Physical Fitness

- the ability to carry out daily tasks (work and play) with vigor and alertness, without undue fatigue and with ample energy to enjoy
leisure-time pursuits and to meet unforeseen emergencies.
- a set of attributes that are either health- or skill-related.

A physically fit person is free from disease and can move and perform efficiently. Neither good health nor physical proficiency alone constitutes
physical fitness which combines both qualities.

Fitness – is defined as a condition in which an individual has enough energy to avoid fatigue and enjoy life.

Health related fitness

- Is theoretically defined as a multidimensional construct containing the components cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength,
muscular endurance, flexibility and body composition.

The main aims of health-related fitness testing:

1. Educating clients about their present health-related fitness status in relationship to standard age and sex- matched normative values
2. Providing data that are helpful for making clinical decision while prescribing exercises to address all fitness components
3. Collecting baseline and follow up data that allow evaluation of progress by exercise program participants
4. Motivating participants by establishing SMART goals
5. Stratifying cardiovascular risk

Health Related Components of Physical Fitness:

Cardiovascular Endurance

- It is the ability of the heart to provide oxygen to muscles during physical activity for a prolonged period.
- body’s ability to perform aerobic exercise for an extended period.
- It relies on the heart, lungs, and blood vessels to work in unison to ensure the proper transportation of oxygen and nutrients to tissues
within the body, as well as removing metabolic waste.
- By strengthening the function of your cardiovascular/circulatory system through regular exercise, you can significantly improve your
cardio endurance, therefore your ability to perform long duration and high intensity exercise.

- How to test cardiovascular endurance?

Three-minute step test - one of the quickest ways of testing this component of fitness.
Measure your pulse beforehand (1 minute)
Set the metronome to 96 and follow the beat
Use the bench to step up and down consistently within the time frame
Count your pulse afterwards (1 minute)
Measure how long it takes for your heart rate to return from this rate to normal, then record the difference

Benefits of Cardiovascular Endurance training:

1. Strengthens heart muscle

2. Increases lung capacity
3. Regulates blood pressure
4. Reduces stress/enhances mood
5. Lowers unhealthy cholesterol
6. Aids sleep
7. Prevents obesity (gives the metabolism a boost)

Exercises to improve cardiovascular endurance:

1. Jogging – is a great option for those looking to work on this component of fitness, especially as it can be done either outside or on
a treadmill/elliptical trainer.
2. Cycling
3. Active sports – any sport that requires you to get active is good for building cardio endurance, not only physically but mentally
(e.g., Football, Rugby, Hockey, Basketball, Surfing, Kayaking)

Muscular Strength

- refers to the maximum amount of force a muscle can be produced with a single maximal effort.
- how long your muscles can work for without fatiguing, while muscular strength is all about how much force your muscles can exert in
one blow.
 - Testing the muscular strength relies heavily on which muscle group you want to test the strength of.

- How to test muscle strength?

- Select the muscles/muscle group that you wish to test the strength of
- Choose a weight or resistance that you can use multiple times before fatigue (for 7-10 reps)
- Work to exhaustion (you can’t perform any more reps)
- Record how many reps you reached, and the weight used
- Use the results to estimate your 1RM (one repetition maximum)

Health benefits of muscular strength training:

1. Builds and maintains muscle mass as you age

2. Boosts mood and energy levels
3. Aids bone health
4. Burns excess calories (improves metabolic rate)
5. Shreds excess fat stores Improves other components of fitness (Cardiovascular endurance, coordination, and balance)

Muscular Strength Training Exercise:

1. Modified push-up
2. Abdominal crunch – these targets your back and core to promote stability and good posture.
3. Squats

Muscular Endurance

- the muscle’s ability to complete a movement repetitively in a certain period without fatigue.
- refers to the fatigue resisting ability of skeletal muscles when they are contracted using less than the maximal force for an extended
time period.
- It measures how long a muscle can tolerate a high amount of repetitions.

- How to test muscular endurance?

