Definition of Physical Fitness

While everyone wants to be optimally healthy, you may still wonder what is the definition of physical fitness? Physical fitness is an extremely important aspect of an overall plan for improving and maintaining your health. The way you define physical fitness, in large part, depends on your personal goals; however, there are many components to take into account as you strive for improved fitness.

Heart health is what people most commonly think of when they define physical fitness, and it certainly plays a major role. Heart health is achieved through aerobic exercise. There are many benefits of aerobic exercise, not the least of which is strengthening your cardiovascular system. Improving your level of physical fitness in this area protects your heart and lungs. It can also positively affect many factors of health, including:

• Body composition
• Endurance
• Energy levels
• Cholesterol, triglycerides and blood pressure
• Disease

There are many exercise activities that you can do to promote cardiovascular health, both at home and in the gym. Not sure what to do to strengthen your heart? Check out some examples of aerobic exercise.

Not to be left out of a comprehensive definition of physical fitness is muscle strength. Resistance training helps to strengthen muscles and increase lean-body mass. Why is this important? Because lean body mass, and particularly muscle, is the major fuel-burning source in your body. In general, the more lean body mass you have, the more calories your body will burn in its resting state. This is essential for weight control as well as developing a healthy body composition.

The other reason that strength training is important in developing an overall definition of physical fitness is that muscle strength protects you from injury and renders you more capable of going about your daily activities with energy and strength.

Many people, especially women, worry that incorporating strength training into a fitness plan will result in big, bulging muscles. While this is an understandable concern, building muscle strength very seldom results in the huge muscles that you see on bodybuilders. Unless your goal is to have bodybuilder muscles and you tailor your weight lifting routine around those goals, you won’t wind up muscle-bound. It takes a very specific and concentrated effort (as well as hours and hours in the gym) to develop the huge muscles and extreme leanness of a competitive bodybuilder. Instead, moderate strength training will result in an improvement in the overall shape and tone of your body.

Endurance is the ability to perform over an extended period of time. You need endurance so that you can perform daily activities without becoming exhausted. Typically, endurance is built through a combination of strength training and aerobic training. Body composition also affects endurance.

This aspect of fitness is the factor most commonly omitted when defining physical fitness, and yet, it is an extremely important facet of being fit. Flexibility is improved and maintained by performing stretching exercises, or through programs specifically targeted at flexibility, such as yoga. Improved flexibility has many benefits, including:

• Injury prevention
• Improved posture
• Increased range of motion
• Relaxation and stress relief

Body composition is a measurement of your lean body mass -- which is made up of muscles, organs, bones and water -- and body fat. Healthy body composition is an important factor in developing fitness for a number of reasons:

• Having too much fat can contribute to a number of diseases including cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
• Excess fat increases the stress on your joints, which can lead to chronic pain conditions.
• Carrying around excess fat takes a lot of energy. Some studies have shown that having too much body fat can lead to chronic low energy.

With the above in mind, you can begin to develop your own personal goals. A comprehensive plan for fitness takes into account all of these factors:

• Aerobic fitness
• Muscle strength
• Muscle endurance
• Flexibility
• Body composition

Other factors not covered in this article will also figure into your overall health. Some other aspects of health to consider when pursuing optimal health include:

• Nutrition
• Sleep
• Stress and relaxation
• Emotional, spiritual and social factors

Having an overall plan for optimal health includes striving towards goals set as you consider your definition of being physically fit. With your goals in mind, you can develop a plan that moves you forward to your goal for total fitness, and ultimately, excellent health.

• Pictures of People Exercising
• Women Fitness Models
• Male Fitness Model

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

• Definition of Exercise
• Exercises for Physical Fitness Components
• Why Is Physical Fitness So Important
• Benefits of Physical Fitness
• 5 Components of Physical Fitness