Introduction
There are two types of fitness. The performance-related fitness and the health-related fitness. Performance-related involves athletic performance; it measures coordination and response time to a particular exercise. Health-related is linked to items that are designed to reduce the advent of diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes. This paper will look at the components of a person’s body that are used to ascertain fitness. This includes flexibility and muscular strength among others.
Body Composition
This is the body’s amount of cholesterol and fat especially around the waist and the stomach. When there is too much concentration of fat a person is said to be unhealthy. Body composition can be calculated using the body mass index and waistline circumference. When it is rated as normal, the body composition of a person is okay and is in line with others of his/her age. Body composition improvement is a matter of eating healthy as might be recommended by your nutritionist or any other health specialist (Donatelle, 2009).
Muscular Strength
This is a body fitness measure that ascertains the level of endurance that your body has. This is directly proportional to the muscular strength of your body. The number of sit-ups and push-ups that a body can be able to perform in a minute is a perfect example. If your body can endure more sit-ups and pushups then you are considered to have more muscular strength and hence more physically fit. To effectively improve your muscular strength, weight lifting is the best way to go. This will be coupled with training that will enable your body to endure and grow muscle strength such as slow and controlled exercise that requires holding of breath (Donatelle, 2009).
Aerobic Fitness
This is concerned with the level of heartbeat rate. It can be calculated by taking the level of heartbeat rate after a certain distance of a walk like a mile or a kilometer. The results are measured from a standard of people who are close to your age. This standard is a data bank called normative data and if one falls in that category from which his/her age group falls then they are considered fit. To improve aerobic fitness it is advisable to run on the treadmill a number of times a day or to exercise on a bike or to skip on a rope. This greatly improves cardiovascular strength and hence fitness.
Flexibility
This is basically how much your body can stretch. The arms, legs and the whole body generally. A physically fit person can stretch a longer distance (Donatelle, 2009). This test is carried out as a person sits down on a chair and stretches for as long as his or her body can, or stretches the legs wide enough to the largest angle possible. To improve the flexibility of the body it is important to do stretching exercises such as sideways stretching, forward bending, hamstring stretch and calf stretching. As you do that it is paramount to know your limits and follow the basics such as not dehydrating or overloading your body (Donatelle, 2009).
Overall
The results in all the tests are compiled and the level of general fitness is calculated. A person is expected to fair well in the entire criterion mentioned above. A good percentage is however not always the case and one can perform poorly in some and very well in others. However, this is supposed to be a motivation to work on the good performers so as to maintain the standard and to work hard on the poor performer to improve the rating (Donatelle, 2009).
Conclusion
Heart and performance-related fitness are the two pillars from which a person is considered fit. These simple tests are used to estimate a person’s fitness and to act as a motivating factor towards improving general fitness. Being physically fit reduces diseases and can be a personal esteem booster, hence advisable according to Donatelle (2009).
Reference
Donatelle, R. (2009). The Presidents Challenge, Adult Fitness Test.