What are the Five Areas of Fitness
The five areas of fitness are:
1. Muscular Endurance
2. Muscular Strength
3. Flexibility
4. Cardiorespiratory Fitness
4. Body Composition
Muscular Endurance concerns the length of time muscles can work before they hit the failing point. The failing point is where the muscles can no longer respond to commands, which actually is a good thing, because for muscle to gain mass, they need direct stimulation, such as weight lifting, for the body to synthesis more protein necessary to repair and replace muscle cells. So, finding the amount of exercise necessary to build muscular endurance is to work the muscle up until their failing point. Another way to look at it is, the more endurance the muscles exhibit, the longer the muscle will work before they reach a point of failure.
Muscular Strength is almost self explanatory. Muscular strength refers to how much resistance the muscles can push against. The more the resistance, the more weight the muscles are able to lift or hold. Resistance can come from weight machines, dumbbells, cinder blocks, elastic tubing (or bands), cans of food, even your own body weight as in push-ups or pull-ups. Basically anything the will force muscles to contract.
Flexibility in the body is the range of motion the muscles, joints and ligaments flexibility. Warming up before exercising and cooling down after exercising should involve stretching, which not only helps warm-up the muscles, it helps elongate them. This in turn helps prevent any injuries during exercise. Cooling down and stretching after a workout, not only helps with removing any built-up lactic acid formed in the muscles, it also reduces soreness felt the next day.
Cardiorespiratory fitness concerns the fitness level of the heart and lungs during aerobic exercise. Cardiorespiratory is the bodies component that is the most worked during a workout. Exercise that makes the heart beat faster is considered Cardiorespiratory. Swimming, running, and jumping are the main exercises that get the heart rate pumping at a quicker rate faster than any other exercise. It’s not good to slowly build up cardiorespiratory, meaning doing the same routine over and over again. Research has shown training the heart to rapidly increase and decrease in rate helps the heart deal with stress. The body won’t learn how to handle rapid changes in blood pressure or heart rate by endurance training alone. A burst of energy used in exertion, helps the body improve its response to stimulus received during exercise.
Finally, Body Composition, which is the body fat percentage or BMI. The rule of thumb is that being thin does not mean there is enough lean muscle mass. Losing weight and losing excess body fat are not the same thing. Body composition is the relationship between lean mass, which is all non-fat tissues, to fat mass. Bodies are composed of two primary tissues, fat mass and lean muscle mass. It’s wise to want the body to be composed of more lean muscle mass than fat mass.
The five areas of fitness all need to be taken into consideration, because a truly fit body is an entire body event and not just one factor for optimal fitness.
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