1. Fitness means different things to different people and is defined as the ability to perform tasks physically and mentally. It is about feeling good and being able to move without pain. 2. Maintaining physical fitness requires balancing various measures like aerobic capacity, strength, flexibility, nutrition, sleep, and mental/emotional health. Looking fit does not necessarily mean someone is truly fit. 3. Being physically fit provides benefits like increased energy, better mood, stronger immunity, sounder sleep, and helps manage chronic diseases and conditions. It also lowers risks of health issues like heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers.

1. Everything You Need to Know About Fitness
— and Why It’s About Way More Than Hitting
the Gym
Wanna know more about a secret that is a primary attribute to fitness?
What does it mean to be fit? Finding a discrete definition is somewhat difficult. According to the
dictionary, fitness means: “the quality or state of being fit." (The definition of “fit” is: “sound
physically and mentally.") If you find those words somewhat vague, you’re not alone.
And that’s sort of the point, according to exercise experts. Fitness doesn’t have to mean that you’re
an ultra-marathoner or that you can perform one pull-up or one hundred. Fitness can mean different
things for different people.

2. “For me, fitness is first and foremost about feeling good and being able to move without pain,” says
the certified strength and conditioning specialist Grayson Wickham, a New YorkCity–based physical
therapist and the founder of Movement Vault, a mobility and movement company. He explains that
true fitness is about feeling healthy and being in sufficient shape to do the activities you want to do
and live the lifestyle you want to live. Can you play with your kids orgrandkids? If hiking the Inca
Trail is on your bucket list, can you do it? Do you feel good after a day spent gardening? Are you able
to climb all the necessary the stairs in your life without getting winded or having to take a break?
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Michael Jonesco, DO, an assistant professor of internal and sports medicine at the Ohio State
University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, agrees. “Since medical school, I've learned that
physical fitness is simply defined as your body's ability to perform tasks. Nowadays, there are more
tools available than ever for fitness enthusiasts to track, measure, and follow.”
For example, you’ve got body mass index (BMI), resting heart rate, body fat percentage, VO2 max,
5K or marathon personal records (PRs), 100-meter-dash times, and bench-press maxes, he says.
“These are all objective measures we use to gauge progress (or measure ourselves against the guy
or girl on the metaphorical squat rack or treadmill next to us).”
But physical fitness should not solely be measured with any one of these or other tests or
evaluations, he adds. It's much more complex. You wouldn’t, for instance, use one factor (such as
blood pressure) to measure someone’s overall health, Dr. Jonesco says. Blood pressure is a useful
test to monitor for cardiovascular disease, but it doesn't indicate whether or not someone has cancer
or dementia.
“Physical fitness should be considered a balance of many of the aforementioned measures, but also

3. many more intangible measures, too,” Jonesco explains, including “your outlook on not just your
body, but your attitude toward your own health and wellness.”
Traditionally, experts have defined five key components of physical fitness: body composition (the
relative proportion of fat and fat-free tissue in the body), cardiorespiratory or aerobic fitness,
flexibility, muscular strength, and muscular endurance, according to the American College of Sports
Medicine . But you can’t discount the impact of nutrition, sleep, and mental and emotional health on
fitness either, says Jeffrey E. Oken, MD, deputy chief of staff at the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital in
Hines, Illinois.
That means looking fit doesn’t mean you actually are.
“Some individuals obsess on their physical appearance and numbers but are motivated by low self-
esteem and criticize the flaws of their physical appearance. Some sacrifice rest and sleep in order to
achieve further success but, in turn, drive their body into illness or burnout,” Jonesco says. “Fitness
is a truly a spectrum of physical well-being that must balance our physical and emotional
motivations.”
When all of the components of fitness are balanced, physically and mentally, we get the most
benefit.
Read on to learn all about why being fit is such an important part of your health and well-being, now
and throughout your entire life.
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Being Fit Boosts Energy, Mood, Sleep, and Your Immune
System
Because fitness is the state of being physically able to live the happy, fulfilling life you want — the
first and most obvious payoff of achieving fitness is high quality of life.
Research links fitness to:
Increased energy levels
Better work-life balance, according to a study in the November/December issue of the journal
Human Resource Management
Stronger immunity
Sounder sleep
Some research suggests that increasing your fitness through exercise may help mild to moderate
depression just as much as medication.
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Physical activity is also connected to better focus and productivity. A study published in the May
2015 issue of the journal Psychophysiology suggests this is because exercise increases the flow of
blood and oxygen to the brain.

