Fitness Friday

First the AWESOME news.  ..

are you ready?

This is so great!

I am RUNNING THE HALF MARATHON TOMORROW and yes I am shouting it!  I took my knee for a test three mile run yesterday morning and it felt GREAT, still does.  I am so excited.  What is not great is going to be how HOT it will be!  A high of 92 tomorrow, ugh, whatever happened to the 78 they were predicting last week?   I knew it was probably going to be a cooker, it is July after all.  It is going to be about 64 degrees when the race starts and 74 when it ends and sunny.  Not bad but, but hotter than I am used to for the most part so my plan is to HYDRATE lots and often and not go out too fast (a bad habit of mine).

Dina challenged her readers today to tell her what fitness meant to then which got me thinking about what it meant to me and really what it was defined as.  So I turned to my trusty know it all friend Google.  There are a lot of articles about fitness.  So I read a few and decided to narrow it down and simply discuss the 5 components of physical fitness.  Who knew there were only 5?  Several different sites listed them as

1. Cardiovascular Fitness

Cardiovascular fitness (also known as cardiorespiratory fitness) is the ability of the heart, lungs and vascular system to deliver oxygen-rich blood to working muscles during sustained physical activity. Aerobic exercise improves cardiovascular fitness.


2. Muscular Strength

Muscular strength is the amount of force a muscle or muscle group can exert against a heavy resistance. Anaerobic exercise improves muscular strength.


3. Muscular Endurance

Muscular endurance is the ability of a muscle or muscle group to repeat a movement many times or to hold a particular position for an extended period of time. Both aerobic exercise and anaerobic exercise can improve muscular endurance.


4. Flexibility

Flexibility is the degree to which an individual muscle will lengthen. Stretching improves flexibility.


5. Body Composition

Body composition is the amount of fat in the body compared to the amount of lean mass (muscle, bones etc.).
 source
So does that mean a person is only 80% fit if they are all these things and not flexible?  or can run an ultr-marathon but not do 10 pushups?

What do you guys think?  To me I am fit if I can do the things I want to do and do them well.  I am of course always striving to be just a little more fit, but I know I could work on the flexibility thing. I try not to worry about weight and just go with as long as my clothes fit comfortably, I am happy.


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