Definition of Physical Fitness: The real meaning of fitness
What is the definition of physical fitness? Why are government health agencies and fitness organizations at odds with the definition of physical fitness?
Do you consider yourself fit?
What does it take to be 'fit'?
How do you define fitness?
Being fit is an abstract concept that is not so easily defined. But we will turn to the scientific community to uncover how physical fitness is best measured.
-Mrs. White runs 2 miles every day. Is she fit?
-Mr. Brown can do 15 one-handed push-ups. Is he fit?
Here's the problem. In order to measure something, you have to be able to quantify it and, you have to quantify it objectively.
Consider the following:
The President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sport provides this definition of physical fitness:
"Physical fitness is the ability to carry out daily tasks with vigour and alertness without undue fatigue and ample energy to enjoy leisure time pursuits and meet unforeseen emergencies."
The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) provides this definition of physical fitness:
"Physical fitness is the ability to perform moderate to vigorous levels of physical activity without undue fatigue and the capability of maintaining such ability throughout life."
The U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides this definition of physical fitness:
"Physical fitness is a set of attributes that people have or achieve that relates to the ability to perform physical activity."
The Government of Canada provides this definition of physical fitness:
"A set of attributes that are either health related or performance (or skill) related. Health related fitness comprises those components of fitness that exhibit a relationship with health status. Performance/skill related fitness involves those components of fitness that enable optimal work or sport performance."
The problem, from a scientific perspective, is quantifying terms such as "moderate to vigorous". Exactly how much is moderate? How much is vigorous?
Who defines what "ample energy" is? How do we know what "undue fatigue" means? How can we be sure we have carried out our tasks with "vigour and alertness"?
Definitions with vague, subjective wording comprised of terms that themselves need defining have added to the ambiguity over what constitutes the meaning of physical fitness.
Indeed, it is not very useful to view and define physical fitness as one, all-encompassing concept precisely because it is not quantifiable in that form.
Fitness is more than just one thing.
In fact, most agencies, including the CDC, ACSM, Public Health Agency of Canada, and many exercise scientists, are in agreement that physical fitness can be thought to be made up of essentially five components (otherwise commonly known as the 5 components of physical fitness):
Individually, each of these components can be assessed, quantified and measured to render a 'snapshot' of the different aspects of an individual's physical fitness level.
So when we think of fitness, we're really talking about five common aspects of fitness. This makes sense because fitness is highly individual and specific to each component.
You could for instance, be very flexible but have poor cardiovascular capacity.
Being fit then, can only be quantified by measuring the individual components of cardiovascular fitness, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility and body composition.
But how are these individual components measured? Who measures them? What can you do to get a handle on your level of fitness if you workout from home?
Now that we have a better understanding of the definition of physical fitness, follow this link to the
5 components of physical fitness
to find out the answers to these questions, and discover the one easy thing you can do from home to monitor your fitness level as you progress.
