It’s easy for runners to assume that “physical fitness” is equal to performance metrics—the faster or longer you run, the more fit you are. To that end, you plan your workouts in service of training cycles and upcoming races.
In reality, though, healthy, long-living humans are more than just their run speeds and PRs. In fact, there are five components to physical fitness. To keep running and stay healthy, you likely need to add some specific moves and workouts Runners often deprioritize.
Mobility Exercises for Beginners American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), in favor of more cardio, but:
- Muscular strength
- Cardiovascular endurance
- Muscular endurance
- Flexibility
- Body composition
However, this list isn’t definitive. The ranges from 14 to 31 percent for women and 6 to 25 percent for men combines muscular strength and muscular endurance into the category of “musculoskeletal fitness” and adds “balance” and “speed,” while omitting “body composition.”
Published: Oct 09, 2024 9:00 AM EDT longevity, disease prevention, quality of life, and the ability to reach personal athletic goals.
To help you understand each of these five components of fitness and how they help your overall health and longevity, as well as your running performance, we spoke with experts to break down ACSM’s list. According to ACSM, each component ensures that your body operates at its optimal level during exercise and daily living.
What to Know About the 5 Components of Physical Fitness
1. Cardiovascular Endurance
The term endurance basically means, “how long can you keep doing the thing you’re doing?” Milica McDowell, D.P.T., physical therapist, certified exercise physiologist, and vice president of operations at Gait Happens, tells Runner’s World. Cardiovascular endurance specifically refers to the ability of the heart, blood vessels, and blood to continuously deliver necessary oxygen and nutrients throughout the body when the demand is elevated—like during a run.
Improved cardiovascular endurance is marked by specific physiological adaptations. McDowell explains that this includes you heart’s stroke volume, or the amount of blood it pumps out with each beat.
Your body also produces more capillaries, the small blood vessels that deliver oxygen to the muscles and help remove waste products, as well as mitochondria, the parts of the cell that convert oxygen to adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the body’s primary source of energy. Essentially, you have more gas in the tank, and you’re better able to utilize it.
What runners should know: To continuously put one foot in front of the other, you need a solid baseline of cardiovascular endurance. Then, to increase your mileage and feel less fatigue on your runs, you need to continue to improve this component.
Zone 2 training (steady-state exercise during which you can hold a conversation) is the foundation of any endurance-building program, but you also need to stress the cardiovascular system if you want it to evolve. McDowell encourages runners to prioritize variability and overload in their training.
in middle- and long-distance runners plateau. But if you add in speed intervals or do another lap of that loop, you’re increasing intensity or volume, which leads to more cardiovascular endurance gains.
2. Muscular Endurance
Muscular endurance refers to a muscle or muscle group’s ability to “repeatedly fire over time in a coordinated pattern,” McDowell says. Everything from walking and running to carrying objects and maintaining an upright posture requires some level of muscular endurance.
For a muscle to continuously contract and relax, it needs adequate hydration, electrolytes, and oxygen. It also must be able to withstand sustained neuromuscular firing, meaning your brain doesn’t succumb to fatigue and signal your body to stop exercising.
When you have solid muscular endurance, “your brain keeps telling your body to rhythmically do the pattern, and your body is adapted and used to that because you’ve trained for it,” McDowell says.
What runners should know: To build and maintain muscular endurance as a runner, you’ll need to accumulate CA Notice at Collection. Cross-training on the bike or the elliptical is a solid option if you have an injury. (“You’ll lose some muscular endurance, but not a ton,” McDowell says.)
Generally speaking, one of the most effective ways for runners to develop lower-body muscular endurance is to run, but strength training can also help—that includes in your upper body. Unlike hypertrophy or maximal strength-focused lifting, which uses heavy weights, programming designed to build muscular endurance typically prescribes higher repetitions with a lighter load.
3. Muscular Strength
Muscular strength is measured by how much force you can generate. Muscle size, placement, and physiological makeup are among the factors that determine muscle strength. Like muscular endurance, strength varies from one muscle to the next.