5. The mental health and emotional health benefits of physical fitness are some of the most important
ones — and often have the biggest effect on someone’s quality of life, Jonesco says. “The satisfaction
of pushing your body and seeing it respond breeds not only a stronger, faster, leaner body, but a
more peaceful, satisfied, and confident mind.” When you’re physically fit, you know firsthand what
you can accomplish when you put your mind to it, and you become empowered to hit your personal,
career, and relationship goals in a way you wouldn’t otherwise.
What’s more, you can’t deny the impact of fitness on helping people achieve (and maintain) healthier
weights. (10) That’s because increasing your fitness level through physical activity not only burns
calories, it builds metabolically active muscle. And the more strong, healthy muscle you have, the
more calories you burn every day at rest, Wickham says. A fitter body equals higher metabolism
equals healthier weight.
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Here’s How They Both Play a Role in Overall Fitness
Think about it this way: Even a marathon runner who fits in multiple strength-training workouts per
week can throw off their fitness by eating a diet of highly processed foods that are low in nutrients
and high in saturated fats and sugars. Similarly, someone with stellar workout and diet habits can
sidetrack their fitness by not logging a consistently healthy amount of sleep each night.
Sleep is incredibly important to keeping your body functioning optimally, explains W. Christopher
Winter, MD, the president of Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine in Virginia and the
author of The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep Is Broken and How to Fix It. Slacking when it comes
to sleep can undermine your fitness goals.
The benefits of keeping both sleep and physical activity in check? Staying active helps your sleep,
and logging the seven to nine hours of sleep per night recommended by the National Sleep
Foundation helps you maintain the energy you need to actually stick to your workout goals and stay
active (11).
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6. Staying Fit Benefits Long-Term Health in Big Ways
While the immediate gratification of fitness is awesome, you can’t forget that you may not notice
many of the greatest benefits of fitness for years, or even decades. (Patience, patience.)
For example, studies consistently link physical fitness with improved longevity. According to a study
published in the October 2013 issue of Lancet Oncology, when your body becomes fitter, it lengthens
its chromosomes’ protective caps, called telomeres. Thosetelomeres are in charge of determining
how quickly your cells age. That means keeping them in top shape (being fit) can help lengthen your
life span.
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What’s more, improved fitness drastically reduces the risk of chronic diseases that develop over the
course of many years, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and even cancer. And a rapidly
growing body of research suggests being fit may help prevent dementia, too. “The one thing that will
help prevent almost any type of disease is fitness,” Wickham says.
And in addition to all those benefits, fitness can help you live better and stronger through the years.
One out of every three adults age 60 and older suffers from severe levels of muscle loss, called
sarcopenia, according to data published in the November 2014 issue of the journal Age and
Ageing. Additional research shows that the condition contributes to fat gain, low mobility and
function, falls, and even death in older adults, but that exercise can help prevent this effect of aging.
“The explanation really comes down to evolution. Our bodies and genes have evolved to be active
and mobile,” Wickham explains. “When you give your body what it needs, it rewards you by being its
best.”
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9. Why Being Fit Helps With Chronic Disease Management
Getting regular exercise and keeping your body fit helps lower your risk of chronic problems, like
heart disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes. But what about the chronic problems that do show up?
Across the board, physical activity and maintaining fitness usually helps.
You may need to modify your exercise routines or take specific precautions depending on your
symptoms, according to information from the Mayo Clinic. (17) (Be sure to check with your doctor
before starting a new exercise program and discuss any limitations or modifications you should be
aware of.)
But for most people, regular activity can help with such conditions as heart disease,
diabetes, asthma, back pain, arthritis, and cancer. And maintaining fitness also helps ward off
additional conditions you might otherwise be at risk for. (17)
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Here’s How Much Physical Activity You Should Be Doing
So how do you make fitness part of your overall lifestyle — and reach your own individual fitness
goals? Jonesco recommends starting with meeting the federal guidelines for physical activity.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommends that, for general health,
adults should aim for 150 to 300 minutes of moderate physical activity or 75 to 150 minutes of
vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity each week. The HHS guidelines also note that doing
more than those quantities of activity will yield additional health benefits. And the guidelines
recommend that adults do muscle-strengthening exercises (of moderate or greater intensity) for all
the major muscle groups at least two days per week.
Research shows that aerobic exercise is important for cardiovascular health . (The intensity you
choose should be based on your current fitness level and your doctor’s recommendations.) Examples
include walking, running, cycling, and swimming.
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And other research shows that strength training provides other important health benefits. A study
published in the February 2015 issue of the journal Obesity shows that, compared with
cardiovascular exercise, resistance exercise is more effective at preventing the accumulation of
abdominal (visceral) fat, which is linked to the development of chronic diseases, including heart
disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer . And a 2019 study published in the journal Medicine & Science
in Sports & Exercise found that individuals who regularly strength trained had a lower risk of heart
attack, stroke, or death related to heart disease compared with people who didn’t strength train —
and those benefits were independent of whether or not they regularly did aerobic exercise.
These strength workouts should target one or all of the body’s basic muscle groups, such as the legs,
core, back, hips, chest, or arms. Lifting weights, working with resistance bands, or performing body-
weight exercises are all good options and should be used to match, and improve, your current fitness
level.
“There's no shame in building to these guidelines over a month or so,” Jonesco notes. And do realize
that the guidelines leave a lot of room for personalization. This is on purpose because the most
important aspect of a workout is keeping it up. “You must enjoy a given activity if you expect to
continue to be motivated to do it on a regular basis,” he says. If you don’t like running, that’s okay.
Try swimming or take an indoor cycling class.
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And importantly, the HHS physical activity guidelines stress that some movement is better than
none, and no matter how short a spurt of activity is, it can still count toward your weekly goals. The
bottom line is that adults should be moving more and sitting less over the course of their days.
That may sound overwhelming but not if you expand how you think of exercise beyond time spent in
the gym, Wickham says. Instead, think about all the movement you do as exercise. “Even people who
are exercising regularly often aren’t moving throughout the day,” he says.
A study from researchers at Northwestern University found that women who meet current activity
guidelines sit just as much as those who don’t work out (22).
Instead of focusing on getting all of your day’s (or week’s) activity in one go, Wickham advises
integrating movement and activity into your day-to-day life. Try breaking up long stints of sitting
with any activity that takes your body through its full range of motion, feels good, and helps you dive
back into whatever else you were doing with renewed energy.
And don’t forget about stretching. While experts are currently debating the benefit of stretching
after a workout (stretching before exercise is no longer advised), stretching throughout the day is a
great way to ease tight muscles, relieve tension, and promote the flexibility you need to perform
both in the gym and in life, according to Wickham.
Again, fitness is all about giving your body what it needs to thrive. Just make sure to listen.
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