What are the five components of fitness?

01 November 2022

The five components of fitness include muscular strength, flexibility, body composition, muscular endurance and cardiorespiratory endurance. These components will outline your overall physical fitness level.

If you understand your overall fitness level, you are one step closer to building a fitness programme to achieve your health goals.

This blog article will tell you about the five components of fitness, why you need to know them and how you can incorporate them into your exercise routine.

1. Muscular Strength

Muscular strength refers to the force your muscles can produce. This involves the power you need to move and lift objects. Improving your muscular strength will help you develop stronger bones, maintain weight, manage chronic conditions, and enhance your quality of life.

How do you increase your muscular fitness? It would be best if you focused on weightlifting and core exercises. Download our free gain strength programme to start your muscular strength training.

2.Flexibility

Flexibility is the measurement of how much each joint or group of joints can move without any pain.

Most physical exercises require a certain level of flexibility. So, ensuring your body is flexible will help you easily perform various exercises. Flexibility also helps with reducing the risk of injury and pain.

To increase your flexibility, you must practise regular stretching before and after exercising. If you download any of our free personal training plans, we have included stretching exercises you can practise for all the five components of fitness.

3. Body Composition

Your fat mass, lean muscle mass, bones and organs make up your body composition. Basically, it describes the ratio of fat mass to fat-free mass.

Nailing down your body composition will help you live a healthier lifestyle and help you understand what you need to work on to improve your physical fitness. Use a BMI calculator to determine this.

4. Muscular Endurance

Muscular endurance evaluates how your muscles perform under continuous strain and fatigue. Improving your muscular endurance is important for you to endure long exercises without feeling tired.

Exercises like weight training, isometric exercises (engaging your muscles without movement, for example, planking) and extending your training time will improve your general endurance, allowing you to do more, and achieve your fitness goals more quickly.

Why not download our free kettlebell programme to get started on weight training?

5. Cardiorespiratory Endurance

Also known as cardiovascular endurance, this fitness component measures the amount of oxygen your heart and lungs can produce to fuel your body during strenuous exercise.

Great cardio fitness allows you to do different exercises or activities for longer, as your lungs and heart deliver the right amount of oxygen to the parts of your body that need it.