the place where we could get fit. But, the gym isn’t the only place where we could do that.
Fitness can be achieved in any way like CrossFit, strength training, yoga, Zumba, and so on. These are mainly focused on fitness.
However, playing a sport is a great workout for the body and mind as it improves breathing and works on the muscles while allowing your mind to focus on the sport. It drastically improves your endurance, strength, stamina and helps build lean muscles. For some people, it is more engaging and exciting than going to the gym.
5 components make up total fitness in a human body.
1. Cardiovascular Endurance
2. Muscular Strength
3. Muscular Endurance
4. Flexibility
5. Body Composition
Total fitness can be defined by how well the body performs in each component of physical fitness as a whole. This includes how well you can handle running a mile, flexibility, and the list goes on. But, if you train on these components consistently, you’ll eventually get fit.
1. Cardiovascular Endurance
Cardiovascular endurance is your body’s ability to keep up with exercise for extended periods.
- The Cooper Run – running as far as possible in 12 minutes and
- The Step Test – stepping on and off the box for three minutes. Step up with one foot and then the other. Step down with one foot followed by the other foot.
Both tests provide accurate measures of a subject’s cardiovascular endurance. But, the Step test is the majorly used test around the globe.
Cycling, swimming, aerobics, rowing, stair climbing, and hiking are some of the sports that keep your heart pumping to make it stronger.
2. Muscular Strength
Muscular strength is the amount of force a muscle can produce to move an object. Examples would be the bench press, leg press, or bicep curl. Push up test is the most popular test used by trainers to measure one’s muscular strength.
Wrestling, Boxing, Rugby, and Martial Arts are some of the sports that improve muscular strength.
3. Muscular endurance
The greater your muscular endurance the higher number of repetitions you could complete. Muscular endurance is the ability of a muscle or group of muscles to perform repetitive contractions against a force for an extended time.
Swimming, running, cycling and other sports that include similar activities that involve repetitive motion over a longer period improve muscular endurance.
4. Flexibility
Flexibility is one of the most important, yet often overlooked components of physical fitness. Without flexibility, the muscles and joints would grow stiff and their movements will be limited.
Flexibility training ensures that your body can move through its entire range of motion without pain or stiffness. For beginners, test your flexibility by touching your toes.
Gymnastics, Diving, Figure Skating, and Wrestling are some of the sports that improve muscular strength.
5. Body Composition
Body composition is the amount of fat mass compared to lean muscle mass, bones, and organs. This can be measured using skin fold readings and bio electrical Impedance.
Measuring one’s fat mass could help in many ways from fixing their diet with the right food to training them on workouts that are concentrated to reduce fat located in a particular part of the body.
Wrestling, Long Jump, MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), Tennis/Squash are some sports that keep your body composition in the right ratio.Training in all these 5 components makes you fit and this can be achieved in any way. It doesn’t have to be through workouts. It could also be through sports, yoga, aerobics, and anything that pushes your bar in these 5 fitness components.
