Fat tissue is composed of three different categories: essential fat, storage fat and non-essential fat. If you are trying to lose weight or stay fit and healthy, these are three things you should know. But to make it more effective, it also important for you to consider what are the elements of fitness training.
Physical fitness is one of the most important aspects of life. It is the body’s primary source of strength and energy — especially for our body’s major muscle groups. It is also the spring of good mood, confidence and a sense of well-being. It makes up more than one-half of what we need to make us perform our roles in our endeavors in life.
Whether you are at work, at play, or just simply spending your time leisurely, you need to be fit. Even if you are trying to rest, you can never relax if you are bothered by discomfort or achy sensation in any part of your body.
It would be best if you stay fit in order to enjoy the best of yourself. Here are some of the most important 5 elements of a well-rounded fitness that you should know:
1. Cardiovascular Fitness
It refers to the health of your heart, blood, blood vessels, and respiratory system as well as their ability to maintain a sufficient supply of oxygen and fuel to give your body the energy it needs.
There are two ways to improve your cardiovascular fitness. One of them is by doing aerobic fitness. This exercise requires oxygen which needs to be sustained for extended periods. Examples of aerobic exercises include jogging, swimming, cycling and other forms of physical activity. Minutes of vigorous aerobic activity can significantly raise your heart rate for long periods.
The second method of improving cardiovascular fitness is by doing anaerobic exercises. This type of exercise does not require oxygen and cannot be sustained for longer than one and a half minutes. This exercise requires you to go at a very fast rate and you will not be able to maintain that pace for long. Examples of anaerobic exercises include the 200-meter dash and 50-yard swimming exercises.
TIP: Combine it with some resistance training exercises to see well-rounded benefits and improvements to your body weight.
2. Muscular Endurance
Muscular endurance refers to your body’s ability to perform a certain movement repetitively for a long time. It is one of the first things that you need to develop in order to get used to exercising. Being able to do 50 push-ups or more at one time is a good example of muscular endurance.
So how can you improve muscle endurance? It’s basically through your fitness routine and its difficulty. The more you get involved in high-intensity interval training; the stronger your endurance can be.
TIP: To significantly improve your endurance, try prolonging your training for at least 75 minutes. You can also go for as long as 150 minutes of high-intensity workout for better endurance.
3. Muscular Strength
Muscular fitness refers to your muscular ability to lift weights at any given time. This is vital to increase bone stress to prevent injury from falls and fractures. Muscular endurance and muscular strength are two different things when we talk about fitness programs.
Unlike muscular endurance, muscular strength does not require you to perform strength training for a long time as it only needs a short amount of time to accomplish.
This aspect of fitness actually requires you to develop the ability to lift weights. But you need to have a strong muscle base in order to obtain muscle strength, and you can do it by doing muscle endurance exercises which help to build strength and muscle mass for you.
4. Flexibility
Flexibility refers to your body’s ability to move its joints smoothly through a complete range of motions. It is one of the most important components of fitness. Everyone needs to have a certain amount of flexibility in order to live a functional, fracture and injury-free life.
Flexibility is necessary for almost all of your regular physical activities. You even need it to perform simple tasks such as tying your shoes, wearing your shirt or being mindful of your posture. A lack of flexibility can restrict your movement.
Some examples of exercises to improve flexibility includes:
- Yoga
- Tai chi
- Squats
- Lunges
You can improve your flexibility by performing static and stretching exercises every day. You can do it by moving your muscles to their stretching point and holding on to that stretched position for a designated amount of time. Balance training can also be a great addition to your fitness routine to improve flexibility.
5. Body Composition
Body composition refers to the body fat ratio to muscle, bone, and other tissues that make up your body. It is often expressed as the ratio of lean mass to fatty mass.
Lean tissues include muscle, bone, skin, internal organs and body water while fatty tissues are composed of essential fat, storage fat and non-essential fat.
Good body composition is necessary because it can help a person develop self-confidence, a sense of well-being and a good self-image.
These are some of the five components of physical fitness to improve your health. Always keep them in mind whenever you are doing muscular strength and endurance training or stretching and flexibility exercises. Doing a routine at least twice a week can help you cut down a significant amount of fat mass and maintain a healthy weight.
Don’t forget to check out our exercise blog posts for more tips on making effective training programs and exercise plans.
