The Components of Physical Fitness provide a sophisticated guideline to improve physical health. The Components of Physical Fitness include Muscular Strength, Muscular Endurance, Cardiovascular Endurance, Body Fat Composition, Balance and Coordination, Speed or Quickness, Flexibility, Agility, Power and Reaction time. 

The health-related Components are those which apply to your bodily condition, like Muscular Strength Endurance, Cardiovascular Endurance, Flexibility and Body Composition. Fitness Components are used to regulate training and promote health in the upside and the downside, and conventional, popular exercises like Weight Lifting and Jogging showcase the Components vividly.

What are Fitness Components?

Listed below are the different components of physical fitness. 

• Muscular Strength: The amount of physical force your muscles can put out, how much weight you can lift.
• Muscular Endurance: The ability for a muscle group to engage repetitively over an extended period of time, also known as the measure of a muscle group’s “gas tank.”
• Cardiovascular Endurance: The ability to operate for extended periods with an elevated heart rate.
• Body Fat Composition: The relation between the amount of body fat you have to your total body mass.
• Balance and Coordination: Balance is defined as the ability to remain upright and demonstrate control over your body, coordination is the ability to control members of your body with efficiency and dexterity. 
• Speed or Quickness: The ability to move all or part of the body as quickly as possible.
• Flexibility: The ability to stretch muscles without pulling or tearing them.
• Agility: The ability to perform rapid whole-body movements with change of velocity or direction in response to a stimulus.
• Power: The amount of strength a person is able to use during a movement, together with the speed of the motion.
• Reaction time: The speed at which one can respond to a stimulus

1. Muscular Strength

The Fitness Composition of Muscular strength is defined as the amount of physical force your muscles can put out, or how much weight you can lift. This can be measured by estimating a person’s one repetition maximum weight – or “one rep max” – within a particular lift. This means that the weight is the heaviest that the muscles can move without injury or failure. Programs dedicated to improving this statistic will involve working sets within a certain percentage of this metric.

1. Muscular Endurance

Muscular Endurance can be defined as the ability for a muscle group to engage repetitively over an extended period of time. This is the measure of a muscle group’s “gas tank.” The measurement of Muscular Endurance shows how many repetitions can be performed within a certain exercise without failure or fatigue. Unlike the fitness composition of Muscular Strength, this attribute involves the amount of repetitions rather than the amount of weight.

1. Cardiovascular Endurance

Cardiovascular Endurance is a component of physical fitness that measures the ability to perform high-intensity exercise. This includes the ability to operate for extended periods with an elevated heart rate. Your VO2 Max measures your body’s consumption and usage of oxygen during exercising. Marathon runners, sprinters, combat sports athletes, and swimmers are examples of athletes that thrive on properly trained Cardiovascular Endurance.

1. Body Fat Composition

The standard definition of Body Fat Composition is the relation between the amount of body fat you have to your total body mass. This metric includes the fat around your internal organs and around your muscles. Calipers measure body fat on your chest, abs and thigh in the most typical tests, pulling muscle away from the fat and measuring the fold. The NCAA cites that healthy adult males will average 10-22% body fat depending on genetic factors such as height and weight and healthy adult females will average 20-32% body fat depending on the same factors. 

1. Balance and Coordination

Balance is defined as the ability to remain upright and demonstrate control over your body, and coordination is the ability to control members of your body with efficiency and dexterity. The fitness of stabilizing muscles has a lot to do with balance. This can be measured by one’s ability to stand on one leg without swaying or using the other leg for assistance for an extended period of time. Coordination can be measured by observing the fluidity and precision of bodily movement. Competitive dancers are examples of people who demonstrate good coordination.

1. Speed or Quickness

Oxford defines speed as the rate at which something or someone moves or operates. When speaking of Speed as a fitness component, the word “quickness” is synonymous with the Oxford definition, meaning it is defined as the ability to move all or part of the body as quickly as possible. Testing speed is usually prevalent in sports revolving around running, with tests like the 40 yard dash being among the most popular. Generally it is measured by recording the amount of time it takes for someone to sprint from point A to point B. 

