Fitness and Health Overview

Fitness and Health

• Fitness is the ability to meet environmental demands and perform daily tasks effectively while maintaining physical, mental, and social well-being.
• Physical fitness is a set of attributes or characteristics related to an individual's ability to perform physical activity.
• Physical fitness involves both general fitness (a state of health and well-being) and specific fitness (a task-oriented definition based on performing specific aspects of sports or occupations).
• Physical fitness is achieved through exercise, correct nutrition, and enough rest.
• Physical fitness is a measure of the body's ability to function efficiently in work and leisure activities, be healthy, resist hypokinetic diseases, and survive in emergency situations.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will define physical fitness by the end of the session.
• Students will describe the components of physical fitness.
• Students will identify the physiological, health-related, and skill-related aspects of fitness.

Components of Physical Fitness

• Subheadings: Physiological, Health Related, Skill Related, Sports.
• Physiological aspects listed include metabolic, morphological, and bone integrity aspects.
• Health-related aspects listed include body composition, cardiovascular fitness, flexibility, muscular endurance, and muscle strength.
• Skill-related aspects listed include agility, balance, coordination, power, speed, and reaction time.
• Examples of sports include team sports and individual sports.

Health Related Aspects: Cardiorespiratory Fitness

• Cardiorespiratory fitness is achieved through aerobic exercise.
• It refers to the circulatory and respiratory systems supplying oxygen to skeletal muscles during sustained physical activity.
• Regular exercise increases the heart muscle and stroke volume and increases the number of small arteries in skeletal muscles delivering blood to working muscles.
• Benefits of aerobic exercise include improved stamina, endurance, energy, and sleep.
• Aerobic exercise can reduce heart disease, lung cancer, type 2 diabetes, and stroke risk in average individuals

Health Related Aspects: Flexibility

• Flexibility is the maximum range of motion at a joint.
• Better range of motion in some joints than others.
• Can prevent muscle injuries and improve low-back pain.
• Reduced flexibility can lead to pain syndromes and balance disorders.
• Flexibility can be improved through static stretching and contract-relax techniques.

Health Related Aspects: Endurance

• Endurance refers to the body's ability to sustain physical activity for a long period.
• This can be high-intensity anaerobic exercise (minutes) or low-intensity aerobic exercise (hours).
• Endurance consists of cardiovascular and muscular endurance components.

Health Related Aspects: Muscular Endurance

• Used in both aerobic and anaerobic exercises.
• Glucose + oxygen = CO2 + H2O + energy, during aerobic exercise.
• Muscle glycogenolysis and rates of carbohydrate oxidation are influenced by exercise intensity, duration, training, and substrate availability.

Health Related Aspects: Muscular Strength

• Strength training involves using resistance to muscular contractions to increase skeletal muscle strength.
• Strength training achieves these results through the use of gravity, elastic, or hydraulic forces.
• Benefits of strength training include increased bone, muscle, tendon, and ligament strength; bone density improvement; improved joint function; reduced injury potential; increased metabolism; and improved cardiac function with higher HDL cholesterol.

Health Related Aspects: Agility

• Agility is the efficiency of changing body position.
• It involves a rapid whole-body movement with a change in velocity and/or direction in response to a stimulus.
• Agility needs the integration of isolated movement skills like balance, speed, coordination, reflexes, strength, endurance, and energy.

Health Related Aspects: Coordination

• Motor coordination is a combination of movements resulting in intended actions.
• Movements usually work together smoothly and efficiently.
• Motor coordination occurs between different parts of a movement or between movements of limbs.
• Coordination allows complex actions to be achieved from smaller actions.

Health related Aspects: Power

• Power is a combination of strength and speed.
• It is the ability to perform strength quickly.
• Power is important for getting a good start in short races (power=strength x speed).

Health related Aspects: Speed

• Speed is the ability to perform a movement or cover a distance in a short time.
• Factors that can influence speed are leg speed, arm speed, the ability to throw fast and hit thrown balls accurately.

Health Related Aspects: Reaction Time

• Reaction time is the time it takes to move after recognizing the need to act.
• People with good reaction times can perform fast starts in track and field or swimming, or produce sudden attacks in fencing, sword fighting, or karate.

BMI (Body Mass Index)

• BMI is a numerical value derived from a person's weight and height.
• BMI is used as a screening tool to categorize individuals based on their body fat levels and associated health risks.
• Formula: BMI = Weight (kg) / Height (m)²
• Weight is measured in kilograms (kg).
• Height is measured in meters (m).
• BMI Categories (WHO Standards) include underweight (BMI < 18.5), normal weight (BMI 18.5-24.9), overweight (BMI 25-29.9), and obesity (BMI ≥ 30)

Importance of Weight and BMI in Physical Fitness

• Weight and BMI indicate overall health by identifying obesity or underweight conditions linked to chronic diseases (diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases).
• Guides fitness goals by providing a baseline and tracking progress towards weight loss, maintenance, or muscle gain.
• Excessive weight reduces agility, endurance, and speed, while being underweight reduces strength and stamina.

Strategies for Sustainable Weight Loss

• Focus on small, sustainable changes: gradually replace unhealthy snacks with nutritious options and reduce portion sizes instead of eliminating favorite foods.
• Adopt a balanced diet: include a mix of proteins, healthy fats, carbohydrates, and fiber; avoid extreme diets.
• Practice mindful eating: eat slowly, focus on hunger and fullness cues, and avoid distractions during meals.
• Plan and prepare meals: cook meals at home to control ingredients and portion sizes; batch prepare meals.
• Stay physically active: combine aerobic exercise (e.g., walking, cycling) with strength training; incorporate enjoyable activities to stay motivated.