# Define physical fitness. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 9, 2010, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-physical-fitness/553229 "2010-09-09T21:28:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-physical-fitness/553229/101 "2010-10-12T14:43:10Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > **Sleel** , crossfit has indeed convinced me to make being able to do a press hand stand a fitness goal for myself - although I am so far only able to get to holding a handstand briefly and cannot yet do a press handstand even balanced against a wall. I also really want to be able to do a muscle up! I am unsure if I will make either of those goals but they help guide me in choosing what I do for exercise and give me a meaningful (to me) benchmark, and that is useful. My problem with crossfit is that while they present a good game about variety being key, they, in practice, have one focus - high intensity high volume exercise. I think that prolonged endurance is excessively discounted in their definition of fitness. I’m talking about [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNGaQJmYT80&feature=related), not handstand pushups. I can do hspu, but my flexibility and core strength is still just shy of letting me get into the right position for a planche to handstand. If you think CrossFit is all about endurance, then you’re skipping around looking for those kinds of days. On the main page right now is a max-effort day (snatch balance, one rep, seven sets). The day before was Tabata sessions, which are basically anaerobic threshold training. Before that was a skill/conditioning session (100 m handstand walk), another max-effort (front squat 1x7), and a strength-endurance session (21-15-9 reps 24 kg kettlebell snatch L and R arm, pullups) that would also be considered a mixed anaerobic/aerobic workout at the intensity and duration you’re expected to perform. In five exercise days right off the front page you’ve got two heavy lifting days, one straight gymnastics day, bodyweight calisthenics done at high intensity and short duration, and one mixed protocol (weightlifting, gymnastics) session with a moderate load and an expected duration of less than 10 minutes with proper scaling. Now, some of this stuff affects endurance, but it’s nothing that would be considered endurance training by any stretch of the imagination. Besides which, if you think your weak point is lifting heavy, you’re encouraged to program your own sessions to address that weakness. Just don’t favor your strengths too much because it doesn’t do you any favors. Even some of the high-performing people who think they knew better found that training skills, putting in time doing things they hated, or directly addressing weaknesses paid large dividends. One guy wrote an article about how his skipping [double-unders](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TfjmxeUsIs) to do more heavy lifting (which he was already good at) screwed up his overall performance. When he got knocked out of the running for a CrossFit competition due to being unable to finish the exercise, he worked on double-unders and found that he was able to perform other exercises more proficiently, including pure strength efforts. That’s part of the point of CrossFit; a lot of these things are synergistic. Why does doing yoga, or gymnastics flexibility and core exercises, improve most people’s max lifts? Could be more prioperceptive awareness or better positioning due to better flexibility and improved core strength, but that’s just a wild-assed guess. We don’t really know. We do know that it works. Is jumping rope aerobic? Yeah, but it also improves your vertical leap, and you usually find that you can crank out an extra few pull ups if you’ve done a couple of rope sessions in the last couple of weeks. How? Dunno for sure. But it happens. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2010, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-physical-fitness/553229/102 "2010-10-15T05:44:02Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > > > As to “overtraining” I’d say if you are looking to develop muscle mass and strength you aren’t doing much for “fitness” other than becoming temporarily stronger; if you are exercising moderately with non-impact aerobic activity (non-impact especially if you are large-frame) you’ll get the benefit of aerobic conditioning without the drawback of skeletal injury. For some body types, running a couple or three miles a day is fine, and for almost all body types a vigorous walk is helpful. Some degree of stressing the skeleton and joints strengthens bones and doesn’t injure joints. What’s reasonable depends on your genes (read: body type), and it’s sorta like porn–I know it when I see it. The big old ex-footballer clodding to the finish in the Chicago marathon has advertised his virility at the expense of his knees and hips and will not be running marathons in ten years, nor is his “fitness” a reflection of his overall health and longevity. > > Got to call bullshit on this one. It’s just wrong. Read Born to Run. The author is a huge big guy, who couldn’t run at all. He was the exact stereotype of the “no running gene, bad body type” that you are arguing. At the end of the book he completed a 50 miler. > > Similarly, “marathon challenge” on NOVA took 12 people “extremely unlikely to ever run a marathon” and signed them up for Boston. They put them through a battery of exhaustive tests, and gave them professional training. One of these guys was an ex-linebacker turned color commentator, and he fit your stereotype, too. He had no problem. > > What you are thinking of as the wrong body type/wrong genes for running is really symptom of not running. I had that body type, too. After running for ten years, I don’t. > > You’ve already conceded studies that show running actually appears to help joint/skeletal strength over time, why are you trotting out the read herring that it damages these things again? > > I agree that if you spent a lifetime not running you are likely to injury yourself picking up the activity if you are not careful, but that’s more a factor of paying for previous neglect. > > On another note, a lot of joint injuries aren’t due to running, per se. The real culprit seems to be shoes. > > Great article on the subject: > > [How We're Wrecking Our Feet With Every Step We Take -- New York Magazine - Nymag](http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/) I’ll be interested–seriously–to see where McDougall (more specifically, his joints) is in 15 years; he’s only about 48 years old. DSeid and others, on the skinny v fat front: I’m not a fan of the skinny movement, really. I am of the opinion that in animal studies, where confounding variables are more easily controlled, calorie restriction has more typically been associated with longevity than calorie excess, and I think that’s what I said–or meant to say. In humans, a gentle plumpness (as long as your other physiologic parameters such as glucose metabolism and blood pressure are OK) is way over-rated as a death sentence, although I am hesitant to say that in the face of our ridiculously obese society. Finally, DSeid, you will indeed be dancing at the punkin’s wedding if you stick to moderate aerobic exercise and avoid overdoing it, along with moderate strength training as you age. As to whether or not you can lift her, well let’s hope she didn’t get the Fat Gene, and your definition of “lifting” is not twirling her overhead with one hand. As an aside, may I suggest expanding your goal at her wedding to being able to um…perform…after the wedding has wrapped up? That’s the only “strong like bull” worth worrying about for the septuagenarian. 😉 Oh wait…you are just talking about lifing up the chair? C’mon. Stop pulling my chain. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2010, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-physical-fitness/553229/103 "2010-10-15T11:15:12Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > … > > Oh wait…you are just talking about lifing up the chair? C’mon. Stop pulling my chain. We need to get you to a Jewish wedding, so you know what I’m talkin’ bout. And actually the studies on long term calorie restriction diets, long term keeping baseline normal weight people on a diet that is significantly (at least 10% to over 25% in some studies) less calories than their normal intake, are … interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-physical-fitness/553229/104 "2010-10-16T01:38:15Z")
The most physically fit people die last. That is all. You’re welcome. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-physical-fitness/553229/105 "2010-10-16T02:44:21Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > The most physically fit people die last. > > That is all. > > You’re welcome. I think what you meant to say is: _Those who die last (of natural causes, anyway) are the most physically fit._ This is an acceptable definition for longevity, but not fitness. I’m guessing DSeid and I could both give you examples of fragile, chronically enfeebled souls who hang on forever and just refuse to check out in the horizontal mode permanently. Many can just barely take care of themselves, but hang on like that for years. While longevity and lack of disease are part of it, I support DSeid’s contention there is something more to fitness. (DSeid, a wedding day is for uniting families by serving tea; paying homage to ancestors, and feasting in a very ritualized way. None of that disorganized waving-around-chair crapola after the manner of the uncultured and unmannered West.) ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-physical-fitness/553229/106 "2010-10-16T02:53:34Z")
I will amend my statement to: The most physically fit people die last, not counting life support technology (including medications). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/define-physical-fitness/553229.md?page=5)