In the fitness industry there are oftentimes words that are used interchangeably to mean the same thing when in reality they mean two different things; such as, physical activity (PA), exercise and physical fitness (PF). Here I’m going to go over these key fitness terms, break them down, and relate them back to my own personal experiences with fitness.
PA is the most basic of these three terms. You and I engage in hundreds of physically engaging activities a day such as sweeping, going up and down the stairs, vacuuming, gardening, cooking, and walking to name a few. PA is any single, or sequence of, bodily movement produced by contractions of skeletal muscle resulting in an increase in caloric requirement. That’s right, even by folding clothes you’re “spending” calories. To break it down into basic physiology any type of joint or bodily movement requires muscle contractions. Those muscle contractions biochemically require ATP to facilitate the power stroke of myofilaments to illicit the muscle contraction, and this whole process increases the bodies metabolic expenditure. PA is an important part of healthy living and should be incorporated into your daily regimen as much as possible to ensure a high Quality of Life (QoL). The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends that all adults should accumulate 30 minutes of aerobic PA most, if not all, days of the week to improve health, lower morbidity (susceptibility to disease), and decrease premature mortality.
PF is the ability to carry out daily tasks, or activities of daily living (ADL), without undue fatigue with enough energy to still enjoy leisure time. Physical fitness effects both the mind and the body and great developmental strides happen to people who commit time to building the mind and body simultaneously. PF can be broken down into two categories: health related components of fitness and skill related components of fitness. Health related components of fitness are cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, body composition and flexibility, and can be thought of as the typical components of our physical health that benefit from consistent exercise. Skill related components of fitness include coordination, agility, reaction time, power and speed and can be thought of as variables that make an elite athlete. Skill related components deal more with performance; however, they are still relevant to the general population because greater performance directly leads to less effort exerted when performing everyday activities. This means when you increase your performance you increase your skill in that particular activity; thus, decreasing the possibility of injury while performing that activity.
The last, yet most specific of these terms is Exercise. Exercise is a specific type of PA that consist of planned, structured and repetitive body movements done to improve or maintain one or more component of physical fitness. There is no right or wrong way to exercise so you can rest assured. Any activity of daily living in any capacity can be turned into an effective workout with understanding of basic levers, resistance, and resistance modalities.
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