What is fitness?

Muscular strength – what is the maximum can you lift, push or pull.Muscular endurance – can your muscles keep working over a sustained period?

Cardiovascular endurance – do your heart and lungs work over a sustained period?

Power = fast strength
Speed = speed!

Coordination – the ability to use different parts of your body together in a coordinated manner

Balance – can you stay upright?

Flexibility – are you bendy?

What happens with training?

Economy of motion – your body becomes more efficient at a particular movement.
Your body’s nervous system is adapting and getting more familiar with the movement.
Wasted movement is eliminated = less wasted energy
Necessary movements are refined = you get better at doing the movement.
The muscles that don’t need to be tensed are relaxed = energy saving

How do I make exercise harder?

There are 4 simple ways of changing the difficulty of an exercise:

1. Increase or decrease the amount of leverage – a short lever is easier, a long lever harder.
2. Perform an exercise on an unstable surface – make your base wobbly.
3. Use pauses at the beginning, end, and/or middle of a movement.

Turn an exercise into a single limb movement – use just one arm or leg which challenges your body to not twist or rotate.