GOLD STANDARD
Does winning an Olympic event make the medallist fitter than most?
After watching the best athletes in the world showcase what years of physical and mental preparation can accomplish, there's still no consensus on which athletes are the fittest among this group of elites. Are marathon runners more fit than cyclists and rowers? And what about water polo players and decathletes — sports often deemed the most physically taxing of those showcased in the Olympics — are they more fit than soccer or rugby players?
Also worthy of debate is where strength and power athletes, like weightlifters and sprinters, and specialists, such as pole vaulters, rank on the fitness continuum. And finally, what about the rest of us average Joes and Jills, even those who work out diligently?
Are we any less fit than Olympians? The answer might be in the definition of fitness, for which, once again, there is no consensus. One of the most common definitions is “the ability to carry out daily tasks with vigour and alertness, without undue fatigue and with ample energy to enjoy leisure-time pursuits and to meet unforeseen emergencies.” But Ross Tucker, a South African sports scientist and co-host of the Science of Sport podcast, breaks it down to a more basic level, suggesting that fitness is simply “the ability of the organism to survive and thrive in response to stress.”
Though these definitions may seem unrelated, they focus on the same theme: Are you fit enough for the task at hand? For some of us, the task at hand is achieving improved or optimal health and quality of life. For others, there's a performance element to fitness: Am I fit enough to complete a marathon? Or, if the task is more ambitious: Am I fit enough to win a marathon?
At its most basic, fitness optimizes the ability to deal with the physical and mental stresses of everyday life. In fact, adapting to stress is a marker of improved fitness. Think of exercise as stress and recovery as adapting to that stress. Going for a vigorous walk, run or workout at the gym taxes the heart, lungs and muscles. Recovery allows the body to adapt to that stress by rebuilding itself stronger, becoming more efficient and resilient. Workout by workout, the body and its functions continue to adapt and improve, managing the tasks of everyday life with greater ease. Hence the noticeable boost in energy and physical function that occurs within the first few months of following a regular exercise routine or taking on a new physical challenge.
For many, that initial boost in fitness is just the start of their journey. The more ambitious or specific a fitness or performance goal, the more specialized the workouts become and the more targeted the fitness must be for success. This type of specificity is why sprinters are well equipped for short, fast bursts of speed but may huff and puff when faced with longer distances that tax their cardiovascular and muscular endurance rather than draw on their strength, power and anaerobic capacity. It's also why marathon runners don't spend a lot of time in the weight room, as the added muscle mass doesn't contribute to their performance.
Keep in mind that fitness has been traditionally measured by testing a series of physical functions including muscular strength and endurance, flexibility and aerobic power and endurance — think of the fitness tests you performed in gym class — and ranking your results against a large sample of the population similar to you in age. But a variety of sports have their own tests designed to evaluate how fit an individual is for the task at hand, placing greater or less emphasis on certain elements of fitness. The football combine, for example, evaluates fitness for the game based on a 40-yard dash (speed), bench press (strength), vertical jump and broad jump (explosive power), three-cone drill (agility) and 20-yard shuttle run (aerobic conditioning).
Does that mean athletes with the best scores in the most fitness measurements earn the right to call themselves the fittest of the fit? Be careful how you answer, as it means judging who is fitter: decathlete Damian Warner, sprinter Andre De Grasse, swimmer Maggie Mac Neil, weightlifter Maude Charron or the rowers in Canada's women's eight — all gold medal winners in Tokyo.
Beyond specific performance goals, fitness is all about being able to perform the tasks of everyday life in good form and to reduce the risk of chronic disease and physical dysfunction. If those tasks are limited to household chores and 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity exercise, which you can energetically perform without ending the day exhausted, then consider yourself fit.
But if your daily life requires more stamina, strength and agility than you can currently muster, you'll need to work on your fitness. As for those of you with plans to match Mac Neil in the pool, De Grasse on the track or Charron in the weight room, be prepared to set your fitness bar to a golden height.