Health

Health, for me, is not the absence of disease, the absence of physical injury, or the absence of mental health issues; it is a state of well-being or flourishing. This well-being or flourishing can be in both physical health and emotional health. In the mental sense, this is often called eudaemonia. In the sense of physical health, flourishing and thriving are rarely discussed. What does it mean to achieve a state of physical well-being that allows us to thrive in our bodies and in our lives?

Health = Physical Health + Emotional Health

Health is by no means just physical health; it has so many components that defining what health is would need a full book. That is why I am not going to try and define health in the broader sense. It is important that we differentiate between physical health and emotional health. Neither is more important than the other, and we can certainly have one and not the other, even though they often overlap. When we are stressed and have problems with our emotional health, it can cause physiological symptoms. For the sake of this article, I am going to separate the two and break down physical health into further detail.

Why Strive for Physical Health?

There is a feeling tone to being in exceptional physical health, which improves our experience of our day-to-day lives and, therefore, the feeling tone of those around us. If these two things do not motivate you, it is going to be hard to find something that does.

Why Are Definitions Important?

It is crucial that we define what physical health is; otherwise, we cannot orient people towards an agreed-upon goal. Through defining physical health, we can come up with testable ways to see if the training interventions we are performing are moving us closer to our goal. If you are reading this and have the goal of becoming healthier, then it will be important for you to dive into what that really means.

Breaking Physical Health Down Into Segments

— Sleep

— Exercise

— Nutrition

These three elements are what will define your physical health. Striving for high levels of physical health will require you to put an emphasis on all three of these. Sleep is probably the most important aspect of these three. Without sleep, neither nutrition nor physical activities will be successful interventions. In this article, I will be discussing physical exercise for physical health.

Exercise for Physical Health

Physical Health = VO2 Max + Strength + Movement Capacity

These are three components that make up physical health in terms of exercise, which I will outline in detail below.

VO2 Max (Cardiovascular Health)

VO2 max is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can consume in one minute. VO2 max is an extremely effective measure of how efficient the cardiovascular system is. The cardiovascular system is a crucial component of physical health. Having a low VO2 max is a huge problem as we age, but also for those looking to thrive in their daily life and perform physically challenging tasks like hiking.

Oxygen is a crucial component for energy production. Therefore, if we are able to produce more energy, we are able to perform more work. When we have efficient gas exchange from the lungs to the blood, a high red blood cell count to carry high amounts of oxygen, a strong heart to pump large amounts of blood (oxygen), and efficient mitochondria for energy production, we have a high VO2 max and an excellent cardiovascular system. When we think about cyclists or marathon runners, these are the athletes who are able to produce the most energy, and they are typically the athletes with the highest VO2 maxes.

Why do some people get out of breath after a flight of stairs while others are not fazed at all? Because one individual has a much higher VO2 max than the other individual, meaning that they are able to perform the task (the flight of stairs) easily with a very manageable demand for oxygen, while the other individual struggles as they are not able to provide the amount of oxygen required to perform the task.

VO2 max is very changeable through cardiovascular training interventions. That is why high-intensity interval training and continuous training are such important components of physical training for health.

Strength / Muscle Mass

Training for physical health also requires striving towards good levels of muscularity and muscular strength. What was once just for athletes and bodybuilders is now known to be beneficial for the physical health of everyone.

Sedentary behavior leads to a lack of both muscle mass and strength. While we are young, this may not be a problem for our physical health (although we will be far from thriving), but as we age and our muscle mass starts to decline, lack of strength and muscle mass can have a very negative effect on physical health. With loss of muscle mass comes a large increase in all-cause mortality. This can be seen through the strong relationship between grip strength and all-cause mortality.

In order to be thriving in terms of physical health, an individual should have good levels of muscle mass and physical strength. "Good levels" is not very scientific, I know, but strength metrics will change drastically depending on age and gender. This is not something I am going to attempt to define in this article.

Movement Capacity

Movement capacity is the summation of mobility and movement virtuosity. Mobility is the degrees of freedom a joint can move through, and movement virtuosity is the ability to perform a wide variety of movements to a high degree of accuracy. Movement virtuosity is often described as athleticism and is hard to create objective measures for, but we know it when we see it.

If you are mobile but have no movement virtuosity, then you are not in ideal physical health. If you have high levels of movement virtuosity but low levels of mobility, then you are also not reaching your physical health potential. Movement capacity is the ability to try a new movement pattern and have the physical capabilities to thrive while learning it. Imagine we take two individuals: one who is completely sedentary and the other who lifts weights three times a week and does bouldering twice per week, and they both go surfing for the first time. Nine times out of ten, the second individual will have far higher levels of movement capacity and will be able to learn surfing much faster. If you are striving for optimal physical health, you need to be able to move in organic ranges of motion with high levels of virtuosity and mobility. If you are strong and have a high VO2 max but cannot perform a tennis serve or go bouldering because you lack mobility, then you are missing a crucial part of your physical health.

Designing a Training Plan

Now that we have an agreed-upon definition of physical health, we can design a training program to achieve these goals. I will discuss this at length in a future article, but here are our three goals:

— Increase VO2 Max

— Increase Strength / Muscle Mass

— Increase Movement Capacity

In a later article, I will attempt to outline a training program that aims to improve these three factors.