Present Day Fitness Essay

Conversely with physical activity, which refers to the movements that people perform, “physical fitness is a set of attributes that people have or achieve” (Caspersen et al., 1985). R.R. Pate (1985) states that attributes of physical fitness can be divided into two groups, one related to health, and the other to skills related to athletic ability, such as muscular endurance and cardiorespiratory for instance. In the book “Fitness as Cultural phenomenon” (1998), Karin A.E. Volkwein-Caplan also describes physical fitness on two levels; “one related with health, including rehabilitation, and the other to performance”.

Volkwein-Caplan indicates that fitness is often described as an essential part of health and self-realization (1998, 11). The concept of fitness not only refers to exercise and its’ effects, but also to the general condition of a person’s psycho-physical well-fare (Glassner, 1990, 216). Thus, fitness and health have turned out to be for the most part equivalent words in ordinary use, as both terms incorporate exercise, diet, life-style, and more. Fitness promises range from general health improvement to the alleviation of stress and depression, and the

Despite the fact that fitness and bodybuilding don 't mean the same, it is clear that the whole fitness phenomenon developed out of bodybuilding. Thus, many of the training techniques and exercises in fitness are well adapted from bodybuilding. The essential distinction lies more in the presentation of different types of bodies, looks, and ideals. (Andreasson, Johansson, 2013, p.2). Nonetheless, the culture has changed, as new ways of approaching the entire field of bodybuilding and fitness have developed. In fitness, “there is, for example, less emphasis on the large muscular body, and more on the well-developed, tight, perfectly defined and moderately muscular body” (Nixon,