Assuming that someone does not have a particular event or sport in mind, then what should be defined as physical fitness: better endurance, more strength, flexibility, anaerobic capacity … and if one says “all” then in what balance?
Or to put it differently, would you prefer to have the fitness of a prime marathon runner, bodybuilder, basketball player, or manual laborer? And why?
Why is any definition necessary? Let each person decide how he or she wants to pursue fitness.
To me, all physical activities seem to have tradeoffs.
You could run everyday and possibly achieve marathon endurance. Your heart would be strong but your knees and ankles might be damaged from the years of impact.
You could practice yoga everyday. Your breathing technique would be deep and your joints supple but your muscles do not have above-average strength. You wouldn’t be the best person to help your parents move that heavy piece of furniture or defend your sister from bullies.
With all the contradictions, my answer ends up along the same lines as ITR Champion. Fitness is whatever a particular person needs their body to be in order to fulfill their particular goals.
I don’t know if it’s even possible to put together a fitness training regimen that has covers all areas and has zero tradeoffs. What I do know is that such a regimen if it existed would take more time than the 1 hour I can budget to exercise each day.
Strikes me as more of an IMHO topic than GD. It really comes down to personal preference, and possibly also (at least in part), to body type. Some people put on muscle more readily than others; some find endurance exercises easier, etc.
I go to the gym 4-6 times a week. I’m not incredibly strong, and my muscles are clearly smaller than those of quite a few of the other guys i see in there on a regular basis. They bench a lot more than me, and lift more weight on most exercises. But i’m stronger and more muscular than i was before i started lifting again.
Also, some big guys at my gym combine large muscles with pretty large bellies. There are a few guys who can bench almost twice as much as me, but it’s clear that if you asked those guys to run 5 miles, they’d be bent over and gasping after less than a mile. I run 5 miles comfortably in about 37-38 minutes, and i do it 4-6 times a week.
My body is partly a product of the types of exercise i do. If i replaced my afternoon run with an extra 40-60 minutes a day lifting weights, i’d probably be bigger and stronger, but i’d also probably be fatter, given that i like to eat candy and other sweet things.
Of course, i could run and do more weights, but i also want to have a life. In the normal course of events, about the heaviest thing i lift outside of the gym is an armful of books on the way to the library. It’s not like i actually need to have great strength to get by in the world. To be quite honest, while i enjoy getting stronger, my reasons for working out are more to do with appearances than with strength.
For me, fitness is when i feel good about my physical condition. It means that, even if i would be happy to lose the bits of excess fat that still linger on my waist and stomach, i feel pretty good about myself when i look in the mirror. It means that i can climb the 122 steps from the beach in Encinitas to the carpark without needing to stop, and without losing my breath. It means that i can wear that shirt again, because the buttons no longer look like they’re about to fly off like bullets from the pressure of my belly.
ITR, necessary? No of course it is not necessary. But it has the potential for a fun discussion over what should qualify as fitness.
And I reject the answer that fitness is whatever the individual decides it is.
A bodybuilder can decide that big and defined muscles constitutes fitness, and that meets his goals, but I will still believe that a professional basketball player is more fit overall. Heck I would even argue that the Olympic weightlifter is more fit. To me it seems clear that muscle size alone is not a good measure of fitness. Functional strength, something an Olympic weightlifter has, seems to be a valid component.
I accept the argument that fitness consists of several dimensions, including but not limited to: cardiovascular fitness (both aerobic/endurance and anaerobic capacity); strength (both muscular endurance and maximal possible); balance; and flexibility. I also accept that a definition of fitness must include how the current condition affects long term health outcomes (thus including items such as bone density, heart and blood vessel effects, etc.).
I would argue that someone who is not fit to at least some significant degree in all of those dimensions does not really deserve to be called “fit”.
An alternate definition that I have heard and that makes some sense is that fitness implies that you could successfully function if you were magically placed into a Paleolithic environment, with the demands of that time to have short bursts of intense activity including that of strength coupled with endurance hunting.
Meeting the needs of vanity does not seem like it should be part of the definition, even if that is a large part of why many of us work out. Vanity is different than fitness.
If you had written all of that in your OP, it might have made sense as something to debate. But you didn’t.
You asked people’s opinions about what defined physical fitness for them, and then you asked what type of fitness they would prefer to have.
And your whole premise about who “deserves” to be called fit is completely pointless. What does it matter? The label you give someone doesn’t change their actual level of fitness.
What goes into your calculations that the pro basketball player is “more fit” than a non-steroid bodybuilder?
Michael Jordan had knee surgery at age 39. Aren’t good knees part of the overall health & fitness picture?
