Physical Fitness

Today during a hike that my Troop went on I started thinking about a subject that hadn't really crept into my mind for a fair length of time. That subject happens to be physical fitness as the title of this blog post says. Physical fitness it seems to be and has been for a long time a word most americans through around but truthfully do not know how to use properly. For many physical fitness that you must be a athlete and a star athlete at that but for the majority of us this is automatically setting ourselves up for failure. Lets first think through this by ourselves and then use the troublesome tool called the dictionary. If we don't have to be athletes but also can't be bums and super lazy people then there obviously a middle ground that gives us the ability to effectively meet the physical demands of our environment without having over exert ourselves but again this doesn't mean we have to be the best, we just have to perform to a satisfactory. Many of you would say to this that then a video gamer is in shape, so there has to be more to this definition than just being able to meet the physical demands of our environment. To this I would say the following, take a kid of average age, physical characteristics, and nature and then apply this information as baseline for who determines what qualifies as being in shape.

But this definition is a little cumbersome and still does not factor in all of the necessary factors. One definition that comes close is physical fitness is the state of being that allows a person to efficiently and effectively participate in the activities that he wants to participate in without causing due harm to ones body or to someone else. Now lets look at what the dictionary says physical fitness is being in shape or in condition. Obviously this seems simple enough to understand but these six words have a deeper more profound meaning than is originally evident.

Yours in Scouting Service
Mark W
Assistant Den Leadeer/Assistant Scoutmaster
Troop 1316, Troop 1616(aka 669), Pack 100
Tustumena District/ Denali District/ Eklutna District, Great Alaska Council
NSJ '05 Youth Participant '10 Subcamp 7 Youth Staff WSJ '07
Eagle Scout OA Brotherhood Member
Big Horn Denver Area Council NYLT QM Philmont AA '08