fitness

1. The state or condition of being fit; suitability or appropriateness.
2. Good health or physical condition, especially as the result of exercise and proper nutrition.
3. Biology. The extent to which an organism is adapted to or able to produce offspring in a particular environment.

Fitness for what?

When we speak, perhaps with a hint of envy, of a ‘fit’ young man or woman — and even more when we refer, with undisguised admiration, to a ‘fit’ old person — there is little ambiguity as to our meaning: we are referring to fitness to cope with life in general, not only with sport, and certainly not a particular sport. Furthermore the international athlete, in peak of condition, is ‘fit’ for only a limited number of very similar events: the sprinter could not possibly run a marathon, the power lifter could compete with neither kind of runner at their events. The fitness of the racing driver is radically different from that of the dinghy sailor, the gymnast from that of the mountaineer and, perhaps most radically of all, the oarsman from that of the pistol shooter. Furthermore, many highly trained athletes, particularly those conditioned for endurance events, display greater, not less, vulnerability than the average person to many forms of illness.

Clearly then, we must distinguish ‘fitness for life’ from ‘fitness for sport’; and, when considering the latter, must specify which sport.

Fitness for life

This is a condition which we almost all desire, but few of us pursue with vigour. To attain and maintain it requires adequate and balanced nourishment, adequate and varied exercise, adequate but not excessive sleep, avoidance of excess in using social drugs, plentiful stimulation without excessive stress, and psychosocial well-being. The Aristotelian precept, ‘moderation in all things’, remains as good a guide as any to the balances which must be struck. Fitness for work, for leisure and recreational exercise, for family life and parenthood, and even for childbearing itself, and fitness to cope with emergencies — all are optimized in these broad ways. The influences of genetics and of environment are inescapable, so the fitness attained by one person will be very different from that attained by another, but all will approach their individual optima by personal application of the same balanced principles. Even Western and Eastern, secular and religious wisdoms (disregarding the most extreme of the latter) have much more in common than divergence in their guidelines for ‘fitness’, whether or not they would recognize that term; and modern science, while adding a few details on matters like trace nutrients, takes little issue with them about the broader picture.

Endurance fitness

If there is one aspect of specialist, sports-oriented fitness which embodies the greatest part of the lay ideal, it is probably endurance fitness — the ability to continue a demanding physical activity many times longer than the untrained person can. Whether the challenge is a London- Brighton cycle race, an ascent of the Matterhorn, or a Channel swim, the fundamentals of this category of fitness are the same. Each of these activities is trained for in essentially the same way — namely, by covering large mileages several days a week for many months, with few if any periods of exertion that are flat out, either in strength or speed. Each activity is, in turn, necessarily aerobic — an activity performed in balance with oxygen intake — and consequently requires that the heart can pump blood to the working muscles at several times its resting rate throughout the long duration of the exercise; also that the lungs can adequately oxygenate this enhanced blood flow as long as the exercise continues. ‘Cardio-respiratory fitness’ is thus a common feature of all endurance events, though they differ in the skeletal muscles used, and the movement patterns these muscles perform.

When muscles have been endurance-trained they are typically only a little larger than before the training began, months or years before. They become furnished, however, with a much more copious system of blood capillaries. Within the muscle fibres, mitochondria, the organelles involved in oxidative energy provision, may be 2-3 times more numerous than in untrained or differently trained fibres. Connective tissues within the muscle as well as the associated tendons and ligaments are stronger too. The nervous system must also participate in the training, for patterns of movement in the exercise concerned are usually measurably more economical than before the regime began.

Other forms of training

Pure strength training contrasts most markedly with the low-force, multiple-repetition work just described. Though increasing the bulk of the muscles and the maximum loads which they can handle, it adds little or nothing to their endurance. However the more commonly undertaken ‘weight training’, in which less extreme loads are worked against, with several times as many repetitions during the course of each gymnasium session, imparts ‘strength endurance’, a balance between the two extremes which arguably develops the most useful form of fitness for everyday life. Speed training, ‘plyometric’ (resilience) training, and flexibility training are other forms in which it is possible to specialize: in particular, yoga places a degree of emphasis upon flexibility which most other schools of physical educators would consider disproportionate. Nevertheless a programme of muscle stretching and joint flexibility should be part of the regime of every sportsperson seeking to improve not only performance but resistance to injury. Finally, between speed and endurance comes ‘anaerobic endurance’ — the ability to maintain a power output only a few per cent below flat out for several tens of seconds (as in 400 metre running) or to repeat short bursts many times in a period of about 90 min (as in hockey, soccer, and other ‘multiple sprint’ sports).

Specific versus general fitness

It would be widely agreed that the broader-based forms of fitness are of greater value in daily life than the extreme forms, such as pure endurance, pure strength, pure flexibility, or pure speed. Older literature embodied the ideal of breadth in the term ‘general fitness’. However, it is now appreciated that the dominating principle underlying the response of the body to training is its ‘specificity’. A particular exercise elicits the adaptive responses we call ‘training’ only from the specific muscles and other tissues exercised, and enhances only the specific property (endurance, strength, speed, or extensibility) which the exercise challenges. At best only very modest improvements of other properties or at other muscle sites (‘cross-training’) are ever reported, and they cannot be counted upon. A sport requiring many forms of fitness must thus have a training programme including many elements. There is probably only one sense in which ‘general fitness’ can be enhanced by most individual forms of exercise, pursued in isolation: since it is impossible to undertake any exercise without raising both pulse rate and ventilation, every form of exercise provides some cardio-respiratory training, and hence some degree of ‘general fitness’ in respect of these central organs. More thorough-going general fitness can only be attained by an exercise programme which is itself broad-based.

