The importance of your physical fitness after retirement can not be understated.

After retirement your physical fitness is going to be closely associated with the quality of your life and independence.

It will be your fitness that is going to play a major role in your ability to perform daily activities as well as your participation in and the enjoyment of recreational activities.

There is a difference between being healthy and being fit and healthy.

To be truly healthy one must maintain at least a moderate level of fitness.

Physical fitness is both health-related and skill-related.

Each of these components have specific benefits that will help you throughout your retirement.

Health-related components of physical fitness:

• Cardiovascular endurance
• Muscular endurance
• Muscular strength
• Flexibility
• Body composition

Health related components of fitness are the key elements in maintaining a healthy lifestyle by improving your body’s ability to function properly and reduce the risk of developing many health problems.

Performance related components of physical fitness:

• Agility
• Balance
• Coordination
• Reaction time
• Power
• Speed

Performance-related fitness is more an individual quality that will vary from person to person depending on the intensity of the activities they are involved in and the level they want to achieve, they will have little if any bearing in disease prevention.

Cardiovascular endurance – is the ability of the heart to deliver oxygen to the working muscles, and their ability to use that oxygen.

Muscular strength – the force needed for one contraction, it allows you to lift weight.

Muscular endurance – is the ability of the muscle to contract repeatedly or continuously, allows you to lift weight over a period of time.

We need a combination of these three components. If you had to walk any distance, you would need cardiovascular endurance, if you have to move or lift a heavy object you need muscular strength, and if you had to carry or push that object for a period of time you would need muscular endurance.

Flexibility – at its simplest flexibility is the ability of a joint to move through its range of motion. A motion becomes more complex when several joints and muscles are used.

If you do not move a joint through its complete range of motion, eventually it will lose a portion of its flexibility.

Body composition - is a health-related physical fitness component that relates to the relative amounts of muscle, fat, bone, and other vital parts of the body.

An optimal ratio of fat to lean muscle mass is an indication of fitness. The right types of activities will help you decrease body fat and maintain or increase muscle mass.

While cardiovascular, muscle and flexibility conditioning are of extreme importance to your health and fitness, performance related components of physical fitness like balance, agility and coordination should not be overlooked.

Injuries caused by falls, especially, as you get older is an obvious example showing why balance is crucial to your health.

One out of every three adults 65 and older fall every year.

Falling is a major cause of broken hips and other injuries that often lead to disability and loss of independence.

Over 80% of the injury-related hospitalizations of seniors are from falls.

40% of those hospitalized from a falls have a hip fracture

20-25% of seniors who suffer hip fractures die within one year and of those that survive that year, 50% never regain their full functional abilities.