components of fitness

• fitness is the ability to meet the demands of your environment
• health is a state of complete emotional, physical and social wellbeing
• exercise is a physical activity done to maintain or improve health/fitness
• performance is how well a task is completed
• exercise can: decrease stress, improve health, increase fitness, prevent illness
• exercise has physical, emotional and social benefits
• emotional benefits of exercise: increase cardiovascular fitness, improve strength, improve muscular endurance, increase flexibility, improve body composition, improve performance
• emotional benefits of exercise: relieve stress, psychological change, increase self esteem and confidence, help feel good, appreciate body shape, contribute to enjoyment of life
• social benefits of exercise: mix with others, make new friends, develop teamwork skills, work with others
• fitness tests are to monitor progress to show what you need to improve on by comparing it to averages
• cardiovascular endurance


  your ability to exercise your whole body for long periods of time
• muscular endurance


  your ability to use voluntary muscles repeatedly without getting tired
• cardiovascular endurance

  • Harvard step test
  • 12 minute cooper run
• muscular endurance

  • one minute sit up test
  • one minute press up test
• strength


  you ability to exert force such as when you lift a weight
• flexibility 


  the range of motions of your joints ot the ability for your joints to move
• strength

  • hand grip dynamometer
• flexibility


  sit and reach
• body composition 


  the percentage of body weight that is muscle
• body composition

  • BMI (body mass index)
• agility

  • illinois agility test
• agility 


  the ability to control the movement of the whole body and change position quickly
• balance


  being able to keep the body stable while at rest or in motion
• co-ordination 


  the ability to use two or more body parts together
• power


  the ability to undertake strength performances quickly
• power

  • vertical jump
• reaction time 


  the time in between the presentation of a stimulus and the onset of movement
• speed 


  the rate at which an individual can perform a movement or cover a distance
• speed

  • 30m sprint test
• we should test our fitness so we can set targets and improve
• principles of training

  • specificity
  • progressive overload
  • overstraining
  • reversibility
  • thresholds of training
  • individual needs
  • FITT
• specificity 


  matching training to the particular requirements of an activity to ensure you are training the right muscles and body systems to help your performance
• progressive overload


  gradually increasing the amount of overload and intensity to improve fitness without injury as the body can adapt and increase fitness
• overtraining


  overtraining beyond your bodies ability to recover can lead to injury and prevent improvements so you need to ensure adequate rest and recovery and to set your workload at the right intensity and size
• reversibility 


  loosing fitness instead of progressing or remaining at the current level caused by a break from training (holiday, injury, off season)
• thresholds of training 


  a safe and effective level to train at
• aerobic zone 


  60-80% maximum heart rate
• anaerobic zone 


  80-90% maximum heart rate
• individual needs


  the athletes needs have to be taken into account when planing a training programme
• FITT principle

  • frequency
  • intensity
  • time
  • type