This months focus for the Active Essex All Together Disability sports programme is ‘What does fitness mean to you?’. There are so many different ways that this can be approached and so many different perspectives which is why we’ll take a cruise through my thoughts, before we dig a little deeper and look at some focus groups and the differences they perceive as fitness.
As someone who has sport and exercise on the agenda from the day I was born my initial thought is that fitness undermines exercise and the ability to access and participate in sporting activities with strength, agility, power, control and ease. The catalyst that allows you to be confident that your body will be able to focus on the moves you create and the sporting positions you need to hit to be the best that you can be. This is of significance right now as we progress through COVID-19 and our sporting activities re-open.
Have we the fitness we need? Is it all about exercise? When I think deeper and now more than ever, fitness means being ‘fit’ to get fit and then transfer this into sport. Has the lockdown provision given enough for us to trust our bodies to perform at the level they were before and are the restrictions that some sports still face going to allow for this to happen? What about mental fitness? Has my daily visualisation ‘swim set’ enabled me to return to the pool with the confidence that I will be able to actually move properly or am I starting from scratch.
Has my altered fitness programme and utilisation of my psychosis strategies in a progressive way enabled me to become mentally ‘fit’? There are a lot of questions here and they won’t be answered in their entirety. Today is about building together our thoughts and experiences in a way that we hope you can also reflect and then be prepared to move with us through the next few weeks in a situation where you can find your own personal ‘fit’ in a unique way.
However, you only have to look at definitions in the dictionary to see how varied and vast this word ‘fitness’ is utilised and the meanings that it has for each and everyone of us.
So how does this work in practice?
The Oxford Dictionary App come’s up with these three definitions;
‘The quality of being suitable to for fill a particular task’.
‘An animals ability to survive and re-produce in a particular environment’.
‘The condition of being physically fit and healthy; disease and lack of fitness are closely related’.
However, these definitions suggest that ‘fitness’ is not going to be a simple nut to crack! That is why over this next selection of blogs we will explore what it means to us at time to heal, alongside The Pituitary Foundation, We are Undefeatables and Active Essex’s All Together Programme…
So here I go with my take and it’s a family based one taken from my youth growing up in a very active and sporty family. I want to bring in my own knowledge and background to this series. With a First Class Honours Degree, majoring in Exercise and Health plus all the sports I have competed in and taught, you can be sure that this series is something that I am passionate about and have the academic side to pull together some useful, insightful blogs to support you through the stages of progression which I will set out at the end of this blog. Firstly though let’s get into my experiences.
The impact of exercise fitness on sport is highly promoted right now. We truly believe that fitness enables the focus on skill acquisition and is integrated within a training schedule to achieve certain results and outcomes. Allowing the body to develop as and where necessary.
As someone who has sport and exercise on the agenda from the day I was born my initial thought is that fitness undermines exercise and the ability to access and participate in sporting activities with strength, agility, power, control and precision. The catalyst that allows you to be confident that your body will be able to focus on the moves you create and the sporting positions you need to hit to be the best that you can be. This is of significance right now as we progress through COVID-19 and our sport clubs and leisure centres begin to re-open.
As a gymnast we always honed in on the basic skills, correcting and perfecting the key skills, positions and strengthening of key muscle groups in order to master the more difficult skills to come. This became more of a factor when I started to coach beginners and our head coach would use me to do a lot of demonstrations which actually helped and supported the development of my own gymnastics and the numerous other sports with which I was involved with.
Writing this brings back so many happy memories shared with an incredible man who is sadly no longer with us, but there are so many cherished memories that were shared with my late father who really instilled exercise, fitness and sport into me but we had so much fun in the process and I loved it. It was also special time together, a common interest as he worked long hours so these sessions and our rides home from gymnastics at night were the times we could share our love of sport and relate each other with a shared passion.
Mum learnt to swim so she could teach all of us to swim. When a member of Girls Brigade there was a special gala and because I could swim and no one else could I got the chance to compete for the first time aged around 7! Then my next swim connection was through my first year in secondary school when because I wasn’t a strong swimmer I was placed in the lowest PE class and for someone used to being in every school team and club going I wasn’t happy!
I insisted on proper lessons and that’s what I got, moving swiftly up the levels until I was promoted to the top PE group. I remember my assessment as I’d attended a lunch club religiously to work on my swimming! But also asked to join the squads at Clacton Swimming Club! I had to choose though between Gymnastics and swimming and if you read one of my previous blogs about my gymnastics club blog you’ll know that nothing could win over gymnastics at that time!
