Health
fitness for quality of life
(read time approx 4 mins)
Health
Health is one of the three main purposes of a fitness regime. Whenever thinking of health, fitness is usually right there next to it but they are not one and the same. Fit individuals can be unhealthy, just as healthy individuals may not physically train for fitness. Health does not require fitness training but it can definitely compliment health when their principles are aligned. Most health benefits actually come from the recovery side of fitness, in leading a lifestyle of sufficient repair and recovery to counter the demands your life places upon you.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines health as :
A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. A resource for everyday life, not the objective of living. Health is a positive concept emphasising social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities.
I like this definition of health because it emphasizes health as a resource, not a goal, with a focus on looking after your self as a whole to positively influence your quality of life. It is the complete picture of you, mentally, physically and socially to help build your resilience to any of life’s challenges as well as the ability to withstand or recover from them, helping you to bounce back from illness or any other problems life may throw at you.
Health provides the means to lead a full life allowing you to enjoy the quality of your every day experiences to their fullest. It is not an end result, but a never ending process to be used as a resource to protect, support and prolong your ability to lead the life you desire to live.
Fitness training can definitely compliment this model of health, as training adaptations can improve all physical abilities, helping to increase resilience to any of life’s physical challenges as well as keep the physical world accessible to enjoy. Increased physical resilience can also potentially slow the negative effects of stress and aging. If the negative effects of stress and aging occur because of the slow degradation of our bodily systems, then having stronger, more resilient bodily systems can probably slow this effect.
Health is a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living.
Healthy fitness success
It is impossible to brand individual actions or behaviors as “healthy” vs “unhealthy” because it is impossible to segregate individual actions and their effects on our self or our life because both are so entwined and complex. Determining whether something is healthy or not can only accurately be answered in hindsight after knowing its consequences on you and your life as a whole within a chosen time period.
This is why health must be viewed as a whole for each individual and not judged lightly, especially by extrapolating from individual actions. It is the net effect on the whole which must be looked at in reference to quality of life.
If you are allergic to a “superfood”, is it still a superfood ? If you hate doing something “healthy”, is it still healthy ? If the process of being physically “healthy”, stops you from enjoying social time with friends and loved ones, is it still healthy ?
Like in medicine, the cure should not be worse than the disease. This means any process to achieve health must be a positive experience that fits in with the rest of life as a whole. This is why using the above definition as a metric of health success, a fitness regime for health must manipulate the process of training and recovering to have a positive effect on quality of life.
Successful manipulation of the training and lifestyle process to compliment overall quality of life by promoting physical, mental and social wellbeing.
Therefore, fitness goals are to be achieved in order to support and enjoy life, not just to achieve greater and greater fitness results. Healthy fitness success is defined through the lens of quality of life and whether a fitness regime is actually improving our life vs just improving fitness.
Our body will only work to keep what it needs which is why a healthy fitness regime is for life, aiming to maintain necessary adaptations in mobility, strength, endurance, balance and body composition. Fitness’ first priority is to maintain our body’s physical resilience to the physical challenges in our life. The process of achieving this must also be an enjoyable as well as sociable experience in order to contribute towards our overall wellbeing throughout, helping to keep us coming back again and again.
Some health based fitness goals :
Decrease/remove movement related pain
Increase physical ability to move within daily routines
Maintain ability to play with your kids
Improve core strength to better resist the stresses of a desk job
Improve endurance to keep up with daily events and challenges
Increase balance to reduce likelihood of trips + falls
Maintain muscle mass to maintain mobility
Manage fat mass for joint longevity
Increase physical resilience to go on an active holiday adventure
I believe health should be the foundation of all fitness regimes prioritising the maintenance of quality of life. It is the simple but purposeful process of moving, recovering and living well. A healthy fitness regime can help compliment all of life’s wonders as well as help protect against some of its challenges.
Everyone has their own individual needs when it comes to health and I advise working with a professional to help you understand them as well as get you started.