What is Fitness?
Is fitness about building a muscular physique, shredding some weight on a weight scale or reducing inches in body measurements?
Some of us may have a good muscular physique and lift a decent amount of weight, some of us may be good runners and run at a good pace and some of us might have good flexibility. But we cannot consider them to be fit. Fitness is a hugely misunderstood concept that comprises more than just a physical appearance; each individual has his own way of defining it. To understand fitness, first of all we need to understand that it is not just about one facet. It comprises of five facets, which are collectively referred to as the components of fitness. Like a house that requires strong pillars to stand, these five components form the foundation of fitness. We need to improve all these five components of fitness to achieve a state of true fitness.
Every individual needs to understand that whichever category they belong to housewife, businessman, corporate executive, athlete, teenager or senior citizen, one should design their exercise programme in such a way that it includes a specific group of exercises for all the components of fitness. As human beings, we all have the same physiology. Therefore we need to work out in a way where our exercise programme helps us to improve all these components of fitness. An improved performance in all five aspects of fitness leads to an enhanced quality of life and that should be the universal fitness goal for all.
We need to avoid thinking that the form of exercise that he/she enjoys or loves to perform can give us a fitter life. Getting older by age creates many problems in the human body, some of them through degeneration (which is accelerated due to disuse) which reduces the performance of humans in all five aspects. Hence the only anti-ageing tactic is to place equal insistence on all the aspects of fitness.
An athlete regardless of any sport like marathon running, cricket, football, power-lifting, swimming, gymnastics, squash, boxing etc. needs to improve all five aspects of fitness to succeed in improving the performance of their respective sport.
Meanwhile, a housewife has a lot of day-to-day chores (work), which is related to lifting heavy materials like vegetable baskets or a cylinder and moving thousands of steps inside the house for housework, all these activities need a proper balance of all five components of fitness.
Conclusion
One can achieve fitness by understanding the components of fitness and improving them. A well-balanced fitness programme works to improve all the components of fitness and helps an individual to improve their lifestyle.
