Fit – but fat in fact… The phenomenon that is common in the UK …
Here’s the scenario … a person is proudly boasting to his/her mates how fit he/she is – has run a marathon, cycles an hour every day, regularly goes to the gym on lunch times… Something is not quite right here though, that “fit” person does not look different at all from the colleagues who are not, and have never been into fitness. How come?
The word “FIT” is way too general
Everyone in Britain uses the scale of fit – to – unfit when describing someone’s physical condition. But what is fit? If you have run a marathon or you jog half an hour every morning – are you fit already?
Actually, the answer can not be very straight forward because fitness consists of many components and to call yourself fit overall, you have to have a good level of each of the component.
Components of Fitness
- Muscle endurance
- Body fat percentage
- Cardiovascular fitness
- Motor skills
How many of “fit” people can say they have high level of each fitness component?
This is why the word “FIT” is very inaccurate when describing someone’s physical condition and abilities. Then an overweight person ends up boasting to his/her friends how fit he/she is.
What “FIT” could be replaced with?
It would be much more correct to simply say that a person is strong or has a good stamina, or is flexible, or is lean etc. and the opposite – weak, poor stamina, inflexible, too high body fat etc. Having one fitness component at a high level does not automatically mean that the others are well developed too – in many cases the term much more accurate than fit would be – fat-fit.
Are there any reasons why “FIT” is so popular?
The generalisation “fit” is very convenient and that keeps it extremely popular. You jog for 30 minutes a couple mornings a week and here you go – you’re sort of fit. Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to run that long, right..?
What about the rest of the day, the whole lifestyle? Are there any other types of training done? Any control over eating? How frequently is alcohol consumed and what quantities? How low (high?) is the body fat? Very often all of those uncomfortable questions are easily forgotten while the assumption of the personal fitness level is – fit, well sometimes slightly more critical – fit – just need to lose a little bit of weight (20-30kg?).
For improving your overall fitness or to work on the particular fitness component/-s contact the natural bodybuilder and personal trainer Rolandas in London (Rolandas’PT4U).