What is fitness?

[TrevA]

Fitness is about your body being adapted to the task in hand. The more you perform a task, the more adapted your body becomes. It also seems to be rather task specific, so being fit for cycling doesn't necessarily translate to being fit for running. Similarly, being fit for low slow rides doesn't make you fit for short, fast rides.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,

Fitness is a feel good factor your body enjoys.
Personally I hate it when I become overly fit, a few short fast rides or a few hard games of squash in a week then I suffer with Bradycardia. Then getting up out of the chair is not something to look forward to. Being a couch potato then looks attractive or inevitable.

Maybe be your an athlete

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Exercise_ ... n_athletes

"Sinus Bradycardia can also be known as athletes heart and is the most common form of Bradycardia in athletes. This is because Sinus Bradycardia can be directly linked to having exceptional physical fitness[4]. Most athletes have a resting heart rate between 40-60 BPM giving them the bradycardia diagnosis"

[Vorpal]

The Livestrong site has summary article about this... http://www.livestrong.com/article/47677 ... -exercise/

[Paulatic]

Hi,

Fitness is a feel good factor your body enjoys.
Personally I hate it when I become overly fit, a few short fast rides or a few hard games of squash in a week then I suffer with Bradycardia. Then getting up out of the chair is not something to look forward to. Being a couch potato then looks attractive or inevitable.

Maybe be your an athlete

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Exercise_ ... n_athletes

"Sinus Bradycardia can also be known as athletes heart and is the most common form of Bradycardia in athletes. This is because Sinus Bradycardia can be directly linked to having exceptional physical fitness[4]. Most athletes have a resting heart rate between 40-60 BPM giving them the bradycardia diagnosis"

That's what medics tell me whenever i mention it. Wish I had a performance to match the reputation

[Alan O]

mitochrondial density( RNA cellular power houses ), appropriate muscle size, fibre type and density, bone density, low subcutaneous fat level, more red blood cells to carry the oxygen via haemoglobin, vascullar system density and effciciency, metabollic effciency at a specific task , intensity and duration, flexibilty of tendons and range of movement appropriate to sport, a modicom of mental toughness for the task in hand...off the top of my head...

I think that's pretty much nailed a lot of it.

I learned one thing from my own experience when I had a heart attack 10 years ago, and it turned out that my heart had much better collaterals than average - that's more and wider minor coronary arteries. That greatly aided my survival from what was a very serious blockage. And that can only be out down to my years of cycling fitness - I've never driven, and my daily commuting for many years was always by bike.

As for evolving to be always fit without needing to exercise, there's never been any selective pressure to do that - armchairs and excesses of food just haven't been in existence for anything close to an evolutionary timescale. In fact, I'd suggest there's probably selective pressure against it - it's wasteful to use scarce resources to keep bodily systems fit that are not actually being used much.

Alan

[Richard D]

Joined a coach to 5k program at work last yone's first run. They all finished a LONG way ahead of me (my excuse - not run, at all, since I broke my leg two years ago). I could not have gone any quicker, but by the end I as down to a slow crawl. I've hardly been able to walk for the last two days! But while everyone else finished out of breath and panting, I was fine. And I cycled home ten minutes later at my usual pace, and did my usual 45 miles yesterday despite not actually being able to walk properly! Turns out there are different types of fitness.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
I used to run marathons, but I would have a similar problem tomorrow.
Good thing is that your cardio vascular is good, cycling is non body weight supporting compared with running which is the harshest for sure, 2nd comes walking with a rucksack.

[Lance Dopestrong]

To me fitness is the ability not to kark it when exercising vigorously.

[dazzyk]

Joined a coach to 5k program at work last yone's first run. They all finished a LONG way ahead of me (my excuse - not run, at all, since I broke my leg two years ago). I could not have gone any quicker, but by the end I as down to a slow crawl. I've hardly been able to walk for the last two days! But while everyone else finished out of breath and panting, I was fine. And I cycled home ten minutes later at my usual pace, and did my usual 45 miles yesterday despite not actually being able to walk properly! Turns out there are different types of fitness.

never knew anything of the kind. but it's really curious. I was inclined to think that fitness is the ability to perform most physical activities easily. But now your experience makes me change my mind

[CliveyT]

Fitness? It's a measure of your ability to pass your genes on to the next generation. In the long term nothing else matters (but then I do work in an evolutionary biology lab)

In terms of cycling it's a good question. I used to play rugby and I was down the doing weights 2-3 times a week and I was much more powerful than I am now (not just strength, but the ability to use all that strength in a very short period of time). Is that fitness? I certainly couldn't cycle 100miles/day which I'll happily do now (and not just because I'm now 7-8kg lighter than I was then), but then I don't think I could help lift someone in the lineout now.

[tatanab]

Fitness to me is the ability to recover and come back to do it all again. I suppose that is cardio-vascular fitness.
Activity specific fitness is in my mind partly about experience leading to efficiency. I am efficient in cycling through many years of experience, but very inefficient if I wanted to run, swing an axe or dig a hole because these are things I do once every 10 years.
Pretty much what TrevA said.

[mercalia]

fat but fit - a video that questions the obesity crisis -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-40505399/think-again-there-is-no-obesity-crisis