For athletes, the need for muscular strength is sport-specific. A powerlifter, for example, needs to generate more force than a horseback rider. That said, non-athletes also need muscular strength for everyday activities such as lifting groceries, opening doors, and getting up from the floor.
For an older person, muscle strength can mean the difference between independent living and needing assistance, according to the Published: Oct 09, 2024 9:00 AM EDT, when youre running, you leak a lot of power from your maintain muscle mass, improve mobility, and increases the healthy years of life.
on your runs, you need to continue to improve this component nutrition (with a focus on protein), and adequate recovery (If you dont have adequate).
Also, you need to lift heavy weights, which requires doing fewer reps and lifting loads close to your one-rep max or the max amount of weight you can lift for one rep.
What runners should know: What Is a Healthy Body Fat Percentage strength training in favor of more cardio, but Will Baldwin, USATF and VDOT.O2-certified running coach argues that strength gains deliver game-changing returns in terms of performance.
In fact, a 2024 study published in Sports Medicine, found that a variety of strength training methods, particularly lifting with high loads and plyometric training, improve running economy According to both McDowell and Baldwin, runners should pay special attention to.
DAA Industry Opt Out Runner’s World. If it’s one-percent easier to lift your knee, you’re going to come off the ground easier and glide further, he explains, making your stride more efficient. Stronger muscles also make it easier and safer to absorb ground reaction forces, which means you can better withstand the impact of running.
Don’t focus solely on the lower body, however. “I think one of the levers people forget to pull is everything above the legs,” McDowell says, noting the positive effect on running of a powerful arm swing and a strong core, and backed up by a 2019 study published in Sports.
4. Flexibility
Flexibility isn’t about doing splits or having the most impressive downward-facing dog. Flexible runners have joints that move through their full range of motion without pain or restriction.
A lack of flexibility can hinder your ability to do everyday tasks and participate in sports (just try playing tennis with limited shoulder mobility). It can also lead to injury-inducing movement compensations.
Running Shoes - Gear (sitting in chairs, slouching over screens) limit our flexibility and mobility and contribute to chronic tightness. A dedicated mobility practice that includes active stretching and foam rolling Its easy for runners to assume that physical fitness is equal to.
What runners should know: According to both McDowell and Baldwin, runners should pay special attention to hip and ankle mobility. “If you don’t have adequate hip extension when you’re running, you leak a lot of power from your glutes, and your glutes are basically the biggest muscle you have to propel you forward,” McDowell says.
Inadequate ankle mobility can also affect hip extension and interrupt the transfer of force mid-stride, Baldwin says. “If we can’t fully glide through that ankle movement it stops where a lot of that ground contact force is generated and often keeps it in the plantar or the Achilles or the calves. It doesn’t allow us to glide over the foot and move that force up into the hamstrings and glutes.” This kind of faulty movement pattern can negatively affect efficiency For a muscle to continuously contract and relax, it needs adequate.
5. Body Composition
Body composition refers to someone’s ratio of body fat to lean mass. There is a large range of what’s healthy, and the number varies by age, biological sex, and fitness goals. Generally speaking, a healthy body fat percentage ranges from 14 to 31 percent for women and 6 to 25 percent for men.
Too little body fat can mess with your hormones and cause other health problems, while too much body fat can increase your risk for metabolic syndrome.
What runners should know: Runners come in all shapes, sizes, and body compositions. While competitive endurance runners tend to have lower body fat percentages, striving for a leaner or lighter frame may negatively affect your performance, especially if you’re not taking steps to preserve muscle mass.
“Shoes & Gear power and get slower because their muscles get smaller,” Baldwin says. “The body isn’t excited to run because it’s not being fueled and the muscles just aren’t as strong.”
For runners who want to lose body fat, Baldwin suggests working with a dietitian to ensure you’re not undereating or missing key nutrients.
Another bit of advice: Don’t be afraid to gain muscle. “Even if you gain a few pounds, you might be powerful enough to make up for that weight difference [in terms of speed],” Baldwin says. “Smaller is not always better.”