Although, this opened up a wealth of opportunities. As a family we always loved to swim and went regularly. Mum was happy pottering away in the shallow water whilst Dad and I ventured into the deep and after my lessons and my ability to beat him and his competitive nature I had to pass on all my swimming secrets to him! This was great though and kept us fit. At one point we built up to swimming a mile once a week at our local leisure centre! On another level Mum walked and cycled everywhere and that meant I did as well so a different level of exercise but providing fitness in another way, especially during the summer holidays but also to Gym and other clubs and even shopping as she didn’t drive. As a family we would always be outside playing cricket, football, badminton or whatever we felt like! My eldest brother was a rugby boy and I loved going to watch and cheer him on. Many hours were dwindled away with my other brother as we would kick a football at each other for hours or batter the swing ball game trying to outwit each other!
On holidays swimming always became our ‘maintenance’ training. I have three amazing holiday memories that I can remember about swimming. The first being a hotel where the pool was freezing cold and Dad and I to the amusement of others tended to have it all to ourselves! We used to do our ‘proper’ diving and swimming and then move onto ‘play time’ on the lilo. Obviously built for relaxing on but we liked to be a bit more adventurous and tended to try and paddle our way around the pool sitting up or more often than not trying to push each other off! Good maintenance just like another pool that had a great bridge across it that acted as a chin up bar! However, a more sedate memory is us throwing around a big blow up banana with Mum in the shallow water - hand eye co-ordination checked in! So all round swimming was a great help.
However, Dad preferred the gym, running and his squash (once Mum finally got her say he stopped squash which was needed!) So as soon as I was old enough my name was quickly signed up and we would go and do about a 2 hour session whenever we could! This made a real difference to my general fitness levels and was absolutely crucial in my ability to perform certain gymnastic skills and transfer to basketball which while I was at school played in a high level league. Having asthma as well my lungs became stronger helping not only my gymnastics but also school sports, my GCSE and A Level grades because the sports I executed needed the basis of fitness, strength and movement.
Sadly when Dad was diagnosed with Cancer this all stopped. We had always wanted to run the London Marathon together and in the summer that I finished University it was clear that we would never be able to achieve this. So I took the chance to start to run and that all began on a treadmill in a local gym with plenty of other cardio and weights before venturing outside! Having trained with a colleague for a while my running was really progressing but with Dad dying 7 weeks before my training wasn’t great in the lead up and didn’t do as much as I wanted to be able to. He had loved hearing about my runs though and it was a sport I grew to love. Joining a club helped me considerably and it was a link to someone special. Ultimately, cross country leagues, track sessions, a further marathon, a National 10km race all followed! However, with that Swiss ball and pilates became staples behind the scenes along with ballet and dance all to ensure I was strong and my body could withstand the pounding of long distance running. I also completed numerous Cancer Research Race For life Events. One I recall with joy having finished running and then tracking Mum as she walked across the line, I was so proud and filled with excitement! A change from the opposite, as she attended every game and competition possible.
As this blog shows there are so many things that can be defined into fitness, transferring this into other opportunities such as happy family memories of passing down love and passion and good health choices to the younger generation. My world changed drastically in 2008 with illness and disability and I have come full circle if you like. Now I’m a para-swimmer and so my physiotherapy, use of Theraband’s, the Swiss ball and yoga to support my body are crucial although challenging and even more so with the COVID-19 pandemic affecting the way we can exercise.
So, I’ve showered you with questions, definitions and my own views on Fitness and what it means to me. My opinion and guidance though is that before we get ahead of ourselves we first we need to conquer our health, become undefeatables and transition into constructive progressive fitness activities, exercise and sport. As everyone will be different it can be a challenge to find the right things for you but trial and error is a good thing and may open your eyes to something new, so look out for the next three installments. I hope this inspires you to start thinking about fitness and it's meaning and importance to you.
If you want to get a head start on this then the following will be linked to the following blogs and then there are some resources that you may find interesting to have a look at.
The Pituitary Foundation https://www.pituitary.org.uk
We Are Undefeatables https://weareundefeatable.co.uk
All Together Active Essex & Active Essex https://www.activeessex.org/all-together/ & https://www.activeessex.org
For those sporty people and coaches!
Human Kinetics
These publishers are very well respected within the sport and exercise world. Some of the books we recommend are ‘The Anatomy of …… ‘ and then there will be a sport or exercise. They highlight the key areas of the body which need to be strengthened in each sport and give detailed descriptions of what each exercise will do to support you. Therefore you can scroll through find what you need to strengthen and there you have a great exercise right in front of you. These are also very accessible. You don’t need to be a sport scientist to utilise these books to their full potential. Some examples that are available in the UK are easily purchased from Amazon at the link below;
For those just starting out on your fitness adventure;
Kickstart your health
This is an NHS project produced as part of the Governments obesity strategy and has some great tips to get you started on the way to a healthier lifestyle.
‘Your health matters. There has never been a better time to kickstart your health. Better Health has a range of tools and support to help - find what works for you. Let's do this!’(https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/)
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