True Fitness: Why Your Workout Program Should Include Power, Stamina, and Body Control.
How do you define true fitness? If you’re on Workout Dojo, being truly fit is probably one of your personal ambitions. You may have set targets such as finishing a 5k, doing ten pull-ups, or benching 200 pounds. During all of your goal setting, did you ever stop to ask yourself what being fit really means? If not, then your definition of fitness is likely too narrow.
The three legs to a true fitness foundation
If you don’t have the right destination in mind, you are never going to get to where you want to be.
Think about it this way. Does strength alone equals true fitness? Would you choose a Mr. Olympia bodybuilder as a teammate in a pickup soccer match? While a bodybuilder has phenomenal strength, he has shortcomings in other areas, such as endurance. Unless you are being paid to be a master in one narrow aspect of fitness, being well-rounded will be much more useful to your life.
The Big Three Foundations of True Fitness
Achieving true fitness means having some competency in all types of physical activity. In the spirit of keeping things simple, we’ve identified the three foundations of true fitness you should be working to improve: Power, Stamina, and Body Control.
The Importance of Power
Power is a combination of strength and speed. It is your ability to move an object, whether it’s your own body, a weight, or anything, in a set amount of time. Focusing on increasing power, and not just strength, opens the door to new ways of improving your workouts. Instead of just adding weight or reps, you can also decrease the time it takes you complete the exercises to increase the power you produce. So in a shorter amount of time you can have a more powerful workout.
The Importance of Stamina
As you try to pack more exercise into shorter amounts of time, you’ll quickly see the benefits of stamina. Stamina is your ability to consistently generate power over time. It is more than just cardiovascular endurance, which is what keeps marathoners going throughout the race. Stamina is the combination of strength and endurance, and is what will get you through a obstacle course mud run or a day of helping your buddy move. The only way to improve is to keep pushing on the limits of your stamina whenever you workout.
The Importance of Body Control
Simply put, body control is being able to get your body do what you want it to. It is a combination of coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy. These are the skills that help you translate your fitness into the real world. In your day to day life, the physical activities you perform aren’t going to be as straight forward as doing a push up. If you have to climb a ladder, you want to be able to balance up there. If you ever face a situation where you have to throw a punch, you want to be able to hit here you aim.
When choosing a workout routine, be sure to choose one that focuses on all three branches of true fitness or your foundation will by shaky. Your exercise program will probably look very different. If you want to see examples of fitness routines that were designed with these principles in mind, check out Workout Dojo’s routines.