A broad-based programme can, of course, be achieved by regular visits to a well-conducted gymnasium; however, such a clinically purposeful regime is not the only way. Someone who, in a typical 2-week period, goes for a 40-minute run, plays a game of squash, spends an active 30 minutes in the swimming pool, does a couple of hours' heavy gardening, polishes the car energetically, chops wood, vacuum cleans the stairs twice, and scrubs the steps, especially if (s) he precedes at least the first three of these activities with 5-7 minutes of stretching and flexing exercises, will be as fit for life as a neighbour who visits the local gym three times a week. Any difference between them which is non-genetic may well be determined by which of them gets more sleep, or eats less fat.

Women, children, and the elderly

In modern, Western societies, women, children, and the elderly are particularly prone to take insufficient exercise. The Allied Dunbar National Fitness Survey found that, in England during 1990, only one woman in ten, whether aged 20 or 50, took the amount of exercise really recommended for health whereas, among the men, 30% of 20-year-olds and 20% of 50-year-olds did so. Dunbar's standards were admittedly high — among the 20-year-olds, for instance, it hoped to see three games of squash, or equivalent, per week. More recent research has shown that statistically demonstrable improvements in cardiovascular fitness, compared with the effects of taking no exercise at all, can be had from only three 20-30 minute periods per week of moderately vigorous walking. Nevertheless, about a quarter of women in the working age-groups do not even achieve this, which is a much more modest goal than the vibrant fitness sought by Dunbar.

Modern children are distracted by television and computer games and are more likely to be transported to and from school, so that they almost certainly take less exercise than their predecessors before the 1939-45 war (although incontrovertible figures for the past are hard to establish). They should be urged to the maximum amount of physical activity of which they seem capable. No damage will accrue, provided they wear well-fitting trainers, are provided with shock-absorbing landing mats for gymnastics, and don't spend more than 90 minutes, 3 days a week, with specialist, competitive coaches.

Amongst the elderly, a ‘disuse-disability spiral’ operates. Well-meaning younger carers can be the old person's worst enemies. If daily activities fail to maintain independence — the bottle top, the heavy kettle, and worst of all independence at the toilet, being critical markers of diminished capacity — exercise regimes can be of enormous benefit. Often this benefit is proportionately greater than in younger adults, because, through disuse, the elderly have declined further below their genetic capability. Instances of elderly people running marathons are well known, but strength training is at least as effective in the very old as endurance training, and may be even more beneficial.

— Neil Spurway

Bibliography

• Morris, J. et al., (1992). Allied Dunbar National Fitness Survey. The Sports Council, London.
• Sharkey, B. J. (1990). Physiology of fitness, (3rd edn). Human Kinetics, Champaign, Illinois.
• Wilmore, J. H. and Costill, D. L. (2000). Physiology of sport and exercise. 2nd ed. Human Kinetics, Champaign, Illinois

See also exercise; health; sport.

Fitness is generally defined as the ability of a person to live a happy, well-balanced life. It embraces the physical, intellectual, social, and spiritual aspects of a person's life. It is a relative term, depending on individual circumstances and for what a person needs to be fit. Fitness has health-related components and skill-related components. Health-related components include aerobic fitness, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and body composition. Skill-related components include agility, balance, coordination, speed, power, and reaction time. Both sets of components interact and are interdependent. A deficiency in any component reduces overall fitness. Compare unfitness; see also physical fitness.

noun

1. The quality or state of being eligible: eligibility, qualification, suitability, suitableness, worthiness. See ability/inability.
2. A state of sound readiness: condition, fettle, form, kilter, order, shape, trim. See better/worse.

Definition: appropriateness
Antonyms: inappropriateness, unfitness, unsuitability

n

Definition: good condition
Antonyms: poor health, unfitness

The ability to live a happy and well-balanced life. Fitness involves not only physical factors, but it also has intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual components. These components interact and are interdependent so that if any component deviates from normal it affects the overall fitness and ability of an individual to meet the demands made by his or her way of life. Clearly, fitness is a relative term that depends on an individual's circumstances and aspirations. Fitness is also specific to a particular physical activity: a person fit to run the marathon will not necessarily be fit to do gymnastics (see physical fitness).

Good health; equine and canine sports medicine devote much enthusiasm to the measurement of fitness, the ability to perform work, or physical activity, well. Besides actual tests of performance there are biochemical, hematological and electrocardiographic tests which can be of assistance. Radiographic examination of skeletal features has special application to racing animals. Includes fitness for performing, racing or for draft work.

• f. prediction — the art of predicting whether a horse will win a particular race; a combination of knowing the horse's racing form, fitness, owner and trainer intentions, jockey competence, suitability of the track.

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