Living a holistically healthy lifestyle requires a sense of balance; a balance between health, work, family, your mental-state and, of course, your fitness.
The inclusion of fitness is an interesting one since it accounts for much of the balance found in other aspects of our lives, particularly with regards to the relationship between the body and the mind. This is why so many people turn to the services of a personal trainer who understands how to leverage physical activity to enhance a person’s life, whether that be through fostering better athletic performance, growing a person’s confidence, or giving them the tools to effectively handle the many stresses that life often throws our way.
These are the results of paying close attention to one’s general fitness. But what exactly is meant by general fitness, what does it entail, and how can it improve a person’s quality of life?
The Five Types of Fitness
General fitness seeks to find a balance between five different types of fitness. These all work together to contribute to better health, both physically and mentally:
Cardiovascular fitness
Cardiovascular fitness is concerned with endurance, the strength of the heart and the capacity of the lungs. It is commonly associated with activities such as jogging, swimming, rowing and sports such as football that require sustained energy levels over a long period of time.
Strength and endurance
Strength and endurance are most typically associated with weight training where strength is required to lift and handle increased loads. It builds muscle and bone density. This allows athletes and fitness enthusiasts to push harder when working against weight-loads.
Anaerobic fitness
Anaerobic fitness allows for short, powerful bursts of energy such as is required for movements such as sprinting, power-lifting or performing high-intensity interval training. It benefits those engaged in non-endurance sports to actively promote strength, speed and power.
Joint flexibility
Joint flexibility is tied to a person’s range of motion as well as muscle length and elasticity. It is excellent for reducing the risk of injury to joints and muscles during strenuous activities and is most commonly associated with bodyweight workouts such as Yoga and Pilates.
Body composition
Body composition concerns itself with the more outwardly observable aspects of fitness, the aesthetic ones that people think about when determining their fitness goals.
These aspects include percentage of body fat, bone density, as well as muscle capacity and water percentage in the body. According to this type of fitness, muscle takes up less physical space in the body than fat does. This means that body composition is directly related to weight and leanness.
Working with Diet
General fitness goes beyond physical activity. In fact, it has a lot to do with a person’s diet. Giving your body the nutrients it needs to perform, build strength and create energy is important.
Far from concerning itself with specialised eating plans or crash diets, general fitness requires that the body takes in what it needs and leaves out what holds it back.
This means that while some diets will tell you to stay away from carbs (for instance), general fitness demands that you get enough of them to have sustained levels of energy.
Protein is important for muscle tissue and cell-repair (and is essential for strength training). While many eating plans would tell you to stay clear of fats, general fitness will tell you to consume enough to fuel yourself for sustained energy over a long period of time.
When the right diet is combined with a rigid and balanced workout plan, a journey towards a state of better all-round fitness becomes clearer.
Learn More at the Trifocus Fitness Academy
Building and maintaining general fitness effectively requires hard work and dedication but also requires a certain understanding of the workings of the body. This type of specialised knowledge has not only helped people all over the world to reach and maintain their fitness goals but has also built countless careers for personal trainers, gym instructors and fitness professionals.
If you would like to acquire this type of knowledge for yourself, contact a representative from Trifocus Fitness Academy today, or visit our website for additional information on our fully accredited online courses.
