Galdos

Fitness

If we look up this word in a dictionary we can find expression similar to the following:

Good health or physical condition, especially as the result of exercise and proper nutrition.

It is not a complete definition, fitness can be defined as a whole feeling or state of wellbeing.

Fitness incorporates physical and mental health as well as emotional satisfaction.

All in all:When body, mind and soul are in touch and our souls "fit" happily into our bodies - that's fitness!

But in P.E. people study the physical side of fitness

Physical fitness involves many different body capabilities. The most important are:
1. Endurance
2. Strength
3. Flexibility
4. Speed

Besides those there are some more we need to work like coordination, power, balanceand agility.

Very soon it was discovered that exercise (physical activity) helps physically, mentally and socially, it improves your health and fitness.

There are loads of very good reason for exercising. These reasons fall into three basic groups:

A) Physical benefits:
- Improves your body shape, muscle tone and posture.
- Strengthens the bones, reduces the chances of illnessand increases life expectancy.
- Increases your strength, flexibilty and overall fitness.

B) Mental benefits:
- Gives you a challenge, and a goal to aim for.
- Helps you deal with stress and tension, and it can be fun.
- Helps you to feel better about yourself and increase your self-confidence.

C) Social benefits:
- Can improve your team work and cooperation.
-Can help you meet people and lead to new friendships.
- Sport can also improve your image and bring in money.

So, every day people go more and more to gyms, although many gym goers focus on certain aspects of the above fitness components. They misunderstand the meaning of fitness. Focusing mainly on cardiovascular exercises will result in great advances in endurance and cardiovascularfunction, but little progress will be made in strength, power, speed, flexibility and agility. Our body, then, doesn’t get the expected fitness. The same will happen if we do the contrary, we must work all of them.


About physical fitness, we can distinguish between:
- Cardiovascular fitness:This is about keeping your muscles supplied with oxygen. It pretends that your heart and lungs canprovide a lot of oxygen.
- Muscular fitness: This is good if your muscles can apply a lot of force to some thing. This mean you can lift, push, pull, throw, etc very hard or very quickly

Endurance

Endurance is a term widely used in sport and can mean many different things to many different people. In sports it refers to an athlete's ability to sustain prolonged exercise for minutes,hours, or even days. Endurance requires the circulatory and respiratory systems to supply energy to the working muscles in order to support sustained physical activity.

We can find several types of endurance like aerobic endurance, anaerobic endurance, speed endurance and strength endurance, but we are going to pay special attention to aerobic and anaerobic endurance.

As yourmuscles work harder, they need more oxygen. Your breathing and heart rate get faster to move more oxygen around the body.

When most people talk about endurance they are referring to aerobic endurance, which is often equated with cardiovascular fitness. Aerobic means ‘with oxygen’ and during aerobic exercise your breathing and heart rate are able to bring enough oxygen to muscles and so, theyget the energy needed for exercise.

Anaerobic means 'without oxygen'. When you are carrying out a maximum effort, the body is working so hard that your breathing and heart rate cannot satisfy muscles’ demands for oxygen and fuel. Muscles have to get it from the stored reserves and, being starved of oxygen, take the body into a state known as oxygen debt. The body's stored fuel soon runs...