As an industry, we need to be very clear about what health is and what it means to be physically healthy. We need to be able to differentiate between health and performance (sport programming). This means taking the best parts from the sports that are in the fitness industry and discarding the aspects of them that are not beneficial to health. This differentiation between health and performance is crucial, as sports require skill specialisation and also physiological specificity (being very good at a specific physical task e.g. running, weightlifting), whereas for health this just is not the case.

Defining Physical Health

I have written an  extensive article defining physical health , so I won’t go into too much detail in this article. My definition of physical health is:

Physical Health = Strength + Cardiovascular Capabilities + Movement Capacity

For in-depth definitions of each of these physical attributes, please read through the article linked above.

Avoiding Sport Specific Training When Health is The Goal

If you are not striving to be a bodybuilder, powerlifter, CrossFit athlete or compete in endurance sports, then you should not be training as such. This is important, because the vast majority of coaches will be heavily influenced by one of these sports, and therefore it will have a big impact on the style of training you perform.

As an example, I have just started coaching a new client who has been training in a different gym for multiple years and is striving to be a healthy individual. His coach is an avid bodybuilder, and this can easily be seen in his training regime. The client trains four times a week with the objective of being healthy and never performs any cardiovascular training. It would be very hard to make the argument that with four hours of training per week, none of these should be being put towards improving the cardiovascular system, which is a vital part of long-term health. This is the perfect example of how sport specific training can have a negative influence on people's training programmes.

A similar example would be a CrossFit coach who is passionate about weightlifting (Snatch, Clean and Jerk) who adds a great deal of weightlifting technique into a client's session where the goal is health and wellness. It is the coach forcing their client to be passionate about what they are passionate about, and it is a waste of time for the client if their goal is to be healthy. Weightlifting is amazing, but if we only have two hours a week to work towards physical health, the last thing we are going to be doing is snatch technique with an empty barbell.

There is Nothing Wrong with Specific Goals

This is not an article putting people off striving towards specific goals. Personally, I love jumping between the different sports in the fitness industry. I currently love marathon running; however, this doesn’t mean I am going to put all my clients onto a marathon training programme. The key point is that there need to be clear goals of your training programme, and if your goal is health, then the training programme should reflect a plan for health and not that of a programme for a specific sport.

Types of Sports in The Fitness Industry

Understanding the different sports that have had an impact on the fitness industry is important to understand how they have influenced your training plan and how you can be sure to strive towards your goals of physical health rather than sport specialisation.

Powerlifting

Powerlifting is where individuals attempt to lift as much weight as possible in the squat, bench press, and deadlift.

Bodybuilding

Bodybuilding is the practice of building muscle mass and creating a very lean physique.

CrossFit

CrossFit is a mixture of cardiovascular, weightlifting, and gymnastics training all rolled into high-intensity interval training.

Endurance Sports

Endurance sports involve racing in events like marathons, triathlons, or any form of long-form event.

Hybrid Events

Hybrid events such as Hyrox are where individuals take part in events that require good levels of both strength and cardiovascular fitness in order to be completed.

Influence on the Fitness Industry

These sports have had a huge effect on the fitness industry as a whole. Before training for health was a done thing, these were the only real forms of exercise that people did, outside of those who were training for athletic performance. Even now that training for health is a done thing in most cultures, most individuals who work in the fitness industry will likely be involved in some form of activity like this. The people that make up the professionals within the fitness industry obviously have a big impact on people's exercise.

Conclusion

If you are training to be the healthiest version of yourself, make sure that your training truly reflects your goal in that it moves you forward towards health rather than a specific athletic goal.