Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Often when we talk about being fit, we picture a certain type of body type and someone who can run for miles without giving themselves a heart attack. We picture a lean torso; strong legs; great posture, and well-developed shoulders.
It is easy to gauge just who is fit and who is not by the way they move and can perform all their daily duties and still have a smile on their face and energy to burn when faced with social engagements they have to attend at the end of a busy day.
However, these are all signs of health related fitness. There is another type of fitness which can save us from injury, lift heavy objects and even operate a vehicle efficiently. It is called skill related fitness.
One element of skill related fitness is agility. If you have good agility, it means you are fast and clever at changing the direction of your body. This could come in handy if for example, you are crossing the road and a wild woman on a motorcycle comes out of nowhere too fast. You will need to shift your direction in a split second to avoid any impact that is bound to get real messy!
And just when you get to the other side of the road and onto the sidewalk, a pack of joggers decide they are not going to slow down for you. In this case, you have to maintain your pace to get off the road in time, while avoiding danger and get to where you want to go. To improve agility is easy as most stop and start sports have this as a main principle to effective movement in attack and defence. Football, netball, tennis, squash and basketball are excellent examples.
If you are agile, you will be the proud owner of some strong and flexible joints, especially in your lower body, and may never know the pain of a sprained ankle or sciatica. Terrific!
Hands up who has ever tripped over to land flat on your face? Whoops! Who has desperately thrown their hand out for the rail near the staircase that has vertically challenged you? It's funny to read about and even funnier to see someone else trip, but when it's YOU, it's not funny at all. In fact it can be downright painful and humiliating.
If you have excellent balance, you can save your joints, your back and your pride. So to keep your centre of gravity right where it ought to be, try simple exercises like standing on one foot or standing on your tip toes while reaching up to the ceiling. Need something more challenging and exciting? Try yoga, fit ball, or ballet and jazz classes.
It's a well-known fact that women can multi-task. As a matter of fact, right now, I am typing this up, while doing my ironing and changing a tyre...
OK, OK, that is not totally true. However, women do seem naturally more co-ordinated than most men and this is where this saying comes from. It is all to do with how the brain is wired but both men and women can improve their mental and physical co-ordination with a little practice and it is never too late to start.
It is good co-ordination, too, that can in a real sense, let you live life more fully by allowing you to perform more than one activity at a time with more than one part of your body. In a sports sense, some good examples are when you can run, catch a ball, jump over an obstacle, pass the ball and keep running - think rugby! Consider how swimming demands that you use nearly every muscle in your body at the same time to propel your body forwards against enormous drag.
When was the last time you had to move furniture or cart bags of groceries home? You might not have realised it, but performing activities like this is a measurement of power. By definition, power is the combination of speed and strength. Now, you might not have moved the furniture or carried the bags quickly, but you would have moved those using muscles that were given a huge stimulus and at a relatively decent pace in order to get the job done. Can you perform heavy lifting, pushing or pulling to get yourself out of trouble?
Think about how power can come in handy in all sorts of daily situations, and in an emergency can render you a hero as you lift heavy objects that have fallen over or ripped open a door that was stuck to save yourself or someone you love. And you do not have to have huge muscles to be powerful - just well-conditioned ones which is one of a hundred good reasons to do some regular resistance training and stretching.
These are just some of the skill related fitness elements that most of us take for granted but can be easily incorporated into your fitness programme for maximum benefit. You will likely utilise them without being aware of it, unlike aerobic output or strength training, because they are used in everyday living.
For more information, please see a caring and qualified fitness instructor. Many people do not think about the elements of skill related fitness until they need to use an element of it and find that it is just too hard - so get training and good luck everyone.
