Skill Related Fitness
Cardiovascular
Cardiovascular fitness increases stamina and metabolism, decreases levels of stress, and produces better oxygen circulation.
Flexibility
Flexibility decreases the risk of experiencing injuries, helps maintain a range of movement, and produces good posture and healthy joints.
Body Composition
Maintaining proper body fat percentage results in less strain on muscles, joints, and cardiovascular systems.
Muscular Strength and Endurance
Muscular fitness improves our ability to move our bodies with ease and maintain muscle tone.
Current Skills
Our current skill level affects our potential to improve. Elite competitive runners may only be able to reduce their mile run time by a few seconds. Beginning runners may have the potential to shave minutes off of their mile run time!
Health-Related Fitness
Our health-related fitness (cardiovascular, flexibility, body composition, and muscular strength and endurance) levels impact our ability to perform different skills. For example, it will be difficult to improve your speed if you do not maintain a healthy cardiovascular system.
Achievement and Motivation
Our motivation certainly affects our ability to achieve skill levels. We must have a good balance of challenge and success to help us stay focused on reaching our goals!
Age
Our skill levels change throughout the life cycle. Compare the skill levels of a newborn baby who can do little but eat and sleep to a running, jumping, and skipping preschooler! Our skills continue to develop throughout our lives, and then generally decline in old age.
Agility
The skill-related fitness component of agility helps you change directions quickly.
Balance
The skill-related fitness component of balance helps you stay upright whether you are moving or standing still.
Coordination
The skill-related fitness component of coordination helps you use your senses to react and perform the appropriate movement.
Power
The skill-related fitness component of power helps you perform a movement quickly and forcefully.
Reaction Time
The skill-related fitness component of reaction time helps you to quickly react and respond to stimuli.
Speed
The skill-related fitness component of speed helps you to move your whole body and individual parts of your body quickly.
Genetic Make-up
Your genetic makeup does have an impact on your skill-related fitness potential. If your parents' skills are above average, your skills are probably above average as well!