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WHAT IS WELLNESS AND FITNESS?
Wellness is the ability to live life fully, with vitality and meaning. Wellness is dynamic and multidimensional; it incorporates physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, interpersonal and social, and environmental dimensions.
The five health-related components for physical fitness:
- Cardiorespiratory Endurance
- Muscular strength
- Muscular endurance
- Flexibility
- Body Composition
In addition to these five health-related components of physical fitness, physical fitness for a particular sport or activity might include any or all of the following: coordination, speed, reaction time, agility, balance, and skill.
Cardiorespiratory endurance is the ability of the body to perform prolonged, large-muscle, dynamic exercise at moderate to high levels of intensity. A healthy cardiorspiratory system is essential to high levels of fitness and wellness.
The cardiorespirtory ststem picks up and transports oxygen, nutrients, and other key sutstances to the organs and tussues that need them; it also picks up waste products and carries them to where they can be expelled. The cardiorespiratory system consists of the heart, the blood vessels, and the respiratory system.
Among the benefits obtained from developing your cardiorespiratory endurance system are:
- Increased energy
- Increased endurance
- Reduced blood pressure
- Reduced arterial plaque (the stuff that causes heart attacks)
- Prevention of some cardiac diseases
- Reduced body fat
- Lower resting heart rate (so the heart works less)
- Increased bone mass (making them less likely to break)
JUST ABOUT EVERY BODILY SYSTEM IS AFFECTED BY INCREASING YOUR AEROBIC
CAPACITY
Improved muscular strength (which is obtained by gradually increasing the weight lifted - either by actually lifting weights or doing strength building by biking up hills, running stairs, etc.) and muscular endurance (which is obtained by increasing the number of repetitions when weight lifting, biking up longer hills, running hills) results in:
- Increased lean body mass
- Increased bone mass
- Muscles burn fat more efficiently by increased the basal metabolic rate
- Increased coordination
- Reduced circumference of body measurements (smaller clothing size!)
Improved flexibility (range of motion of a joint) is the fourth component of fitness.
It is as important, if not more so, than cardiovascular and muscular fitness.
Flexibility is obtained through systematic range of motion exercise and the stretching and lengthening of all muscles used in training. If you are not flexible, you increase the risk of injury and overuse as you exercise or do activity. This is the component of fitness that is usually attended to the least but needed the most. Neglect of flexibility will cause deterioration in joints and muscles and will significantly reduce the functionality of daily living.
Body composition refers to the proportion of fat and fat-free mass (muscle, bone, and water) in the body. Healthy body composition involves a high proportion of fat-free mass and an acceptably low level of body fat, adjusted for age and gender.
A person with excessive body fat is more likely to experience a variety of health problems. Recent studies suggest that cardiorespiratory fitness is more important than body composition in determining health status.
The best way to lose fat is through a lifestyle that includes a sensible diet and exercise.
Summary of the 1996 Surgeon General's Report
The nitty gritty of the Surgeon General's report is this:
Do 30 minutes or more of moderate-intensity physical activity on all, or most, days of the week.
Despite common knowledge that exercise is healthful, more than 60 percent of American adults
are not regularly active, and 25 percent of the adult
population are not active at all.
These guidelines - going 30 minutes most, and preferably all, days of the week - doesn't mean you have to stop at 30 minutes. More exercise is even better.
Increasing the goal to get 60 minutes of exercise every day is great. To do that, though, it is important to vary the activity so you don't do the same thing day after day.
The following are general guidelines for planning your workout schedule for the semester.
Many of the items touched on here will be explored in greater detail during the semester.
A Workout Schedule
Setting Goals
Frequency Recommendations
Basic Exercise Principles
Measuring your heartrate
When to Exercise
Setting Goals
How often, how long and how hard you exercise, and what kinds of exercises
you do should be
determined by what you are trying to accomplish. Your goals, your present
fitness level, age, health,
skills, interest and convenience are among the factors you should consider.
For example, an athlete
training for high-level competition would follow a different program
than a person whose goals are
good health and the ability to meet work and recreational needs.
