The Fitness Continuum - What Constitutes "Fit"?

"Être fort pour être utile" - Georges Hébert

What does it mean to be fit?  The dictionary doesn't help much here, offering only "having good health and physical condition."  So who's really fit then?  If a man who lives to be 93 with very few health problems through his life also weighed 300 lbs and had a body-fat percentage of over 30 could he be considered fit?  If a marathon runner had a single digit body-fat percentage a majority of their lives and ran multiple marathons per year but was succumbing to chronic illness and severe arthritis and inflammatory problems by the age of 50, would he be fit?  If a bodybuilder could deadlift 500 lbs, but couldn't touch their toes, climb an 8 foot wall or sprint for more than 20 seconds, would they be considered fit?

Now, while some may argue for the fitness levels of some of these individuals, by my definition, none of them are fit.  What?  You mean the marathon runner and the bodybuilder aren't fit?  But look at all the fat, lazy, Twinkie-mauling people in our country - surely athletes like that are fit compared to most people!  See, there's the rub, compared to most people they certainly are fit.  Look at it this way though, compared to getting shot getting stabbed isn't so bad - that doesn't make it good though. Similarly, while our bodybuilder friend might be more fit than your average American, that does not necessarily make him fit.

Additionally, martial artists require fitness across a very borad spectrum due to the extremely unpredictable nature of combat.  While a professional powerlifter may never need the endurance to sprint 500 yards, as a martial artist you may very well need to sprint away from an assailant, or require the endurance to last several grueling rounds in the ring.  A professional triathlete, on the other hand, may need high levels of endurance but wouldn't necessarily need the strength to deliver a knock-out punch, or the flexibility to land a kick to someone's head.  For these reasons we think martial artists need their own definition of what it means to be fit.

Defining Fitness

So how do we define fitness?  It's hard to boil down into a nice, concise definition but, for the most part, you could say it is ability to perform any physical or mental task reasonably well within the range of human capability.  So what's that mean?  Well, we divide it into four basic pillars and then four capstones.  Let's break it down:

The 4 Pillars

• Strength - If you are to be considered fit, you have to be strong.  Strength in this case is loosely defined as possessing the muscular power to move objects around you and your own body with relative ease.  We don't put too specific requirements on this category (e.g. deadlift 300lbs, bench press 400lbs etc.), however there are some basic criteria in our opinion.  True examples of a 'fit' level of strength can generally be seen in acrobatic training, for example muscle-ups, handstand push-ups, one-legged squats, planches and flags.  In general, if you are unable to hold your bodyweight in a wide variety of positions and easily pull yourself up and over an obstacle than you need more strength to be considered truly fit.

• Endurance - Strength, in excess, can be entirely useless if one lacks the endurance to use that strength for as long as is required of them.  Endurance can be thought of both as quantifiable VO2 Max (essentially how efficient your body utilizes oxygen during physical exertion) as well as how long you can sustain maximal output in an activity.  Maximal output here meaning that it is more important to be able to sprint a full 10 minutes than to be able to jog for an hour and a half.  Specifically from a martial artist standpoint it is more important to be able to output at full strength for longer in a fight, or output at full strength and then still have the energy to sprint away, than to be able to fight for longer at half capacity.

• Flexibility - This is the one pillar of fitness I think is the most overlooked.  The martial arts community may be somewhat of an exception, however it seems like when most people contemplate the fitness level of a person they rarely include flexibility.  This is unfortunate, because it really is important.  Higher levels of flexibility allow for more efficient movement, meaning somewhat improved levels of both strength and endurance.  Flexibility greatly reduces your likelihood of being injured through various movements as well.  Imagine a car is speeding toward you and the only way out of the way is to jump over a hurdle, wouldn't you prefer you had the flexibility to get your legs over easily?  Alright, so that may be a far-fetched example, but maybe you have to wriggle your way out of a wrecked car, maybe you slip and wind up in the splits, maybe you get put in a wrist-lock?  Flexibility shouldn't be ignored.

