Management and Evaluation of Health Related Physical Fitness

"Physical activity," "exercise," and "physical fitness" are terms that describe different concepts. However, they are often confused with one another, and the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. This paper proposes definitions to distinguish them. Physical activity is defined as any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that results in energy expenditure. The energy expenditure can be measured in kilocalories. Physical activity in daily life can be categorized into occupational, sports, conditioning, household, or other activities. Exercise is a subset of physical activity that is planned, structured, and repetitive and has as a final or an intermediate objective the improvement or maintenance of physical fitness. Physical fitness is a set of attributes that are either health- or skill-related. The degree to which people have these attributes can be measured with specific tests. These definitions are offered as an interpretational framework for comparing studies that relate physical activity, exercise, and physical fitness to health. "Cardiovascular fitness can be defined as the ability of the circulatory and respiratory systems to supply fuel in the form of nutrients and oxygen during sustained physical exercise." A desirable level of cardiovascular fitness is thought to be the most important component of health related fitness. This is because life depends on the ability of the heart, blood vessels and lunges to deliver nutrients and oxygen to the tissues and to remove wastes via the blood. As a result, exercise has three basic objectives: to enable the lungs to process more air with less effort; to strengthen the heart so that it can pump more blood with fewer strokes; and to increase the elasticity, resilience and internal diameter of the blood vessels so they can manage the grater workloads more efficiently. Cardiovascular fitness evaluations 1. 1 ½ mile running test, 2. The Bench Step Test.