The word fitness is hard to define without the extreme boredom of quoting the dictionary we may as well say it can mean a lot of different. A marathon runner is considered fit, a 60 meter sprinter is considered fit, a body builder looks fit, a thin person looks fit. What is strange is that all of these different people are very different in physical make-up which shows that fitness is indeed a strange term to nail down. The most successful way to analyze fitness is to break it into two categories Anaerobic fitness and Aerobic fitness. Aerobic fitness can be described as the muscles ability to perform a repetitive exercise with maximal speed and power. Aerobic power can be described as the heart and lungs ability to provide a constant supply of oxygen to the muscles over an extended period of time.

So what is the best kind of fitness. I see many people jogging for miles and miles in pursuit of some kind of fitness many killing themselves getting up an 6 a.m. to go running just to achieve this goal. Going back to the unfortunate truth that appearances are everything in modern day life the reality is that long distance running has the effect of increasing leg mass and decreasing upper body mass creating a sort of pear shape. This is in stark contrast to the perfect egg timer shaped figure. Whereas the smarter trainer might spend three hours a week in the gym and one sprint session and achieve that figure with ease.

Going back some years in Athletics, the main source of fit science aerobic training was the norm however as time goes on the focus is shifting away from solely aerobic training to a mix of Aerobic and Anaerobic development using a more intelligent form of weight lifting. So it can be said that while a certain amount of Aerobic ability is most definitely necessary the main source of physical advantage is borne through anaerobic fitness using strength conditioning.