What is fitness and who is fit?
Who is fitter a boxer, runner, fighter, weight lifter, gymnast?
You are as fit as you are competent at each of the following ten general physical skills.- Cardiovascular/respiratory Endurance
- Stamina
- Strength
- Flexibility
- Power
- Speed
- Coordination
- Agility
- Balance
- Accuracy
Credit for coming up with these goes to Jim Crawley and Bruce Evans of Dynamax and Gregg Glassman of CrossFit Inc. There is a great article on this subject linked to our CrossFit 614 page. Everyone should read it.
One of the things I like so much about CrossFit is they have worked to answer the question what is fitness. Everybody knows it's not a look but for some reason many hesitate to tackle what it is. So much of the crap marketing in the health and fitness field mistakenly claims fitness as being defined by form rather than a function. There is nothing wrong with wanting to pass the look good naked test. That is one of the greatest benefits of working hard ,you feel and look great ( with and with out clothes). When you engage in a balanced program that hits on all the ten physical skills you will naturally look and perform your best.
Our aim is to create a comprehensive program that increases your capacity at all these things. In the coming weeks I will be expanding on how every class (CrossFit, Fight Club & Yoga) touches on or crushes all of these skills and how that leads to a healthier, fitter body.
Please call me or leave comments with any questions or thoughts on the subject.
Lets Work.
Mitch
Were I a homework giving guy, I would ask everyone to identify their two best, and far more importantly, two worst qualities of the ten on the list. Then I would ask them how they take advantage of their two best, and far more importantly, how they plan to improve their two worst.
ReplyDeleteIf I were a homework giving guy.
2 worst: Strength and flexibility. 2 best: Conditioning and speed.
ReplyDeleteNeed to move more weight and do a lot more stretching.
...and I'm typically a lot better with grammar and imagination while writing, but I'm just too freaking tired right now.
ReplyDeleteTop 2 Strength and Power
ReplyDeleteBottom 2 Flexibility and Balance. I think there 's a class for that.
Worst one, definitely strength. I'd probably go with power as my second worst.
ReplyDelete@ OlaFowble (this is Tom, right?) I feel it my duty as a dude who's studied too much formal philosophy to point out that "conditioning" per se isn't a category, since it lacks a precise definition. I believe you were going for cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, which is the body's ability to use oxygen, or possibly stamina, which is the body's ability to use energy. If we really wanted to simplify it, we could say that the first is aerobic capacity and the second is anaerobic capacity.
At any rate, your capacities in both of those areas are solid, esp. cardiovascular endurance, so you've caught the point of the exercise. Keep on keepin' on.
Yes, it's Tom. I warned you up front that I was too freaking tired to write, LOL! I would agree with your correction; "conditioning" is far too vague. In addition to that and to be more precise, I was referring to maximal strength as being my worst category, followed closely by flexibility. I'd really love to consistently take a Yoga class when I develop enough stamina to perform the WOD on the same nights. I believe we'll be working on the maximal strength soon considering we're practicing all the multi-joint exercises with the plastic tubing.
ReplyDeleteBTW...OlaFowble is a nickname. It's my last name with "Ola" attached at the beginning. This was given to me by my golf buddies, as the combination of the two rhymes with José María Olazábal's last name. He's won two Masters championships. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mar%C3%ADa_Olaz%C3%A1bal
ReplyDeleteI know...worthless information.
Yes, but *interesting* worthless information.
ReplyDeleteWe should offer a golf class for Fight Club - the inner workings of how to beat someone senseless with a golf club. We could call it Folf Club.
The first trainer we could get for Folf would be Elin Woods...of course.
ReplyDelete