National Employee Health & Fitness Day is the third (3rd) Wednesday in May each year and was created to promote the benefits of physical activity for individuals through their work site health promotion activities. Founded in 1989 National Employee Health and Fitness Day has enlisted tens of thousands of participants from employers around the world.
There are two types of fitness:
Performance-related fitness is linked to athletic performance (for example: a 50-yard dash time or the ability to maneuver around obstacles quickly) and is linked to speed, reaction time, and coordination.
Health-related fitness is linked to fitness components that may lower risks such as high blood pressure, diabetes, or low back pain. Health-related physical fitness includes the following components:
- Aerobic fitness - ability of the heart and lungs to deliver blood to muscles
- Muscular strength and endurance - enough to do normal activities easily and protect the low back
- Flexibility - ability to move your many joints through their proper range of motion
- Body composition - not too much body fat, especially around the waist.
The Adult Fitness Test - http://www.adultfitnesstest.org/resources/datacollection.pdf is an excellent site that provides a simple way for you to get an estimate of your level of aerobic fitness, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility and your body composition. The results of each test provide you with a base measure of fitness from which you can then track your progress as you become more physically active.
As an employer, provide and promote opportunities for fitness:
- help employees to measure and track their fitness level
- co-ordinate lunch hour walking or running groups
- offer off-site fitness centre discounts
- encourage sport team participation
- sponsor step by step challenges
- promote community fitness groups
- reward fitness involvement
As an individual find an activity that you can get excited about:
- if running or walking alone bore you - walk with others who are also interested in the social opportunity of getting together
- look for opportunities to learn while you exercise - I hate monotony - so I have recently started taking karate - it is complicated, never the same and allows me to learn about the history at the same time
- experiment - try something outside your comfort zone - you never know if it will be the spark that you are looking for
- age is never a barrier - almost all activities can be modified - my sons are involved in triathlons and were impressed to hear that a colleague of mine who is in his 50's is doing his first triathlon this summer
With our busy lifestyles it is important that we make the time to take care of ourselves. Make the commitment to do one thing to increase your health-related fitness.
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