Explore the Evolving Nature of Physical Fitness. I seldom post online, but after giving some consideration to the topic, I've chosen to share some of my ideas with you about what fitness is, what it's actually about, and who should be deemed fit.
My own view may be the only one at this time, but I think it's important enough to share. In all honesty, my feelings of dissatisfaction are driving me to write this. I read the articles, newsletters, and blogs of fit individuals often to learn and improve my own fitness, but recently I've noticed that some really fit people are creating lines in the sand (about what fitness is) that, in my view, don't really need to be there.
I've said it a thousand times, and now you've heard it a million! Traditional ideas of technical fitness focus on being at your best in at least one of the following areas:
strength and stamina.
Physical toughness
flexibility,
The makeup of the body (fat vs. lean body mass)
There's a lot of math in sports. When we think about sports, we frequently think in terms of extremes: how much, how many, how low, how high, how powerful, how far, how enormous, how long. American culture is notoriously a numerical culture.
We are interested in a person's net worth, the number of people they are friends with, the amount of money they spend on clothing, their body fat percentage, the amount of weight they can bench press, and the distance they can run in the shortest period of time. We humans have a pathological need to count things and keep score.
And so I wonder, is fitness truly something that can be measured in numbers? Maybe it's more about how you feel than how you look, however, when it comes to your fitness level. Both, or neither, it may be said. What exactly do you think?
The only thing I can add to this discussion is that, in my opinion, physical fitness goes beyond such objective measures as the number of times you can lift a weight, the distance you can run, and whether or not you can place your feet behind your head. In my opinion, there is more to being physically active than just being a certain weight, running a certain distance, or getting a certain score.
What I tell my clients is that everyone has both talents and limitations. At 24, I maintained a body fat percentage of 9% throughout the year, could squat 700 pounds, and bench press 405 pounds for repetitions. Sadly, I must stop doing it immediately.
When I was 24, I was a beast of a man, but now I can do 35 pull-ups, stand on a stability ball for almost as long as I want, and connect my face to my knee when stretching. Was I fitter then or now? What do you think?
Look at the individuals close to you. Where do they come from and what happened to them? Where do they come from, and what have they seen? What's their weight like, generally speaking? Can we say they're too thin? Perhaps they are physically weak and unable to lift much. It's possible they have a poor capacity for physical exertion and hence cannot run for long periods of time without tiring. Consider the following, and ask yourself whether or not the fact that they don't meet your ideal of fitness really matters if their present level is better than it was before. All of these considerations depend on how you judge the other person.
My view is that one's level of fitness should change as they get older. It's possible that your perspective on physical fitness may change as you go through life. I hope that you will always appreciate exercise in whatever form it takes.
Improve! Develop your strengths and improve. Even though you can't do everything as well as you did when you were younger, there are still ways to improve.
I've also seen people who didn't do much when they were younger become much fitter as they got older.
Lisa, a customer of mine, says that she is, at age 60, more physically fit than she has ever been. Why else do we work out? Fitness, when broken down to its core, seems to be all about bettering oneself in some way, both mentally and physically. Do such items not rely more on quality than quantity?
Yes, I believe that to be the case. My view is that fitness can be approached from any angle and may take on any number of forms.
I hope you won't get so caught up in the minutiae of fitness that you lose sight of the fact that it is, first and foremost, a human endeavor. The focus should be on improving as a group rather than competing for first place. To be fit is not to compete in a race, since there are no winners or losers in this arena. Getting in shape is a own journey.
You may be a world-famous athlete like Lance Armstrong or Drew Brees, or you may be more like my client Lisa, who is in her 60s and decided she wanted to walk with more energy, feel more stable, and be able to play with her grandkids by improving her fitness.
Try to see fitness as something that welcomes all comers rather than shuts anybody out. Sports are fantastic, but in order to crown a victor, we need to keep score and judge each contestant against the others. Please refrain from keeping score in people's everyday pursuits of fitness; that's something best left to the players on the field of play.
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