“Physical fitness and physical health in the midst of pandemic”

In the midst of the pandemic, everyone most people are stuck inside their
homes. Students and some workers are forced to study and work from home. While
working or studying from home saves much time from preparation and transportation
since they don’t have to go somewhere else. Work from home also means there will be
less activity. As a matter of fact, physical activity has seriously reduced during the
Covid-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic period, it is recorded that 69% from a certain
number of volunteers were classified very active and on the pandemic period, the
percentage significantly dropped to 39% (Puccinelli et al., 2021, p.7). This is a
noticeable change that everyone can relate to their daily living. Furthermore, according
to Woods et al., (2020), lower physical activity level due to sustained social distancing
potentially increases the risk of damaging the immune, respiratory, cardiovascular,
musculoskeletal systems as well as compromising mental health. This implies that aside
from the safety protocols, people should pay attention to their physical fitness to
strengthen defense.

Physical fitness refers to the ability of the body systems to work together
efficiently to allow oneself to be healthy and perform activities of daily living. It enables
oneself to do task in lesser time and effort. According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary,
it is “good health and strength achieved through exercise,” (“Physical fitness”). Being
physically fit can be achieved by doing exercises called physical fitness test. Physical
fitness has two types, namely health-related and skill-related physical fitness. Each of
these has different components which emphasizes different impacts to the body.

Health-related physical fitness. Health-related physical fitness is related with illness

counteraction and useful wellbeing (Health-Related & Skill-Related Physical Fitness ,
2016). Participating in regular health-related fitness helps oneself to control their
weight, prevents diseases and illness, improves mood, boosts energy, and promotes
better sleep (Health-Related & Skill-Related Physical Fitness, 2016). It is composed of
five components namely, body composition, cardiovascular fitness, flexibility, muscular
endurance, and muscular strength. Health-related fitness can be defined by how well
the body performs in each one of these components as a whole ( 5 Components of
Physical Fitness, n.d.). The following are the definitions of the components of Health-
related fitness according to Minka (2015).

Body composition. It is a term used to refer to the percentage of fat, bone,

and muscle in your body. They also stated that it helps to find out one’s level of health,
this is important because two people can be have the same height and weight, but one
of them might have more body fat and less muscle.

Cardiovascular Fitness. It is the ability of the heart, blood cells, and lungs to
work continuously for longer periods of time. In the same article it is also stated that it
is how efficient one’s body takes in, transports, and uses oxygen while working out.

Flexibility. It is the ability of the joints to move in a range of available

movements. Practicing this makes movement easier for the joints.

Muscular Endurance. It is the muscles’ ability to last during an activity or

exercise.

Muscular Strength. The amount of force muscle can exert when doing an
activity.

Skill-related physical fitness. Skill-related physical fitness is consisted of

components that are essential in both sports and our daily activities. Agility, speed,
power, balance, coordination, and response time are the six components of skill-related
fitness. These skill-related components are movements that an individual must perform
in order to exhibit a variety of motor skills and movement patterns (DeMet & Wahl-
Alexander, 2019). The components of skill-related physical fitness are defined as follows
according to Minka (2015).
 Agility. It is the ability to change the position and control the movement of the
body precisely. In many sports, agility is important to be able to rapidly change
direction while maintaining body control.

Balance. Balance refers to the ability to maintain stability of posture while either
standing still or moving. It is essential in many activities like skating, surfing, skiing, and
gymnastics.

Power. Power involves both strength and speed. It is the ability exert strength
quickly. Sports such as football and discuss throw requires high degree of power to
execute.

Reaction Time. It is the measure of time that our senses take to response to a
signal. Good reaction time is essential in sports such as tennis ang badminton

Coordination. It is the cooperation of the senses and the body movements.

Sports such as baseball and basketball require a good coordination.

Speed. Speed is the ability to quickly cover a distance. It is considered to be a

very important factor in many sports. Sprinting is the most common example of sport
that requires high speed.

Understanding the health-related and skill-related components will help oneself

to understand the physical fitness test and be able relate each of the test with these
components. However, it is also important to have an understanding about the body
movements that the body performs when doing an activity.

Body Movements. According to Byrne (2015), body movement refers to the changes
of position of a certain body part with respect to the entire body. It can be observed
that all living beings have this feature (Byrne, 2015). The blinking of the eyes,
breathing, eating are all examples of movement. Body movements, consists of two
types namely, the Axial/Non-Locomotor Movements and the Locomotor Movements.
 Axial/Non-Locomotor Movements. These are movement happens in a
stationary place and locomotor movement travels through space (Byrne, 2015).
Examples of axial movements are stretching, twisting, falling, turning in place, and
gesturing.

Locomotor Movements. Locomotor movement or skill is an action that moves

the body from one place to another (What Are Locomotor Skills? - Definition,
Instruction & Examples, 2016). It can be moving forward, backwards or upwards.
Examples of this are walking, running, jumping, hopping, galloping and skipping.

According to Macri (2018), movement is a very simple topic yet vital in life. The
body is designed to move in various ways and this movements provides healthy joints,
strong bones, physical strength, good blood circulation, and reflex reactivity (Macri,
2018). That being the case, it can be understood why learning body movements is
related to physical fitness and why is it involved in physical fitness test.

Physical fitness test. physical fitness test are exercises that composes different body
movements to be performed