Warm-up before hand
Start in a standard push-up position with your hands shoulder-width apart
Ensure your arms are at around 90 degrees at the bottom of the push-up
Perform as many as you can without fatiguing or breaking form
Record your total amount of push-ups and compare them to the average amount for your gender and age!

Benefits of Muscular Endurance Training:

1. Reduces the risk of injury in sports and everyday life

2. Boosts performance in sports, weight training, everyday activities.
3. Prevents obesity and excess fat storage
4. Improves mood and self-confidence
5. Strengthens muscles and bone sin the long run
6. Prevents muscular decline as you age.

Exercises for muscular endurance:

1. Modified push-up
2. Planks – will improve endurance of your glutes, back, shoulders, hamstrings, and abs,
3. Push-up – target many muscles in the body, being a total body exercise.

Flexibility

- is defined as the range of motions of joints or the ability of joints to move freely.
- ability to move rather than how it looks and performs and is often trained by stretching.

- How to test your flexibility?

Sit and Reach Test - Most common way to test flexibility. You need a “sit and reach box”, or a ruler and a wooden box or
bench
Flixibility exercises
- can be used both pre and post workout to stretch your connective tissues and lengthen them with regular practice.
 - this boosts the range of motion and ability to perform other exercises.

Exercises to Improve your Flexibility:

1. Dynamic Warm-ups
- Lunges, Toe Touches, Bridges, Hip Flexor Stretches
- They target specific muscle groups and joints over time to loosen up and move more freely.
2. Yoga
- Super effective yet low-impact method of improving your flexibility.
3. Dancing
- Movements involve lengthening your joints and muscle tissues with regular practice.
- It is one of the quickest and easiest methods, and for some the most enjoyable.

Long Term benefits of Flexibility Training:

1. Increases athletic performance due to growing range of motion.

2. Reduces the change of injury during physical activity
3. Eases muscle aches, pains, and cramps
4. Improves balance and posture
5. Quickens recovering after exercising (improves blood flow)

Body composition

- is used to describe the percentage of fat, bone, water, and muscle in the human body.
- refers to the amount of body fat mass that you’re storing in comparison to fat-free mass, which is made up of organs, muscles, bone
etc.
- It’s a well-known fact that a lower body fat mass to muscle mass ratio is better for your health and will ultimately make your body
appear leaner and healthier.

Benefits of a good body composition:

1. Creates a toned, lean figure

2. Boosts the body’s functional capability
3. Speeds up metabolic rate (Torches calories even when resting)
4. Prevents heart disease, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes
5. Encourages permanent weightloss.

Methods of Training Body Composition: Suggestion Exercises

1. HIIT Exercises/Training
- helpful for those looking to decrease excess fat stores without slaving away on the treadmill for hours.
- You can do bodyweight HIIT at home for around 20 mins 3-4 times per week and see a big improvement!
- Using weights will be more helpful for building muscle mass though, so be sure to mix up your routine for big changes in body
composition.
2. Circuit Exercise/Training
- If HIIT is a little intense for you, you can always try circuit training.
- It is like HIIT on the surface, but you usually complete the circuits back-to-back rather than having a rest period.
- It is seen to be more effective in building muscle mass than HIIT training, depending on what weights ae used in each.
3. Strength training
- lifting
- Lifting weights are great for torching fat and building muscle. (e.g., strength training or powerlifting).

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Skill related fitness

- is broken down into six different components; agility, speed, power, balance, coordination, reaction time. These skill-related
components are movements that are necessary for an individual to successfully demonstrate a variety of motor skills and movement
patterns.

Skill-related Components of Fitness

Power

- It is the ability to apply maximum force as quickly as possible.

 - Speed and strength come under “power” as a fitness component but can also be viewed on their own.

Benefits of Power training:

1. Improved cardiovascular function

2. Enhanced strength (due to large muscle groups being contracted at a rapid pace)
3. Increased endurance as time goes on (the body uses less effort to produce force)
4. Rapid calorie burning (through the intensity that the muscles are used during the workout)
5. Boosted overall performance in sports and athletics

Training/Exercises for Power:

1. Kettlebell swings
- They are full body movement and are classed as a “hip hinge”.
- Swings are great for building explosive power in the hip.
2. Box jumps
- A polymetric power move that will send your competition running.
- The quads, glutes, calves, and hamstrings are trained during this move, so you’ll benefit from improved muscular tone and mass
as well as the general speed and springiness that moves like this bring to your body.
3. Squat jumps

Agility

- Ability to change the entire body position in space rapidly with accuracy and speed.

