Note
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PE
Fitness - is a broad term that means something different to each person, but it refers to your own optimal health and overall well-being. Being fit not only means physical health, but emotional and mental health, too. It defines every aspect of your health. Smart eating and active living are fundamental to fitness.
Five Essential Components of Fitness:
Flexibility
Cardiorespiratory fitness
Muscular endurance
Muscular strength
Body composition
Muscular Strength
This is the "power" that helps you lift and carry heavy objects. Without muscular strength, your body would be weak and unable to keep up with demands.
Increase strength by training with heavy weights, working in the 4-6 or 12-15 rep ranges. The heavier the weight, the fewer reps you should perform.
Muscular Endurance
Endurance is the ability of muscles to perform contractions for extended periods.
Increase endurance by training with light weights, working in the 20-25 rep range.
Higher rep range leads to a longer period of exercise.
Cardiovascular Endurance/Fitness
The body’s ability to sustain exercise such as running, jogging, swimming, and cycling.
The cardiovascular system (lungs, heart, blood vessels) must work for extended periods.
The heart and lungs fuel the body with oxygen for the muscles to perform efficiently.
Flexibility
One of the most important but often overlooked components of fitness.
Without flexibility, muscles and joints become stiff, limiting movement.
Flexibility training ensures the body can move through its full range of motion.
The sit-and-reach test is a way to assess flexibility.
Body Composition
Refers to the amount of fat on the body.
Example: A 100-pound person with 25% body fat has 75 pounds of lean body mass.
To qualify as fit:
Men must have a body fat composition lower than 17%.
Women must have a body fat composition lower than 24%.
The average man has 18-24% body fat, while the average woman has 25-31% body fat.
Fitness Training
A combination of regular physical exercises and a healthy diet.
Benefits of Exercise
Help you control your weight: Exercise helps regulate weight by balancing calorie intake and expenditure.
Reduce your risk of heart diseases: Strengthens the heart and improves circulation, lowering the risk of heart diseases.
Help your body manage blood sugar and insulin levels: Helps control blood sugar levels and insulin function.
Help you quit smoking: Reduces cravings and withdrawal symptoms.
Improve your mental health and mood: Releases chemicals that enhance mood and reduce stress and depression.
Help keep your thinking, learning, and judgment skills sharp as you
age: Stimulates brain function, improving memory and decision-making.
Strengthen your bones and muscles: Helps build strong bones and slow age-related bone density loss.
Reduce your risk of some cancers: Lowers the risk of colon, breast, uterine, and lung cancers.
Reduce your risk of falls: Strengthens muscles and improves balance, reducing the risk of falls.
Improve your sleep: Helps fall asleep faster and improves sleep quality.
Improve your sexual health: Lowers the risk of erectile dysfunction in men and increases sexual arousal in women.
Increase your chances of living longer: Physical activity reduces the risk of early death from major diseases.
Four Phases of Exercise:
Warm-up: Prepares the body for exercise by increasing heart rate and blood flow.
Stretching: Improves flexibility and reduces injury risk.
Conditioning: The main workout phase that builds strength, endurance, and fitness levels.
Cool-down: Helps the body recover and gradually return to a resting state.
Principles of Fitness Training
Specificity: This means that the type of physical activity you undertake must be tailored to your desired goals and outcomes.
Build Strength: Focus on activities such as weightlifting and resistance training.
Cardiovascular Health: Then running, biking or swimming are great options.
Overload: Increase intensity progressively for continuous improvement.
Progression: Gradually increase workout intensity over time to avoid plateauing.
Individualization: Fitness programs should be personalized based on genetics, age, gender, and fitness levels.
Recovery: Allow time for muscle repair and prevent overtraining.
Variation: Change routines to prevent stagnation and reduce injury risk.
Reversibility: Gains are lost when training stops; consistency is key.
Balance: Engage all major muscle groups for well-rounded fitness.
Warm-up and Cool-down: Essential for injury prevention and better performance.
Cardiovascular Endurance
Cardiovascular/respiratory endurance training is an important component of any fitness program. It is essential for improving overall health, as well as reducing the risk of disease and injury.
Do and Don’ts
DO – Start up again doing 50% the volume that you did the last time you exercised. Do this reduced volume for 2 or 3 sessions before ramping back up.
DO – Spend up to half your time stretching. Yes, stretching counts as exercise! In fact, for some of us, if stretching was the only exercise done, it would benefit us greatly! Think stretching is not a good workout? Try doing yoga and tell me stretching isn’t a workout!!
DO – Exercises standing up. Why? Standing burns more calories than sitting, and standing is generally safer than sitting because you are distributing weight over more joints than sitting. The exceptions are cases where you might have a narrowing of your spine (stenosis), or severe arthritis in your back.
DO – Exercises on one leg! This forces you to use less weight (safer!), while working on core stability and balance. (who can’t use better balance).
DO –Work your abdominals. Strong abdominals make everything better. It doesn’t matter how out of shape you think you are, you can make them work better! We love planks or isometrics using a gym ball.
DON’T – Buy that junk you see on TV! I don’t care if the lady from Shark Tank likes it. Almost all that stuff sold on TV (or facebook) has no basis in science. Your best equipment is your own body weight and a brain filled with knowledge on how to use it! Both are free, and just need to be used.
DON’T – Do it alone. If you are unsure of something, you may be doing it wrong. If you do it wrong, you may get hurt. Don’t be that person! Ask an expert! Who should you ask? (besides me?) Not the guy on the treadmill next to you, that’s for sure. Just because someone knows what fixed THEIR back pain, doesn’t mean they know how to fix YOUR back pain. Ask someone with lots of letters