1. Flexibility

Flexibility as a component of fitness is best defined as the ability to stretch muscles without pulling or tearing them. Measuring this is done by performing a variety of different stretching techniques to stretch your muscles as far as the range of motion will allow without tearing. Gymnasts and Martial Artists showcase flexibility in their practices. As the range of motion of different muscle groups is stretched to uncharted territories with improvement, it is important to build strength in the newfound range of motion to avoid injury.

1. Agility

One could think of agility as the blend of two fitness components – Speed and Coordination. This is the ability to not only move quickly, but efficiently. Agility is measured similar to how speed is measured, but the separation between the two Compositions lies in the necessity for Coordination. The measured ability to not only move fast, but to be able to stop and perform a different body motion explosively and quickly demonstrates developed agility. Football players rely on techniques such as spin moves, jukes, and hurdles to out-maneuver their opponents on the gridiron, demonstrating agility in all levels of football.

1. Power

Power can be defined as the combination of strength and speed. This is the measure of not just how much weight one can lift, but the speed and explosiveness with which one can lift. Power is most often measured and demonstrated in Olympic weightlifting techniques, such as the power clean and the power snatch, where the goal is to move the weight from the floor to the complete position smoothly explosively. 

1. Reaction time

Simply defined, reaction time is the speed at which one can respond to a stimulus. There are many ways to measure reaction time. For example, a football player is 25 yards away. You throw the ball, and once the ball is half of the way to him you yell the signal for him to quickly turn around and catch the ball. An example of where reaction time would be an important fitness component to develop is in the realm of tennis. Tennis players demonstrate reaction time by observing within moments the direction the ball is headed on the court, utilizing Agility to pivot and return the ball within seconds.

What are the Five Components of Fitness?

The Five components of health-related fitness are muscular endurance, cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, muscle strength, and body composition. Each plays an important role in the state of your overall physical fitness, prioritizing each of these components through physical exercise and training is vital to improving health.

How can the Components of Fitness Affect Your Health?

Regular exercise and physical activity promotes strong muscles and bones. It improves respiratory, cardiovascular health and overall health. Staying active helps you maintain a healthy weight, reduces your risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and reduces your risk for some cancers.

What Fitness Component is required to maintain Good Body Mobility?

Flexibility is one of the most important, yet often overlooked, components of physical fitness. Flexibility training ensures that your body can move through its entire range of motion without pain or stiffness.

What Fitness Component is required in Weightlifting?

Muscular Strength –  the “power” that helps you lift and carry heavy objects. Building muscular strength will provide your body with the means to successfully fulfill the demands of  weightlifting. The way to increase strength is to train with heavy weights, working in the 4 – 6 or 12 – 15 rep ranges.

What are the health-related components of going into the gym?

Body composition, flexibility, muscular strength, muscular endurance and cardiorespiratory endurance are all components of going into the gym. 

What are the health-related components of jogging?

Jogging is a form of aerobic endurance which aligns with cardiorespiratory endurance. In addition, by running you are building muscular endurance in your calves, quadriceps, and anterior tibialis muscles.

What are the benefits of Components of Fitness?

The Components of Fitness offer a guideline for what to improve in your health. By following the rubric provided by the Components of Fitness health goals can be achieved in a structured and measurable way. Following the Components also provides trainers with the ability to formulate exercise plans for their clients that line up with the necessary improvement in one of the Components.

What are the downsides of Components of Fitness?

The Components are specific to each designation of health, but it does not account for bodily injury, genetic disease and other physical, mental and/or emotional hindrances. Diseases that affect diet in turn affect the amount of exercise in the event of a potentially unavoidable caloric deficit just as much as the type of exercise is determined by ability to perform certain movements. The Components of Fitness provide a guideline for physical training, but the guideline must bend to the needs of its users.