What Does it Mean to Be Fit?

Have you ever watched a sports competition and see a man who looks very average with not a lot of definition? Yet, he is one of the top athletes in the business. Does this mean he is not fit? Obviously, to reach a mark of excellence, you NEED to be fit.

This is a good example in the world of mixed martial arts. A lot of times the guys who fight do not have a stereotypical body. Don’t get me wrong, a high majority of them are ripped to shreds, but there is still a handful that is not. I don’t think you’d want to tell them they are not fit. You just might end up with a black eye.

In the real world, the pictures you see of models pimping protein powders and doing workouts on infomercials are exaggerated. Sorry to put a damper on your day. Just because someone looks well-defined doesn’t mean anything in the big picture. I know plenty of people who have that body but are out of breath when they walk up a flight of stairs.

Here’s the deal. Fitness is more than just a physical appearance. It’s an all-encompassing, wholistic state of being—a full package deal so to speak. If you are a fast runner, that’s only one parameter of fitness, and a small one I might add. That might be great if you are running for your life from a mugger, but can you put your pants on without having to sit down?

If the answer is no, then you re inflexible. Poor flexibility can come into play if you evade the mugger and have to climb over a fence to reach safety. If your hamstrings are too tight, you’re not going anywhere. Instead, you’re screaming for help at the top of your lungs.

Scientifically, there are actually five parameters that make up the criteria of being fit. They include muscular endurance, muscular strength, cardiovascular endurance, flexibility and body composition. Sum these all together and you can determine if you are fit or not.

Muscular endurance is the ability to do a high amount of repetitions of a given movement with a moderate to light weight. You often see people in gyms doing high reps of pushups, dips and lunges with no added weight to build their muscular endurance. If you can do 15 or more reps with quality form, then you have good muscular endurance.
Muscular strength is pretty self-explanatory. It’s how strong you are. If you can lift a maximal weight with good form, then you have muscular strength.

Cardiovascular endurance is the ability to maintain a form of cardiovascular exercise for an extended period of time, such as running, biking, stair climbing, jumping rope or even walking.

Flexibility is the ability to move through a full range of motion and hold that position for an extended period of time. Let’s go back to the tight hamstrings example. If you cannot bend forward and touch your toes without bending your knees, you are not flexible. That’s just a quick rule of thumb.

Body composition is the amount of fat you have in comparison to lean body mass. Lean body mass is all tissue in the body minus fat itself, which would include muscles, bones, fluid, skin, hair, teeth, nails and organs. The ideal is to have a low body fat percentage and high amount of muscle.

Now that you have all this knowledge, let’s go back to the mixed martial artist. He might not have a lot of definition, but might rank high with all of the fitness parameters. In the big picture, he is still fit. This goes to show that you should never judge a book by its cover.