What is “Fitness”?
By Brian Tabor, ARC Personal Trainer
Fitness is something most of us chase for one reason or another, either to look better, to perform better, or just to feel better. What exactly are so many people chasing when packing into gyms like the ARC? The answer can really be somewhat subjective. Fitness to a triathlete is very different from that of a powerlifter, bodybuilder, or model and perhaps, even to you. Most fitness professionals base their assessment of a client’s fitness based on five components of fitness or health. These components may or may not necessarily align with your specific goals and perceptions, however. So, deciding how to define fitness for a random group of people may be as challenging as trying to agree on what type of pizza to order.
Components of individual fitness are typically comprised of cardiovascular strength, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and body composition. These measures are fairly standard, but other tests can also be used, including posture, power or even mental state. What you look for in determining your own personal health is going to be subjective based on your thoughts and opinions regarding fitness and health. For the sake of brevity we will focus on the standard five and how they relate to your exercise regimen.
Cardiovascular Strength
Cardiovascular strength refers to how well your heart and circulatory system are able to meet the oxygen demands of your body during rest and exercise. The road and treadmill junkies that pound through running shoes on a monthly basis are usually most concerned with this as a measure of fitness. There are many ways to test your ticker and the results all differ based on the type of testing or estimate you choose. A VO2 Max test is the most common means of assessing cardiovascular strength. It gauges the volume of oxygen your body can consume each minute. This is important because as we exercise and present stress on the body, more oxygen is needed to meet the demands of energy for all the working cells of our body. To test this, you can ask a lab to have you run on a treadmill until you almost face plant, or you can do a less accurate sub maximal test, such as a Rockport 1-mile walk, a 1.5 mile run, or even cycling tests if you have the right equipment. There are other determinants of cardiovascular fitness, such as resting heart rate, blood pressure, and recovery heart after exercise. Which one you choose may depend on how much equipment or help you may have in making the assessment.
Muscular Strength
Muscular strength is probably one of the most tested and popular components of fitness at the ARC. Chest day Mondays always bring out the 1 rep max (1RM) in the weight room as patrons continue to work on beach muscles. 1RM is one of the few practical ways to test muscular strength. It can be performed fairly easily with most compound movements such as squats, deadlifts, and bench press. You first warm up, lift the weight once, and then rest. Then you try to lift some more by making incremental weight increases. There are many protocols for the proper way to perform these tests, but it should always be done with a spotter. . . or sometimes two, if you are a little more gifted than others. Testing muscular strength is a great help in determining appropriate weights to be lifted for progress based on an individual’s goals, whether based on strength, endurance, or just gettin' yoked for the beach. Rather than performing a 1RM, many coaches prefer to use a 2-3 rep max test for improved safety and easier testing.
Muscular Endurance
Testing your muscular endurance is also done quite often, although I doubt many people are counting and writing down the results. You are probably familiar with maximum push up or sit up tests, which are just muscular endurance tests, although you can use almost any exercise you wish. It is a common to see people perform this test as a finisher to the workout; doing as many reps to finish a muscle group off for the day. For a true test, however the exercise should be performed before fatiguing the body. Testing muscular endurance is a helpful marker for improvement in your work capacity and ability to continue working at higher intensities.
Flexibility
The sit and reach test is what most of us did for the presidential fitness exam, and is still one of the most common measures of flexibility. It’s only a measure of flexibility, specific to the hamstrings though. So if you're worried about things other than touching your toes and tying your shoes it may not be a great test. There are, however, several other protocols that can be found all with there own individual merit. I might suggest checking out some of the ARC’s yoga classes if flexibility is a goal of yours.
Body Composition
The look good naked test. This is what most everyone is commonly concerned with. All the health reasons and performance goals tend to go to the back of people’s minds when beach season rolls around. Body composition is the measure of a person’s lean body mass compared to fat mass. The idea behind that flat tummy or washboard abs is all about low body fat percentage. It’s easily and painlessly tested with skinfold measurements or electrical impedance. Most people should shoot to maintain healthy ranges of body fat for their sex and age, so long as it doesn’t become an obsession similar to jumping on the scale everyday.
Goal Setting
When setting goals, it is important to choose measurable goals so that you can account for progress. It helps you to sort out the helpful changes and habits from the less helpful ones when adjusting your exercise program. Start by setting a primary goal and then one or two more that support the primary goal. For example, looking better may be your main goal, so start by assessing your body composition and work on improving a couple of other measures which may support the primary goal, such as muscular endurance, and Cardiovascular strength. If you aren’t making measurable progress, then it’s time to adjust your workouts and probably your lifestyle and eating habits.
Conclusion
None of these measures truly exist in a vacuum, and typically goals don’t either. It’s important that people make an evaluation of what fitness means to them and set goals based on the measureable improvements they wish to make. If you want to improve body composition, you’re likely to make some improvements in other measures in order to achieve a better body composition. Make sure you find someone who can help you to measure and track that progress. Hopefully, taking a look at your goals and progress more regularly will allow you to define fitness as having the ability to perform and feel at a level that satisfies your specific lifestyle. If being a healthier person comes with that, even better!
Shameless Plug
Any one of the personal trainers at the ARC can help you with setting good goals and making assessments of your fitness and progress. It’s an important part of any fitness programming. You can find more information about each trainer and how to contact them here.
Brian Tabor
Brian Tabor is a Certified Personal Trainer at the ARC and has over 6 years of fitness coaching experience. He specializes in strength training, group training, weight loss, body fat reduction, flexibility and lifestyle coaching. Brian is also an Amateur Strongman Competitor and volunteers as an Assistant Strength Coach for the SDSU Athletics Department.
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Last update: 7/7/09
