There are five components to physical fitness, and whether you’re an athlete, a regular gym goer, or planning to exercise at home once a week, you need to know these if you want to reach peak health, fitness, and performance.
We know that the many benefits of exercise include improved cardiovascular health, stronger bones, joints and muscles, and a reduced risk of chronic and age-related diseases. But fitness isn’t just about lifting heavy weights or repeating burpees.
The five components of fitness form the guidelines for physical activity. American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and help anyone, athlete or not, create a fitness program that will help them achieve their health goals. Here’s what you need to know.
What are the 5 components of fitness?
There are five areas of physical fitness to consider when creating a well-rounded fitness program:
- muscular endurance
- Force
- cardiovascular
- Flexibility
- body composition
muscular endurance
Muscular endurance refers to the ability of your muscles to continue working against resistance. Examples of muscular endurance include long-distance running or cycling. Training to increase muscular endurance should improve your muscles’ ability to contract for longer periods of time; This is essential for sports like CrossFit or endurance racing.
But not all endurance training requires your muscles to be shorter or longer, because isometric exercise refers to static exercise that keeps the muscles under tension without moving, such as a squat pose or plank. This means you can improve muscular endurance through static loading and endurance training.
Endurance training is a useful tool for everyone, but how much of a priority you give it depends on your goals. If you’re training for competitions like the Hyrox or CrossFit games, this will be an integral part of your training regime. Otherwise, you can build muscular endurance that will help you perform daily activities like grocery shopping or playing with your kids.
High-repetition exercises using low weight ranges help develop muscular endurance, and circuit training using a mix of strength exercises, intervals and cardio.
cardiovascular
Cardiovascular Fitness refers to your Aerobic Fitness, which means How Efficiently Your Heart and Lungs Work “With Oxygen.” This also means how well your body transports oxygen and nutrients throughout the body to be used before, during and after exercise. Running, Walking, and Activities That Increase Your Heart Rate Will Help You Improve Your Cardiovascular Fitness and Reduce Your Risk of Developing Chronic Diseases Like Diabetes and Heart Disease.
Available WHO guidelines Adults are recommended to perform at least 150-300 minutes of Moderate Physical Activity or 75-150 minutes of Vigorous Physical Activity per week. If you want, you can achieve this as you wish by going for a walk every day.
Here are the best treadmills for home workouts and 5 cardio exercises that burn more calories than running if you like to mix things up.
muscle strength
Muscular strength refers to the maximum output ability of your muscles, known as your one-repetition maximum, and is specific to the muscle group you are training. For example, if you’re doing a strong deadlift at one rep max, that doesn’t mean your shoulders are the strongest either.
If you enjoy powerlifting and strength training, your muscular strength abilities will be important to you, but even basic levels of muscular strength are crucial to performing daily activities. As you get older, you run the risk of muscle atrophy and weaker bones and joints. Performing calisthenics (bodyweight training) or weight-bearing exercises, such as lifting heavy weights, several times a week can help preserve muscle mass and increase strength.
Learn the difference between hypertrophy and strength training to improve muscle strength and how to program for both. Aim to lift heavier weights for fewer reps and higher sets, and train a few times a week; Target each major muscle group using the best adjustable dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells or resistance bands. As you get stronger, use progressive overload to gradually increase weight ranges, overall volume, or intensity.
Flexibility
Increasing flexibility will help you develop a better movement range and make it easier to move (for example, touching your toes or reaching an object on the shelf). Limited flexibility may be a sign of the muscles over -operating or weakening, and often leads to injury. When this happens, your body reacts to protection mode and stretching the muscles. Regular stretching routines help to relax the muscles and to improve the openness of motion, posture and exercise form.
Dynamic stretches like hip circles are known as mobility exercises and help warm up your muscles and joints through a variety of movements. These are best done before training; whereas static stretching helps relax tired muscles after a workout. Tea research Whether stretching actually works is debated, but when practiced regularly, most people notice improvements in flexibility and delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), and assisted PNF stretching has been shown in studies to improve range of motion immediately afterward.
Feeling tight? Try the 10 best hamstring exercises for your lower body and explore the benefits of yoga and pilates a few times a week to see what works best for you. You can integrate a standalone session or choose a few exercises you enjoy and add them as part of a warm-up or cool-down if you’re short on time.
body composition
The last component is all about your body type. Specifically, your composition of lean muscle tissue, bone, and fat mass. Too much visceral fat (a type of fat found around the stomach and organs) can increase your chances of chronic health problems such as diabetes and some cancers.
The best smart scales are equipped to give you body composition advice, but we recommend learning how to calculate your body fat percentage and why it’s important. At Tom’s Guide, we do not recommend counting calories; Therefore, if your goal is to improve body composition, we recommend careful fat loss and increasing lean muscle mass sustainably over time.
This includes considering the four components above, maintaining a healthy, balanced diet, and paying attention to factors such as stress management and sleep. Remember that what works for others may not work for you; so always create a training and diet plan that suits your biology, lifestyle and needs.
