What Is Fitness?

November 18, 2021

If someone were to ask you to define fitness, how would you respond? Depending on your upbringing and previous physical pursuits, you might describe the fittest as the person who excels at a particular sport or activity. For example, if you grew up participating in track, you likely associate fitness primarily with the ability to run. However, fitness is a general concept, and that a person’s perception of fitness is often influenced by their own experiences is a testament to that fact. This article will discuss how to conceptualize fitness, and its benefits as a methodology.

As mentioned above, fitness is a general concept, and includes not only physical ability, but also health. It can be defined as the preparedness to accomplish a given task, that task being non-specific. The hopper model is often used to illustrate this idea. Imagine you were to create a series of physical tests each made from randomly selected elements. The fittest would be the individual with the highest average performance across the series of tests as a whole. Fitness is not confined to a single modality, but consists of a theoretically infinite variety of domains and variables.

So, what benefit is there to taking a general approach to training? Simply put, training for fitness will help you to be a physically well-rounded individual. Granted, it is necessary for a person who competes in a sport to specialize their training towards the demands of that sport; the parameters they are being tested by are narrow, and their primary focus is to improve within those parameters. However, the majority of people are not involved in a competitive sport and are simply looking to improve their health and physical ability. Focusing too narrowly on one aspect of fitness is often at the expense of other, equally important aspects. For instance, a person who only trains for strength is likely lacking in conditioning, and vice versa.

It is worth noting that while testing in a random manner is appropriate, training should be done with purpose and direction. A varied program can still incorporate training cycles focused on certain movements or skills, the range of which will simply be broader than a specific program. So, train in a variety of different ways, and do so with purpose. The result will be a more well-rounded you!