Fitness and Exercise

Having a high level of overall fitness is linked with a lower risk of chronic disease, as well as a better ability to manage health issues that do come up. Better fitness also promotes more functionality and mobility throughout one’s life span.

That said, it’s also important to know that there are many different ways to be fit (think of a ballet dancer versus a bodybuilder or a sprinter versus a gymnast). And fitness does not have a singular “look.” In fact, appearance can’t necessarily tell you about someone’s habits, whether they’re actually physically active, or even whether they’re fit at all.

What it Means to Be Fit

Fitness and Exercise is very important to every human.

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), there are five components of physical fitness:

• Cardiorespiratory Fitness Your VO2 max is a commonly used measure of this. It’s your body’s ability to uptake and utilize oxygen (which feeds all of your tissues), something that is directly related to your health and quality of life.
• Speed This is how quickly you can move.
• Flexibility This is the range of motion of your joints.
• Balance This is your ability to stay on your feet and steady to avoid falls.
• Musculoskeletal Fitness This includes muscle strength, endurance, and power.

A frequently cited peer-reviewed research paper from 1985 defined the difference between the terms “physical activity” (bodily movement resulting in energy expenditure), “exercise” (planned and structured physical activity), and “physical fitness.” The paper defined physical fitness as a set of attributes that people have or achieve that determines their ability to carry out daily tasks with vigor and alertness, without undue fatigue. Cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular endurance, muscular strength, body composition, and flexibility are components that can be used to measure fitness, also according to that paper.

Exercise is distinct from fitness because exercise is what you do to improve your fitness.

Types of Fitness

There are a few main components of fitness, all of which are important for building a well-rounded exercise routine. It’s worth noting that many definitions of fitness include other components as well, such as endurance, muscular endurance, power, speed, balance, and agility — as mentioned above.

Strength Training

Strength training is an important way to improve mobility and overall functioning, particularly as you get older. “As you age, you lose muscle mass, which can have a significant impact on the quality of life. According to the ACSM, the definition of strength or resistance training is exercise that is “designed to improve muscular fitness by exercising a muscle or a muscle group against external resistance.” Activities that answer this call include lifting weights, using resistance bands or your body weight, carrying heavy loads, and even strenuous gardening, per the Physical Activity Guidelines from HHS.

Flexibility and Mobility

Flexibility refers to the ability of tendons, muscles, and ligaments to stretch, while mobility refers to the body’s ability to take a joint through its full range-of-motion. Flexibility and mobility are both important components of healthy movement. There is no specific recommendation for the number of minutes you should do activities that improve flexibility or mobility (such as stretching), and the health benefits of those activities are not known because of a lack of research on the topic, according to the Physical Activity Guidelines from HHS. But the guidelines note that flexibility exercises are important for physical fitness.

Learn more on how to be pain-free and energized

Aerobic (Cardiovascular) Exercise

Aerobic exercise includes activities like brisk walking, running, cycling, swimming, aerobic fitness classes (like kickboxing), tennis, dancing, yard work, tennis, and jumping rope, per the Physical Activity Guidelines. Aerobic exercise is the foundation of every fitness program — and for good reason. Also called cardiovascular exercise or cardio, this type of physical activity increases your heart rate and breathing rate, which improves your cardiorespiratory fitness.

Rest and Recovery

Exercise, by definition, puts stress on the muscles and the body. The repairing or healing of that stress is how you get stronger (and fitter). But you need to give the body adequate rest after a workout for that recovery process to happen. Building in rest and recovery days allows time for your body to repair the natural damage that occurs to muscles during exercise. Recovery days can include no physical activity at all or they may look like an active recovery day, which means doing low-intensity, low-impact forms of exercise, such as walking or gentle yoga.

Health Benefit of Exercise 

Improved fitness drastically reduces the risk of chronic diseases that develop over time, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and even cancer. The scientifically proven benefits of physical activity remain indisputable, and they can be as powerful as any pharmaceutical agent in preventing and treating a range of chronic diseases and medical conditions,” the initiative’s website notes.

Here are the breakdown of the Benefit:

Exercise Promotes Long-Term Health

Research involving more than 116,000 adults also showed that getting the recommended 150 to 300 minutes of physical activity per week decreased the risk of death from any cause by 19 percent. Exercise has been shown to improve brain and bone health, preserve muscle mass (so that you’re not frail as you age), boost your sex life, improve gastrointestinal function, and reduce the risk of many diseases, including cancer and stroke.

Fitness Helps You Manage Chronic Disease

If you have a chronic disease and you’re looking to stay active or get more active, a walking routine is generally a safe place to start. “The vast majority of people do not need clearance from their doctor to start walking, unless your physician has told you specifically that they don’t want you exercising. Exercise helps the body function, and that includes managing other chronic health problems. Exercise can help decrease pain, improve insulin sensitivity and blood sugar control, promote mobility, improve heart health, lower the risk of other chronic diseases, and play a role in good mental health.

Exercise Is Good for Sleep

Habitual exercise can help you get more restful sleep at night.  It’s worth noting, however, that high-intensity exercise done too close to bedtime (within about an hour or two) can make it more difficult for some people to sleep and should be done earlier in the day. It may help set your body clock (so that you are alert and sleepy at appropriate times), create chemical changes in the brain that favor sleep, and, as past research indicates, can ease pre-sleep anxiety that may otherwise keep you up.

Exercise Boosts Your Mood

Exercise may help reduce inflammation, something that has been shown to be increased in people with depression; it’s also possible that physical activity promotes favorable changes in the brain, too, say the researchers. Regular exercise has been shown to be a buffer against depression and anxiety.

Summary

fitness and exercise  

Additionally, do muscle-strengthening activity at least two days a week, targeting all of the major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and arms), according to the guidelines.

There is currently no recommendation for flexibility or mobility work, according to the HHS. But older adults in particular should incorporate balance training into their weekly physical activity.

Doing more physical activity has been linked to even greater health benefits, particularly up to 300 weekly minutes of moderate-intensity exercise (after which the incremental benefits start to flatten out). And know that these baseline fitness recommendations, while they are enough to promote good long-term health, may not be sufficient to meet certain health or fitness goals. (For example, you will need to exercise for a significantly longer amount of time each week if you want to train for a marathon.)

And know that extreme amounts of exercise may put increased stress on the body and can actually lead to some negative health effects; research has yet to determine what that upper limit might be, but the evidence so far suggests that it is at least several times the current weekly minimum recommendations.