What is fitness?

You may say it's a combination of stamina, flexibility, strength, speed and power. The human body is so diverse; the degree of fitness may vary from the extreme levels experienced by elite athletes to simply being mobile enough to do what you want to do!

Whilst all fitness training relies on the same basic principles it is vitally important that the specificity of the activity matches your aims and objectives. If you are training for a sport you will need to be specific in your training to match the actions involved in that sport. If you have more general aims in improving strength and decreasing fat levels, then ensure your programme reflects that desire. It is possible to achieve whatever you set out to do, provided you follow a well-structured programme correctly.

Aspects of fitness

The main aspects of fitness that we will cover can broadly be split into the following categories:

• Flexibility
• Stamina
• Strength
• Speed
• Power (which is combination of Strength and Speed)