By now, you’ve got the idea that losing excess weight is a key component to a healthy and fit lifestyle. It’s probably self evident that excess fat tissue is linked to health risks such as heart disease, hypertension, and poor blood sugar regulation leading to diabetes. You’ve heard that you need to add cardio, strength training, and stretching to your workouts. You may not know how each of these fitness components can help you reduce your risks of chronic health problems.
Today I wanted to focus on fitness components and briefly share with you some of the benefits of each. Fitness benefits are divided into two categories: Health related fitness components and Performance Related components.
What are the components of a fit lifestyle?
The health related components of fitness include, as I mentioned above, aerobic or cardio endurance, muscle strength, flexibility, body composition, and balance. Balance is the one many personal trainers forget to mention but a huge one as we age. Performance related components include motor skills, coordination, reaction time, and speed.
The Benefits of Cardio
The benefits of cardio or aerobic endurance reflect the ability of the heart and lungs (the cardio system) to deliver oxygen and nutrients to the muscles. It also includes the muscle’s ability to produce energy. Cardio workouts help strengthen your heart muscles so it doesn’t have to work as hard to pump blood and it increases your lungs’ capacity to inhale oxygen, deliver it to your cells, and exhale carbon dioxide. This is a key component not only in weight loss but in reducing the risk of heart attack, high blood pressure, diabetes, and some cancers.
The Benefits of Strength Training
Many new to fitness concentrate either on cardio workouts or strength training but it is important to see how they both work together. The heart muscle is strengthen through aerobic exercise and become more efficient delivering oxygen to the working muscles. Improved muscle strength and muscle endurance (how long the muscle can repeat the motion) helps prevent injuries by providing support to your joints. I hear many people complain about bad knees when often it is the supporting muscles that are weak not the knees themselves. Muscle strength and endurance also help with body composition and blood sugar regulation.
The Benefits of Stretching
Stretching is another neglected or under performed component of fitness. Stretching exercises increase your flexibility which is what gives you the range of motion for your joints and your muscles. Many repetitive motion injuries can be prevented with adequate counter movement flexing and stretching. Flexibility improves posture and ease of motion.
The Benefits of Good Body Composition
Body composition, which as I pointed out is improved by weight loss and strength training or toning, is the percentage of fat tissue in the body. Health risks due to excessive fat include diabetes, hypertension or high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, stroke, joint inflammation, and other illnesses and injuries. Excess fat may also be linked to osteoporosis and dementia.
The Benefit of Balance Training
Good balance is a key component in a healthy and fit lifestyle and becomes even more important as we age. The risk of falling increases as a person’s ability to perform a series of movements with coordination decreases. Balance includes our sense of equilibrium and our muscle strength especially in our feet. Exercises for the feet are often over looked in training and need to be included to improve balance.
The Benefits of Performance Related Fitness Components
Motor skills, coordination, reaction time, and speed are needed for activities that involve small or large movements in specific sequences. Whether you are competing in a sport or not, improving your performance related components will help you enjoy participation in a number of activities and may lower your risk of injury.
An active lifestyle also increases your mental health and improves your brain’s cognitive functioning.
“You’re gonna look great and feel great, too.” Minna Lessic
Fitness is not just about looking good or competing in a sport but those things can certainly happen. As you can see, fitness is a key component to living healthy, staying active, and enjoying your life. If you struggle to make fitness a regular part of your life, think about the benefits you are exchanging for your time in the gym.
If you can’t get to the gym today, put on a 30 minute play list of your favorite music and do your workout in the kitchen. That’s right, no excuses. If you can sit and scroll through social media or play a video game or watch a netflix episode for 30 minutes, you can carve out 30 minutes to improve your health, quality of life, and cognitive functioning.
Remind yourself every day, “I live a healthy and fit lifestyle because I want to be active as long as I live,” and do it.