Your exercise program should include something from each of the four
basic fitness components
described previously. Each workout should begin with a warmup and end
with a cooldown. As a
general rule, space your workouts throughout the week and avoid consecutive
days of hard exercise.
FREQUENCY RECOMMENDATIONS
Here are the amounts of activity necessary for the average, healthy
person to maintain a minimum
level of overall fitness. Included are some of the popular exercises
for each category.
WARMUP - 5-10 minutes of exercises such as walking, slow jogging, knee
lifts, arm circles or trunk
rotations. Low intensity movements that stimulate movements to be used
in the activity can also be
included in the warmup.
MUSCULAR STRENGTH - a minimum of two 20-minute sessions per week that include exercises for all the major muscle groups. Lifting weights is the most effective way to increase strength, but it's not the only way. Other ways are to go up stairs, and bike in a high gear and up a hill. Any exercise that causes the muscles to take on more of a load, would increase strength.
MUSCULAR ENDURANCE - at least three 30-minute sessions each week that include exercises such as calisthenics, pushups, situps, pullups, and weight training for all the major muscle groups. Other muscular endurance activities involve increasing the load for a sustained period. Biking up a mountain pass would do it, as would running uphill for a good distance.
CARDIORESPIRATORY ENDURANCE - at least three 20-minute bouts of continuous aerobic (activity requiring oxygen) rhythmic exercise each week. Popular aerobic conditioning activities include brisk walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, rope-jumping, rowing, cross-country skiing, and some continuous action games like racquetball and handball.
FLEXIBILITY - 10-12 minutes of daily stretching exercises performed slowly without a bouncing motion. This can be included after a warmup or during a cooldown.
COOL DOWN - a minimum of 5-10 minutes of slow walking, low-level exercise, combined with stretching.
DON'T PANIC! When looking at the recommended amounts of each category of exercise, don't panic that there is no way you can meet those targets.
Some of the categories overlap. For example, if you do Tae-Bo, you are getting a mix of cardio, muscle edurance and flexibility. You can get more than one component in a given type of exercise.
Doing only one type of activity over and over, day after day, will likely result in neglecting other components.
For example, if you run every day and that is all you do, you are missing out on flexibility and muscle strength. If you modify your running workout to mix hills, sprints, and long runs, then you are hitting more of the components. Add stretching before and after your run, and you are getting flexibility as well.
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A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE
The keys to selecting the right kinds of exercises for developing and maintaining each of the basic components of fitness are found in these principles:
Specificity - pick the right kind of activities to affect each component. Strength training results in specific strength changes. Also, train for the specific activity you're interested in. For example, optimal swimming performance is best achieved when the muscles involved in swimming are trained for the movements required. It does not necessarily follow that a good runner is a good swimmer.
Overload - work hard enough, at levels that are vigorous and long enough to overload your body above its resting level, to bring about improvement.
Regularity - you can't hoard physical fitness. At least three balanced workouts a week are necessary to maintain a desirable level of fitness.
Progression - increase the intensity, frequency and/or duration of activity over periods of time in order to improve.
Some activities can be used to fulfill more than one of your basic exercise requirements. For example, in addition to increasing cardiorespiratory endurance, running builds muscular endurance in the legs, and swimming develops the arm, shoulder and chest muscles. If you select the proper activities, it is possible to fit parts of your muscular endurance workout into your cardiorespiratory workout and save time.
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WHEN TO EXERCISE
The hour just before the evening meal is a popular time for exercise. The late afternoon workout provides a welcome change of pace at the end of the work day and helps dissolve the day's worries and tensions.
Another popular time to work out is early morning, before the work day begins. Advocates of the early start say it makes them more alert and energetic on the job.
Among the factors you should consider in developing your workout schedule are personal preference, job and family responsibilities, availability of exercise facilities and weather. It's important to schedule your workouts for a time when there is little chance that you will have to cancel or interrupt them because of other demands on your time.
You should not exercise strenuously during extreme hot, humid weather, or within two hours after eating. Heat and/or digestion both make heavy demands on the circulatory system, and in combination with exercise can be an overtaxing double load.