Specific versus general fitness

It would be widely agreed that the broader-based forms of fitness are of greater value in daily life than the extreme forms, such as pure endurance, pure strength, pure flexibility, or pure speed. Older literature embodied the ideal of breadth in the term ‘general fitness’. However, it is now appreciated that the dominating principle underlying the response of the body to training is its ‘specificity’. A particular exercise elicits the adaptive responses we call ‘training’ only from the specific muscles and other tissues exercised, and enhances only the specific property (endurance, strength, speed, or extensibility which the exercise challenges. At best only very modest improvements of other properties or at other muscle sites (‘cross-training’) are ever reported, and they cannot be counted upon. A sport requiring many forms of fitness must thus have a training program including many elements. There is probably only one sense in which ‘general fitness’ can be enhanced by most individual forms of exercise, pursued in isolation: since it is impossible to undertake any exercise without raising both pulse rate and ventilation, every form of exercise provides some cardio-respiratory training, and hence some degree of ‘general fitness’ in respect of these central organs. More thorough-going general fitness can only be attained by an exercise program which is itself broad-based.

A broad-based program can, of course, be achieved by regular visits to a well-conducted gymnasium; however, such a clinically purposeful regime is not the only way. Someone who, in a typical 2-week period, goes for a 40-minute run, plays a game of squash, spends an active 30 minutes in the swimming pool, does a couple of hours’ heavy gardening, polishes the car energetically, chops wood, vacuum cleans the stairs twice, and scrubs the steps, especially if (s) he precedes at least the first three of these activities with 5-7 minutes of stretching and flexing exercises, will be as fit for life as a neighbor who visits the local gym three times a week. Any difference between them which is non-genetic may well be determined by which of them gets more sleep, or eats less fat.