The What is Fitness Series?

In this series I wanted to take time to discuss “what is fitness?”. In my last blog series, I spoke about what I developed as the top ten health commandments. These are mine and something I learned and developed over 20 years ago on the heels of the Body for Life Program. I am open to understanding that someone else may have a different set of health commandments and that is fine. Mine are essentially ten things that I believe need to be thought about, practiced, and/or developed over time in order for someone to be holistically healthy.

Now I am getting into a series on fitness and what it means to be fit. Before I address fitness, I think it may be helpful if we first define what fitness is and examine the possibility of fitness having subcategories. In general, fitness could be defined as a set of attributes or abilities that one possesses that may allow them to complete a task or meet demands of the environment in an efficient or effective manner. In doing so, one might use a set of prescribed standards, more or less. Having said that, that statement did not or does not specify a particular category. I supposed many of use immediately think about physical fitness but can we apply that definition to multiple categories? Based on this one definition, I think we could define fitness from the perspective of the following:

1) Physical

2) Mental

3) Emotional

4) Spiritual

5) Financial

6) Relationships or Social

7) Environmental

8) Professional

Therefore, in this blog series, I would like break down each one of the following categories in what it means to have each type of fitness and what I personally am doing to work on each area of fitness as well as possibly provide some ideas so that you too can improve in a particular area!