Physical activity, exercise, physical fitness promotes longevity. That is, the risk of death each year from all causes decreases with increased amounts and intensities of weekly physical activity. Well, is kickboxing right for me? Before we continue let’s break down the differences of physical activity, exercise, and physical fitness.
Physical activity is body movement carried out by the skeletal muscles and requires energy. Exercise is something that is planned and structured to improve or maintain physical fitness. And lastly, physical fitness is a set of physical attributes that allows the body to respond or adapt to the demands and stress of physical effort.
Our individual goals will affect the direction, structure, and intensity of our physical activity, exercise, and physical fitness. Some goals can include general health, increased health benefits, weight management, muscle strength and endurance, flexibility, and neuromuscular training.
Regular physical activity, regardless of intensity, makes us healthier and can protect us from chronic diseases. Another benefit can include more energy. Regular strengthening and resistance exercises are also beneficial for bone health, creating stronger bones. It is recommended that adults should participate in some sort of physical activity per week. And the intensity of exercise can vary from moderate to vigorous.
Some examples of moderate-intensity activities include golf, fly fishing, softball, skateboarding, bicycling, ballroom dancing, stair-climber, elliptical trainer, rowing machines, tennis, yoga, and more. Moderate-intensity activities burn about 3.5 to 7 calories per minute.
Examples of vigorous-intensity activities include backpacking, recreational football, recreational basketball, cross-training, kayaking, jogging, and recreational kickboxing and more. Vigorous-intensity activities use more than 7 calories per minute.
Participating in these activities have health related benefits such as cardio-respiratory endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and body composition.
People respond to training at different rates, and specific genes influence body fat, strength, and endurance. However, physical training can improve fitness regardless of heredity.
Here is a consideration towards physical fitness progress, the FITT principle. FITT stands for frequency, intensity, time, and type. An overload is needed to maintain or improve a particular level of fitness. Overload or progressive overload is a training principle that states progressively increasing amounts of stress on the body, which causes adaptation that improves fitness. And overload is known as the amount of increased intensity or volume added above a person’s usual activity level. Therefore, using the FITT principle, overload can be applied by making additions or adjustments to one of these variables, frequency, intensity, time, and type.
Frequency being how often.
Intensity being how heavy or how fast.
Time being how long or duration.
Type being mode of activity.
One can also consider these additional variables to adding progressive overload:
Volume being how much or how many.
And progression meaning how a program advances over time, such as practicing kneeling push-ups and advances to full push-ups or regular push-ups.
Physical activity can be a commitment. And a full-body workout such as kickboxing can leave one sore. However, through recovery, proper training, and progressions, one can find that the progress is beneficial to physical and mental well-being leading to improved abilities and mood.