• Mental Acumen - Another pillar of fitness that is often overlooked.  It may defy some other people's expectations of what is required for an individual to be considered fit.  We here at Martial University, however, think that if you work your body without giving equal attention to training your mind you are robbing yourself of your full potential.  We're not saying you have to be a nuclear physicist or a MENSA member, but if you keep your body in shape and then go and rot your brain away we wouldn't consider you fit.

The Four Capstones

• Nutrition - Now, there's a lot of debate on what good nutrition really is, and in some cases people just don't know. We here at Martial University have our particular ideas based on our research, personal experiences and scientific studies.  However, most people can find research studies proving both sides of most arguments, and in some cases it just comes down to what works for you.  That being said, the very first person who found us on Google found us by searching "Real martial artists don't eat cookies," and in our opinion they're pretty much right.  Even if you meet the foundational criteria of the Four Pillars, if you're putting refined sugars, highly processed foods, grains, and things like High Fructose Corn Syrup in your body on a regular basis, than we wouldn't consider you to be fit just yet.

• Balance - Balance is another area that some people don't always think of when it comes to assessing a person's fitness level.  That may be to some degree because if you've achieved high levels of fitness in the four pillars, you may have already achieved a fairly high degree of skill in balance.  If not, it's definitely something you should consider improving, and is a requisite in our minds for being considered fit.  Why?  The applications are endless, ranging from everyday, non-martial artist applications like not falling down to martial artist applications like, well, not falling down while kicking or doing other techniques.  Developing an extremely high degree of balance also aids in developing the minor muscle groups and improving the next capstone, which is...

• Coordination - Depending on how you want to look at it, you could also call this Capstone agility, or dexterity.  In many ways, coordination encompasses both of these.  Coordination, for us, is defined as having an extremely high level of control over the delicacies of fine motor function.  This encompasses everything from precision and control, such as that seen in the punches of skilled Wing Chun practitioners, to the ability to change direction quickly, such as that instilled in Football players and other athletes, to all other expressions of fine motor control.The benefits of a high level of coordination/agility are endless. Even if you have biceps bigger than most folks' heads, if you're too cumbersome to move fluidly we wouldn't consider you really fit.

• Speed - Last, but not least, comes speed.  This capstone does not only encompass running speed, but rather encompasses the speed at which you can perform any movement, as well as your quickness of thought.  If your reaction speed is slow, or you freeze up mentally trying to decide which technique to use, than defending yourself can be problematic.  Running speed is necessary for the obvious purpose of escape when need be, and anyone who needs an example of the benefits of improving the speed of their strikes should go watch some videos of Bruce Lee or Muhammad Ali in action.  Does that mean you have to be like them to be considered fit? Certainly not, but you need at least a decent level of speed.

Putting it All Together

So what good are all these criteria to asses someone's fitness level?  Are we suggesting that you go out now and start ranking everyone, or look down on people who do things like marathons or bodybuilding because they're obviously so unfit?  Of course not.  This system of fitness assessment is for self-application only.  Everyone is different and, with the possible exception of an opponent in an upcoming fight for sport martial artists, there is never any reason to worry about comparing yourself to others.  Ego has no place in martial arts. You also shouldn't worry about non-martial artists.  If a person loves bodybuilding or basketball or whatever, than they have different fitness goals from a martial artist - that's their choice and should be respected.

Rather, you should use these criteria as a tool to gauge what areas you need to improve in.  Maybe you find when looking over the list that you aren't as flexible as you could be, or that you never considered working on your striking speed.  I personally think I could stand to improve in all of the areas, but that's just me.

If you need any help once you have a particular area you need to work on figured out, whether it be strength, flexibility, endurance, intelligence, coordination, nutrition, balance or speed, you can check in the corresponding category in our list of fitness articles, as we've structured their categorization around this framework.

Examples of people who fit our definition of fitness can also be found in other pursuits, oftentimes ones which require as diversified a set of skills as martial arts.  Some examples would be gymnasts and acrobats, traceurs and, of course, military personnel.  Just to see if you've been paying attention, let's see if you can pick which one of these non-martial artists would be the best role-model for our definition of fitness for martial artists.

If you liked this article, please share it - it really helps us out:

Subscribe to Martial University by Email