5 Components of Physical Fitness

If your goal is to be physically fit, it's important to note the 5 components of physical fitness that comprise overall fitness.

For you to effectively assess your fitness level, it is necessary to consider the following 5 components of fitness. In the same way, if you know you need to improve your fitness level, structuring an exercise program that will develop the following components will help you reduce body fat and reach optimal health. This means more than how far you can run, or how much weight you can lift. Optimal fitness is evident in everyday life and the stamina evident in dealing with day-to-day activities.

In today's exercise-conscious society, people walk, bike, run, visit the gym, and buy the latest home gym equipment in an effort to stay in good shape. However, being physically fit is more than what we do for exercise. While exercise is one of the 5 components of physical fitness, it is only one of five. Let's take a closer look at overall physical fitness and the components involved and how they relate to one another.

Of these five fitness components, the first component, cardiorespiratory endurance, should be looked at much like the cornerstone to total health and fitness. It is the ability of the heart to pump oxygen-rich blood to the muscles being used, and to have the body and heart efficiently remove CO2 from the muscles and get rid of it through the lungs. Cardiorespiratory endurance lets you exercise at a steady rate without becoming extremely tired or fatigued. For example, walking up six floors of stairs requires endurance. Other examples of physical activity related to cardio and vascular endurance include:

• Aerobics
• Cycling
• Jogging
• Swimming
• Walking

While cardiorespiratory endurance helps you to repeat physical efforts for an extended amount of time, muscular strength is calculated by the weight a muscle or muscle group can lift in one attempt. Muscular strength is connected with how much you exercise and what type of activity you do in your workouts. In fact, weight training and strength training are the only means by which you build muscle mass. Muscle mass, in turn, provides natural body strength. This component of physical fitness offers significant benefits to your overall health and plays a major role in weight loss because muscle, even when at rest, burns calories. When you increase the body's muscle mass, you boost the ability to burn calories and also lower the ratio of body fat. Benefits of muscular strength include:

• Helps weight loss
• Helps maintain bone structure and avoid osteoporosis

Muscular endurance differs from muscular strength. As a component of physical fitness, they are linked, but provide different benefits. Muscular strength is evidenced in the ability to repeat moderate muscular exertions for an extended period of time. An example of this would be shoveling snow. As you improve your cardiorespirtory endurance and your muscle strength, your muscular endurance increases, too.

To understand your body composition, you must consider the ratio of body fat compared to lean body mass. If your body fat mass ratio is high, you have not reached total fitness because you lack this component. In fact, if your body fat ratio is high -- on a fitness scale -- you would be considered overweight and in some cases perhaps obese. From a health angle, the high-fat content ration points to a greater proclivity to health conditions including:

• Coronary heart disease
• Diabetes
• Joint and back pains
• Arthritis
• Higher risk of tendon-muscular accidents and injuries due to inactivity

Lack of exercise is directly connected to rapid body fat gain. On the opposite side of the spectrum, studies show you can lower levels of body fat by eating a nutritionally sound diet combined with regular exercise.

You may be surprised to see flexibility among these components of physical fitness, but it holds more importance that most people realize. For optimal fitness each one of us must have a degree of flexibility just to deal with our daily activities and routines. While the range of flexibility differs from one person to another, it's important to stay as flexible as possible to maintain our range of motion. Stretching routines are one way to do this. When you maintain or improve flexibility, it actually helps to:

• Protect your joints
• Keep joints healthy
• Strengthen your back
• Reduce the occurrence and effects of arthritis
• Reduce muscle-tendon injuries

• Pictures of People Exercising
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• Male Fitness Model

• Breast Lifting Exercise
• Contour Abs
• Naked Exercise
• Naked Pilates
• Hula Hoop Exercises

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