A bodybuilder can continue his strength regimen into his 60s or later as long he’s using proper technique. On the other hand, pro basketball no matter how careful the player’s technique causes tremendous wear & tear on the knees. Swimming avoids joint injuries but does not work the calf and forearm muscles.
If your standards of fitness are the graduates of NAVY SEAL academy then you win the thread. In any case, even those guys don’t keep up their training intensity after they pass. All that physical torture was just to weed out the weak candidates.
It’s social. If you fit into the discourse that society accepts as physically fit - say: chest bigger than your waist, reasonably hard body, reasonably strenuous lifestyle - you can call yourself physically fit, because others do.
Of course, if you pitch over with a coronary during your morning jog, the thing needs to be looked at through different criteria.
Well I didn’t post the thread to hear myself talk. I was curious what thoughts others would have first.
And as to Ruminator’s question - by the criteria I laid out: a basketball player is advanced along several of those dimensions (cardiovacular/respiratory, speed, balance, flexibility, anaerobic capacity, etc.); a bodybuilder is generally most advanced only in one interpretation of the vanity standard (if one accepts that as a standard at all) and is not even necessarily superior to the basketball player in the functional strength dimensions (power and muscular stamina). On other dimensions he barely ranks.
I confess to having been influenced by articles on the crossfit website (pdf downloadable there)
Physical resiliency and ability to recover from trauma and physical stress should be pretty high.
Things like stamina, strength, etc. are nice but the ability to recover from an illness or to fall w/o breaking a bone are more important to me with fitness.
DSeid, what on earth are you talking about? There’s no definition of physical fitness. It’s a totally subjective concept. People aren’t even the same, and there’s no way to determine the potential physical ability of anybody. I assume you are proud of your physical condition, and consider yourself superior based on the attributes you have selected because they make you look better. But this nonsense is very old. If you want to compare physical fitness between people, only a fight to the death will do it. So after you get into a fight to the death and survive, you can claim physical superiority to that person. After you have survived mortal combat with half the people on earth, you can claim some kind of physical superiority among all people. Until then, crawl back under your rock and stop bothering us.
TriPolar who forced you to read or respond to the thread and “be bothered”? If you find the question trite then ignore it and read something else.
I find it an interesting abstract question, was expecting to read some interesting and intelligent takes on answering the question(and appreciate WC’s in partiuclar so far), and do not believe Mortal Combat would define it adequately. You have no interesting or intelligent take on the question and don’t think anyone else will. Fine. Why post then?
The ability to undertake moderate exercise without undue discomfort?
Fitness for what?
I would argue endurance/stamina are the primary measures of physical fitness in humans, with “moderate strength” being necessary also.
Why?
Humans are endurance machines. That’s our physical gift amongst all animals in the animal kingdom. Over a long enough distance, no animal on planet earth can out run a human. Not a horse, certainly not one of the great cats, no other primates, none of the large four-legged animals that are capable of much greater “top speeds.”
Before humans started using weapons to hunt, it seems like we just used endurance to hunt. We were able to kill much larger animals by just simply chasing them. We’d run at them, they’d run way. Initially they had no worry of being caught as they could run 3+ times as fast as we could. But eventually they’d stop. We would catch up again and they’d burst away again. We’d repeat this over and over again for miles and miles, sometimes fifteen or more. Eventually our endurance started to overcome the animal’s natural speed and strength. By the time it was over, the quarry was so tired that even a human (nature’s weakest large mammal) was able to kill its prey.
I think to be fit, you essentially need to be able to run 15+ miles at a moment’s notice, without stopping. I don’t think you need to be able to do that every single day of the week, as that isn’t a natural use case of our endurance. I do think you need to be able to do it whenever necessary, though.
I wouldn’t say a marathon runner is a perfect example of what we’re looking for, they potentially run too much. They also probably don’t emphasize strength enough, as prehistoric humans certainly needed some “raw power” to do things like carry butchered carcasses and other activities.
As a general recommendation to everyone in the thread, I’d suggest looking at the 5BX Plan. 5BX stands for “Five Basic Exercises”, it was developed by the Canadian Air Force some time in the 60s or 70s when there were growing concerns that some Canadian pilots were “letting themselves go.” The five exercises are spread over various “stages”, each stage has 5 “more difficult” variations of the initial 5 exercises. One of the key components of the plan is that unless you can complete a day’s exercises in 11 minutes or less, you are not doing them fast enough and shouldn’t move on to the next level (or you should move down a level if you aren’t on the first one.)
