The Components of Fitness

Do you sometimes feel you have reached a plateau and you need a change in your workout routine, but do not know how to go about it? Are you flummoxed whether you should run faster, longer or harder? Do you need to up the pace or can there be other methods of going around it? Should your muscle building exercises be done more often, harder or do you need to increase the weights to bring about a break in the plateau? Where do you go from here?

To answer all these questions, you need to first take a look at the different factors that make up fitness and understand the principles by which each work. Fitness is a global all-encompassing aspect and is dependent on a number of factors. Fitness not only refers to your aerobic (heart-lung-respiratory-circulatory) capacity and efficiency but also to the strength and endurance of your muscles as well as the amount of flexibility you have in your body.

Components of fitness

Mode

This is the manner in which you do your workout. Different modes satisfy different needs in the body. Walking, running, cycling, swimming, step classes all cater to the aerobic component of the body. Yes, these would, in the long run, help in toning up the lower body but they derive their energy from different sources in the body. Or when you want to work your muscles, then you have to do some repetitive movements and specific exercises that will benefit. So when you say you have been working out for so long and you yet haven't gained in muscle growth, what you probably have been doing are exercises for increasing their flexibility!
Ideally, for a well-balanced body, you need to work out all modes to get the greatest benefits. You should also include activities that develop your finer characteristics like balance, coordination and posture.

Frequency

This refers to the number of times you are doing the same exercise. If, for example your routine comprises running once a week, weights once a week and stretch exercises once a week, your total count of workouts is three but the frequency of each effort is only once a week.

Typically (and depending on your goal) you should follow this pattern:

Mode Frequency per week
Cardio-vascular / aerobic exercise 3-6
Muscular strength 2-4
Muscular endurance 3-5
Joint and muscular flexibility 5-6
Balance and coordination everyday
Posture training any and every time


Intensity

Intensity is the amount of work that the body does. It is the percentage of the maximum heart rate (MHR) at which you are exercising. It differs from pace, in a way that the car travels at different speeds. It depends on which gear the car is going at that speed. Say for example, a car is travelling at 50 km per hour in second gear, it has to work at a higher intensity than if it were to travel at the same speed in the fourth gear. The same metaphor can be used for the body at work.

Intensity can be expressed by the training percentage of your MHR. If you are working at a higher intensity, then your heart rate is going to show a reading of anywhere from 75-85 per cent of your target heart rate activekarma

Duration or time

The amount of time a task takes from start to finish is the duration. It does not refer to the amount of time you collectively spent in the gym, warming up, wiping your face and gassing with the boys.

Mode Duration per effort (in minutes)
Cardio-vascular / aerobic exercise 10-60 (not more than that)
Muscular strength 20-60
Muscular endurance 10-60
Joint and muscular flexibility 10-40
Balance and coordination everyday
Posture training any and every time

So why do you need to keep these in mind when you are deciding where you need to go from here?

The reason you constantly need to change all these factors is because the body has a quality of adapting very easily to change. It does not take very long for it to adapt to the kind of good stresses you put onto it. So changing one or any of these factors is necessary to trick it and keep it from getting complacent. The success of your workout depends on changing one factor at a time, not all of them together.

This way you can also expect that the body will work well and reach heights that you never knew were possible. That is the way Olympians fly.