The 7 components of fitness

Great athletes reach high levels of performance because they focus on all 7 elements of fitness. Keeping these in balance maximizes performance and reduces the chance of injury. Visit www.sporteffective for more fitness information.

1. The 7 Components of Fitness www.sporteffective.com

2. Flexibility Flexibility entails having the maximum range of movement around a joint allowed by the muscles, tendons and ligaments . Every training session should involve a comprehensive warm-up including mobility work and dynamic stretches and end with a comprehensive cool-down and static stretch session. Repeatedly carrying out this process will ensure a marked improvement in recovery time and help to produce strong, healthy muscles

3. Endurance Endurance is the body’s ability to resist fatigue whilst performing relatively prolonged exercises of low to moderate intensity . Runners (except sprinters) require a high level of endurance fitness. In fact it is probably the most important component, as having good endurance ensures you can run for a long time.

4. Skill A skill is the ability to know when and where to use a specific technique that is required to complete an activity and to also be able to use that skill repeatedly and successfully . Whilst skills are clearly very evident in most sports, the dedicated runner will also have to perfect many types of skills and techniques if they are to run economically, quickly and without incurring injury.

5. Stamina Stamina is the ability of the body to resist fatigue whilst performing high intensity work . This type of training is important to middle and long distance runners, sprinters and players who participate in sports such as soccer, rugby and hockey. The best way to train stamina is to perform repetitive sprint/intervals a set number of times.

6. S trength Strength is said to be the maximum force that a specific muscle can generate against resistance . Strength training is often neglected in many sports and especially with runners who see the “pumping iron” approach as a second best to running miles on the road or the treadmill. However any serious athlete looking to progress only has to look at Usain Bolt or Michael Johnson to see the correlation between strength training and performance.

7. Speed Speed is said to be how quickly the muscle can move given a set objective. We all initially think of this as our sprint speed however it can also be analysed as our reaction time in ball sports. T To train speed you need to do repetitive drills when not overly fatigued. Doing so when fatigued will lead to bad technique and possible even injury.

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