Benefits of Agility training:

1. Other preventions of injuries (lower back, ligament damage, etc.)

2. Recovery time boost (through constructing a stronger musculoskeletal system)
3. Enhanced cognitive function

Exercises for Agility:

1. Cone drills
- Cone taps are great for strengthening the muscles in your ankles and feet, which are of course the base for movement during
sports.
- Cone shuffles train your quads and hamstrings whilst simultaneously allowing you to get a grip of where your feet should be in
relation to your toes.
2. Ladder Drills
- train you cognitively as well as physically, and over time you will develop a skill for moving rapidly yet under control. Your focus
will improve as well as your memory retention.
3. Polymetric box drills

Balance

- the ability to maintain equilibrium or control the body’s position in space.

Benefits of improving balance:

1. Enhanced performance during sports and athletic activities

2. Increased injury prevention
3. Improve cognitive function

Exercises to train your balance:

1. Balance boards
- What they all have in common is that with regular use, they can train your body and mind to work together and optimize your
balancing skills.
2. Squats
- If you take the time to perfect your bodyweight squat form first (using flat shoes), and then progress to weights afterwards, your
body will adjust to maintaining balance under pressure.
3. Yoga
- Poses that are especially good for improving balance include the tree, extended triangle, high lunge, chair, and the half-moon.
- When practicing these movements, be sure to maintain awareness through each transition and master each one before upping
your speed.
- Creating a great base to build your yoga skills upon will improve your balance from the get-go.

Coordination
 - the ability of body parts to work together when you perform an activity.
- It's how well our body synchronizes with each other.
- It is related to most of our everyday activities. Writing, cleaning, exercising or any activity where we have to trust our hands to do
what our brain is telling us is coordination.
- refers directly to your capacity to maintain control over your body’s movements, especially those that concern the limbs.

- How to test coordination?

Tennis Ball Test
Make a mark on a wall with some tape, as well as a mark on the floor (around 2-3 meters away)
Grab a tennis ball and stand behind the line
Throw the ball from an underarm position against the wall, aim for the marker, and catch it in the opposite hand
Alternate between the hands, always aiming for the mark
Test yourself for around 30 seconds, measuring the amount of successful catches.

Exercises to improve hand-eye coordination:

1. Skipping
2. Juggling
3. Dribbling

Speed

- the ability to combine strength with speed while moving

- How to test your speed?

40 Yard Dash Method
Use a measuring device to mark 40 yards (36.58 meters)
Get someone to time your sprint with a stopwatch
Record your timing.

Benefits in training for speed:

1. Injury prevention
2. Improved cardiovascular endurance
3. Better metabolic rate and fat burning
4. Increase in bone strength
5. Muscle growth, particularly in the lower body, is high-intensity rather than long-duration.

Exercises to Improve Speed:

1. Deadlifts
- While they don’t involve the same motion as running, they do build strength and mass in the lower body and core as well as
building the force your body needs to push off against the ground as you run.
2. Box Jumps
- They’re great for building power, but also tied into the speed element of things. Force and power come from the same neck of the
woods, and both are important for generating speed during physical activity.
- Box jumps condition your body to adapt to ‘Switching on’ when it needs to during activity, and so, you’ll be able to run a lot faster
when needed with regular practice.
3. Tyre flips
- Tyre flips work well to build on the force in your lower body.
- They condition your mental toughness as well as your body, and over time you’ll develop the ability to push harder than you ever
thought you could.

Reaction time

- the time takes for the neuromuscular system to produce movement from stimulus reaction.
- How quickly we respond to our environment.

- How to test reaction time?

Online tests/games

How to improve reaction time:

1. Tennis ball drills

- dribbling with a tennis ball.
2. Sprinting with signals
3. Take a run outside