They start off easy but get very, very hard eventually. The final chart comes with a note that basically says “only champion athletes will be able to do the exercises on this chart.”
5BX isn’t perfect or anything, but it’s great because it:
-Takes maximum of 11 minutes (if you use more, you’re doing it wrong)
-Builds moderate strength through “body weight” exercises
-Works most of the “core muscles”, and also emphasizes flexibility
-Forces a vigorous aerobic effort
Obviously the one thing 5BX doesn’t do is build up distance running type endurance, but the aerobic part of the exercise will eventually be intense enough that it will certainly help your endurance.
I think combining daily 5BX with a HIIT program (High Intensity Interval Training) would allow you to be “fit” without having to spend more than an hour a day on exercise. In fact you’d spend more like 40 minutes a day at the most. HIIT is basically a form of cardiovascular exercise in which you eschew the “slow and steady” exercises that people who run for miles and miles engage in, but instead you push your heart rate to 90%+ of its maximum for extended intervals. In the fitness community many people have found that doing 20-30 minute daily exercise in which you utilize “intense intervals” of 90%+ effort gives them as much aerobic benefit as they were getting from spending an hour a day on a treadmill or stationary bike or an hour a day jogging.
I must say, i’m somewhat perplexed about why a definition of “fit,” in the minds of some people, must be determined by the attributes required by our prehistoric ancestors to hunt down and butcher large animals. It seems to me that such a narrow or limited definition is silly, precisely because most humans no longer actually need to engage in those activities in order to survive.
I’m not arguing that someone who could pursue a deer (or whatever) on foot and kill it with a spear or club is unfit. I just think it’s a pretty nonsensical way to define “fit” for a person in a modern society like ours.
I wasn’t bothered. I was hoping you would challenge me to mortal combat. Oh well, I’m cool with it. I hope you find others willing to discuss the subject. If you have something interesting to say, then explain why your definition would matter, or anyone else’s for that matter. If we’re not going to fight to the death, I fail to see the utility of the concept. That’s the only reason I’ve ever stayed fit, except attracting women. Oh is that it? Why didn’t you say so in the first place then? Perhaps you can enlighten me.
That is sort of the question and the crux of the debate I was hoping to hear.
Once upon a time fitness implied that you could comfortably meet the requirements of day to day living. Our current daily living physical requirements are paltry. Being able to complete the activities of day to day living comfortably seems to be a very low bar.
Using the demands of day to day living that our bodies evolved to meet as the bar instead of the current demands has a certain attraction, mhendo, and does not seem to be silly to me. It makes a lot more sense to me than those who say that it is whatever you want it to be. You bowl? Then fitness is being able to bowl even if you are otherwise a massive MI waiting to happen and can’t walk up two flights of stairs. I don’t think so.
Most of us implicitly use multiple “whats” at the same time when we aim to increase our fitness. I think that it implies how well you could handle a variety of potential physical demands that are not skills based. Many of us are also either implicitly or explicitly also expecting that fitness, adequately defined, will also lead to beneficial long term health outcomes, a sense of physical well being, and an attractive physical form. I am not sure however if those outcomes are to be thought of as fitness, or as consequences of fitness.
Reading TriPolar on preview, well the evolutionary perspective probably does include attractiveness to potential mating partners, but then that indirectly was likely selecting for forms that correlated with the ability to succeed in those evolutionarily significant activities of day to day living. And that argues for that as an appropriate bar and default fitness goal (excepting a particular event or sports/occupation need) since the attraction to those forms is still likely predisposed in our wiring …
15 miles running without stopping is absolutely absurd. There is a great distribution among humans in regards to physical type, and body proportions. Running is a lot harder for some types than others. I’m short and muscular with very short legs. I can walk all day without complaint, and I’m a fair short distance sprinter. Running tires me right out quickly. On the other hand, I can perform heavy tasks that require strength long after others gas out. I don’t really train in any manner other than a general workout and martial arts. It’s mostly the natural result of my activity level and genes.
Physical fitness should be measured by individual against a selected societal mean that excludes the top performers and terribly obese and out of condition. A good definition might be: “The ability to function* at or above the average* in any physical task, combined with the ability to function above the average in several categories for extended periods of time.”
I would suggest the following as categories to examine: Cardio endurance, raw strength, strength endurance, flexibility, raw speed, hand eye coordination, raw endurance.
So someone who scored at above average in 4/7 and at least average in the other 3 would be Physically fit as compared to their peers.
The point I was going for is that it’s very rare to talk about general purpose fitness, and I don’t think this is an exception. Rather, we ask whether something is fit for a particular use. So what’s the use? That will determine the answer.