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Five Components of Physical Fitness
Fitness is a combination of five components, to easily understand Physical Fitness, you need to
understand each of its parts. To achieve a high level of fitness or your Fitness Goals, you need to
balance all its components. The following has been generally agreed to be the 5 components of
fitness:
1. Cardio respiratory (Heart and Lung Capacity and Capability) -This component
addresses the heart (cardio) and the lungs (respiratory). These two organs work together to
provide oxygen and nutrients to the blood. The heart works as the pump to distribute
oxygen rich blood throughout the body and to pump oxygen deficient blood from the body.
The lungs work to infuse the blood with oxygen and to expel carbon dioxide from the body.
This is why we need oxygen when we breath and we exhale carbon dioxide. So the purpose
of cardio respiratory exercise from a fitness perspective is to develop your heart and lung’s
capacity to do this job, which of course allows you to perform and feel better. This is the
purpose of aerobic exercise. Point of note, by default if you do not do any type of aerobic
exercise your heart and lungs aren’t working together as well as they could.
2. Endurance (Muscle Endurance) - This component addresses your muscle’s ability to
repeatedly lift a weight. Repetitions. Weight training addresses this physical fitness
component as well as other exercises, pushups, for example. This component is most often
associated with runners, but muscle endurance also relates to repetitive athletic actions like
pitching, shooting a basketball, soccer, etc.
3. Strength (Muscle Strength) - This component addresses your muscle’s ability to exert
force to resistance. Weight training specifically addresses this component, lifting weights
for example. This is the component of physical fitness we all associate with fitness.
4. Flexibility (Joints) – This component addresses the ability to move your joints freely
through the full range of motions. Stretching addresses this physical fitness component.
Other exercises that address this component are disciplines, such as Yoga or Pilates.
5. Body Composition – This component addresses your body type. This is important,
because what may be important for one with respect to a component of physical fitness may
not be as important for another. Understanding this component is important to tailoring
your physical fitness program to your specific needs. There are many different ways to
measure your body composition, the easiest and the most widely used being a
Height/Weight calculation.
Sequence and Speed
When doing a series of exercises, you’ll generally want to start with the larger muscle groups
and compound movements and work toward the smaller muscle groups and isolation
movements. This allows you to do the most demanding moves when you’re the least fatigued.
For example, you’re less likely to lose your balance during a lunge if you do the lunges before
exhausting the muscles of quads and hamstrings with machine exercises. You’ll use better form
on your push-ups if you do them before fatiguing the triceps with presses or kick-backs.
The speed of the movement is also an important element of each exercise. A reasonable training
pace is one to two seconds for the lifting (concentric) portion of the exercise and three to four
seconds for the lowering (eccentric) portion of the move. Fast, jerky movements should be
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avoided. They place undue stress on the muscle and connective tissue at the beginning of the
movement, substantially increasing the likelihood of an injury. Fast lifting also cheats you out of
some of the strength benefits. When lifting at a fast pace, momentum (not the muscle) is doing a
good deal of the work.
Sets and Reps
A set is a group of successive repetitions performed without resting. A rep or repetition is the
number of times you repeat the move in each set. Therefore, if your instructions were to do 3 sets
of 12 (3 x 12) biceps curls, you would curl the weight 12 times in a row to complete the first set.
Then you’d put the weight down, rest a moment and do 12 more in a row to complete the second
set, and so on until you’ve finished the prescribed number of sets for that exercise.
There have been studies showing similar strength gains from one, two, or three sets. Single set
exercises are usually done to the point of failure, meaning to the point where you can’t complete
another full repetition. This is commonly referred to as high-intensity training or HIT. Multiple
set exercises are usually done with one to three minutes of rest between each set. An advantage
of single set training is that it requires less time in the gym. An advantage of multiple set training
is that the longer training session can result in higher calorie expenditure.
Resistance and Range
The number of repetitions chosen for each exercise depends on the amount of resistance (weight)
you’re using. Maximum resistance is the most weight you can lift with proper form one time.
Full range of motion (ROM) is an important component of proper form. Each exercise should be
taken through the complete range of joint movement in a slow controlled manner, with emphasis
placed on the completely contracted position. If a weight is so heavy that you have to jerk,
bounce or swing to get it to the top of the movement, it’s too heavy. Your form is compromised.
Full-range of motion movements contract and strengthen the muscle you’re working (the prime
mover) and stretch the opposing (antagonist) muscle. This contributes to both muscle strength
and joint flexibility.
Progression and Frequency
Progressive resistance is the key to any well designed strength program. This means that as your
muscles adapt to a given exercise, you need to gradually increase the resistance or the repetitions
to promote further gains. You should start out with a weight that allows you to do at least 8
repetitions of a particular exercise. Once you can complete 12 repetitions with that weight, you
increase the weight by about 5 percent. Now, you’re doing 8 repetitions with the slightly heavier
weight. Once you’ve worked up to 12 repetitions with the heavier weight, you increase it by
another 5 percent (or no more than 10%) and go back to doing 8 repetitions. The idea is to keep
alternately increasing repetitions and resistance, so that you continue to see results.
Increases in muscle size and strength don’t occur while you’re training, they occur during the
rest period between workouts. This is when your muscles recover and rebuild, gradually
becoming bigger and stronger. The recovery process takes at least 48 hours. For this reason,
strength training sessions should be scheduled no more frequently than every other day. If you
prefer to train more often, you should avoid hitting the same muscle group on consecutive days.
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Balance
To be effective, a program should include activities that address all the fitness components, since
overemphasizing any one of them may hurt the others.
Variety
Providing a variety of activities reduces boredom and increases motivation and progress.
Specificity
Training must be geared toward specific goals. For example, people become better runners if their
training emphasizes running. Although swimming is great exercise, it does not improve a 2-milerun time as much as a running program does.
Recovery
A hard day of training for a given component of fitness should be followed by an easier training day
or rest day for that component and/or muscle group(s) to help permit recovery. Another way to
allow recovery is to alternate the muscle groups exercised every other day, especially when
training for strength and/or muscle endurance.
FITT Principal
Frequency: how often you work out during the week (recommended minimum - 5 times a
week).
Intensity: tells you how hard you are working.
Formula for determining your maximum heart rate:
a) 220 - age = Maximum Heart Rate
 Low intensity workout = 65%
 Moderate workout = 75
 High intensity workout = 85%
Time/Duration: how long a workout should be.
Each exercise period will depend upon how physically fit you are.
Recommended minimum at above frequency and intensity for 30 minutes at
target heart rate.
Type: what kind of exercising are you going to do?
Examples: power walking, swimming, or cycling
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Equipment
Free Weights: Weights not connected to a machine or driven by chains or cables.
Examples are: Bench Press, Squat, Dumbbells, Barbells.
FreeMotion
Machines:
FreeMotion should be looked at in respect to individual kinesiology (the
study of motion). Human motion involves pushing, pulling, squatting,
rotating, stepping, lunging, bending and balancing in a 3-dimensional
world. FreeMotion allows the user to define their own movement patterns
based on their own needs and goals. Traditional, fixed-isolated equipment
(with single plane movements), is designed to fit the body of the average
user, however not all of your members fit that average body-type.
FreeMotion equipment can accommodate virtually any movement pattern
with a wide range of motion performed by almost every body type.
Cardiovascular
Machines:
Equipment used to improve or maintain a person’s cardiovascular system.
Examples include: Treadmills, Recumbent Bikes, Upright Bikes,
Ellipticals, Steppers and Row Machines.
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