The USDHHS defines fitness as:
"a set of attributes that people have or achieve that relates to the ability to perform physical activity."
Thats nice but about as vague as you can get? What attributes? Whats measured?
Another definition found on the web says:
Fitness" is a broad term that means something different to each person, but it refers to your own optimal health and overall well-being. Being fit not only means physical health, but emotional and mental health, too. It defines every aspect of your health. Smart eating and active living are fundamental to fitness.
What? Fitness means something different to each person? Fitness refers to YOUR own optimal health and wellbeing? What is optimal? and what is well being?
WedMD say this:
Fitness means being able to perform physical activity. It also means having the energy and strength to feel as good as possible.
So fitness is only about physical activity, energy and strength and feeling good? Whats feeling good?
The term fitness has changed over the years as the science has advanced but experts still seem unable to describe exactly what fitness is. For instance in the 1920's-50's fitness was synonymous with physical fitness and physical work.
Upto the Mid 60's in the west, physical fitness was described with these attributes:
Strength, speed, power, endurance, coordination, balance,body control, flexability, and agility.
In the early 60's-70's during the fitness boom, fitness was described as:
" The ability to carry out daily tasks with vigor and alertness, without undue fatigue, and with ample energy to enjoy liesure time persuits and meet unforseen emergencies"
Whats ment by vigor and alertness? Whats undue fatigue?
Dr Kenneth Cooper, "inventor of Aerobics", further "enhanced" the fitness definition by also including moderation and balance as well as body weight control, diet, smoking, alcohol consumption, stress managment and periodic physician examinations which seemed to water down the fitness definition into the realm of health.
Then in 1996 and 2000 the USDHHS and the American College of Sports Medicine adopted the definition I said above.. And even more bizzare, some expert fitness organizations such as the the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) doesnt even define fitness in their standards of practice!
But we have definitely been very busy generating 1000's of studies on fitness without even having a common definition!
The USDHHS and ACSM in 2006 further elaborated fitness in their exercise guidlines as such:
"A multidementional concept that has been defined as a set of attributes that people possess or achieve that relates to the ability to perform physical activity and is comprised of skill-related, health related and physiologic componets. Skill related components of physical fitness includes agility, balance, coordination, speed, power and reaction time, and are mostly associated with sport and motor skills performance. Health related physical fitness is associated with the ability to perform daily activities with vigor, and the possesion of traits and capacities that are associated with a low risk of premature development of hypokenetic diseases. Health related components of fitness include cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexability, and body composition. Physiologic fitness differs from health-related fitness in that it includes nonperformance components that relate to biological systems influenced byhabitual activity. Physiologic fitness includes - a) metabolic fitness: The status of metabolic systems and vastrengthriable predictive of the risk od diabetes and cardiovascular disease. b) Morhpologic fitness: the status of body compositional factors such as body circumference, body fat content and regional body fat distribution. c) Bone integrity: The status of bone mineral density."
Wow what a huge laundry list of stuff that the experts decided in some way had something to do with fitness and health and athleticisim and body composition. And who can remember all these things and what they are?
Dr lon Kilgore in his book FIT defined fitness as such:
" Possession of adequate levels of strength, endurance and mobility to provide for successful participation in occupational effort, recreational pursuits, familial obligation, and that is consistent with a functional phenotypic expresiion of the human genotype"
Thats certainly better and provides for simplicity, functionality and measurableness. But is it really understandable to everyday people? what is ment by functional phenotypic expression of the human geneotype?
So you can see over the decades we have gone from simple definitions to definitions that went way beyond just fitness and then to overly complex definitions that tried to cover every imaginal aspect of fitness whether it was fundamentally true or not. Not a very good example by the experts. What the heck are us mere mortals suppose to think about fitness if the experts aren't even sure or able to express it in a way that the common man can truly understand?
Well I found one definition that is simple to understand and I think can be used meaningfully and easily measurable by anybody without the need for scientific instruments or labratories or gyms or tracks or any scientific language.
From Dr Laurrence E. Morehouse.: Fitness is simply the conditioning of your body to live life fully at your level of exisistance. If you have enough energy to fully live your working day, enjoy your evenings and recreations and have a reserve for ordinary emergencies, then you are fit.
He wrote that back in 1975. Notice how thats pretty much what Dr. Lon Kilgore says, 35 years later, except without the scientific language.
He doesn't quantify a level of fitness, rather he describes it as what YOU do in your life. If your a professional athelete then fitness will be of a much higher level than the weekender who is happy to go golfing a few times a week or play tennis or work in the garden everyday or simply enjoys walking and hiking in nature.
Theres quite simply no need to break your back with exercise to achieve fitness. Though moderate exercise (150-300 mins per week) can provide you with possibly an optimal level of fitness to match the optimal nutrition you get from Dr McDougalls program to provide you with an optimal quality of long life
How do you define fitness?
*Note: Material used came from Dr Lon Kilgores book "Fit", Dr Morehouse's books "Fitness in 30 mins a week" and "Maximum Performance " and from various Google searches and my own experiences.
