The ability to use the body parts and senses together with efficient movements.

As well as the traditional components of health-related fitness, the term fitness can be broken down into skill components. These are important in performing the more technical aspects of many sport and include speed, reaction time, agility, balance, coordination, and power.


Speed

Most sports and activities require some form of speed. Even long-distance running often requires a burst of speed to finish the race ahead of your competitors. Speed is defined as the ability to move a body part quickly. Speed is not always about how quickly you can move your whole body from A to B. It also relates to body parts. For example, when playing golf, the speed of your arms and upper body in creating the swing are vital in driving the ball over a long distance.

Reaction Time

Reaction time is how quickly your brain can respond to a stimulus and initiate a response. This is important in most sports. The most obvious being responding to the gun at the start of a race, but also a goalkeeper saving a penalty, or a badminton player reacting to a smash shot. The examples in sport are endless!

Agility

Being agile is all about being able to change your direction and the speed at which you are travelling, quickly and efficiently. This is common in sports such as football and rugby where the player with the ball dodges a defender, or in badminton or tennis, moving around the court quickly to reach the shuttlecock/ball in time.

Balance

Balance is the ability to maintain equilibrium whilst stationary or moving. Balance whilst moving is often called dynamic balance. Balance is important in all kinds of sporting situations, most notably in gymnastics and ballet but also contact sports where having good balance may prevent you from being tackled to the floor! Balance is linked to agility, as in order to quickly and efficiently change direction you must be balanced.

Coordination

Coordination is the ability to use the body parts and senses together to produce smooth efficient movements. We have all seen someone who is uncoordinated, their movement looks awkward and shaky. Being co-ordinated is vital in all sports, for example, hand-eye coordination in racket sports and the coordination to use the opposite arm and leg when sprinting.

Power

Power is the product of strength and speed. When we perform a task as quickly and as forcefully as we can, the result is powerful. For example, a sprint start, a shot-put or javelin throw or long-jump.

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Physical Fitness The benefits of Physical Fitness How physical fitness contributes to participation and performance Health related and Skill related components of fitness How Physical Fitness can enhance performance and safety Physical Activity versus Physical Fitness Developing physical fitness Designing training programs Training Principles - overload, specificity, reversibility, variety, warm up/cool down Safety and injury prevention Recognising myths and fallacies Measurement and Evaluation

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6 May 2020

Written by:
Tommy Yau
Head of Fitness Education, True Group

The ability to use the body parts and senses together with efficient movements.

Now that you have read part 1 (“Step 1: Understand the components of Health-related fitness” ) of our 2-parter, let’s proceed to learn how what skills you need for holistic physical fitness.

The ability to use the body parts and senses together with efficient movements.

While crucial to individuals aiming to excel in sports/games, many components of skill-related physical fitness are relevant to everyone as the benefits extend to everyday living and functional movement.  It only has an indirect connection with health but it is assumed that people who possess skill-related fitness are more likely to engage in regular activity and thus have enhanced health-related fitness and a lower risk of disease.  

Whilst you can improve your base level of skill-related physical fitness, know that there may be a limit to how much you can excel in them as many skill-related fitness components are likely determined by heredity. 

  1. Agility
    Agility is the ability to rapidly change the position of the entire body in space with speed and accuracy. Being agile helps you be quick and nimble and increase your mind-body connection. Agility training also helps prevent injury as your body is trained to maintain proper posture and alignment when you move.

    Typically measured using a shuttle or zigzag run, agility tests commonly feature in screening tests for sports teams.

  2. Balance
    Have you ever had to stand on one leg or on a small stool?  Balance helps your body maintain equilibrium while stationary or moving. 

    Generally considered to be of two types - static and dynamic – balance is typically measured using a balance beam or tests that require holding a stationary posture after changing body positions.

  3. Coordination
    Coordination is the ability to use the senses, such as sight and hearing, together with body parts in performing motor tasks smoothly and accurately. This is important in every aspect of daily activity, from riding a bike to cooking and work. 

    There are many different types of coordination and coordination tests include hand-eye or foot-eye coordination activities such as juggling, dribbling a ball or hitting an object.

  4. Power
    A combination of strength and speed, power is the rate at which one can perform work. It has also been defined as the ability to exert muscle force quickly, which is why some experts consider it to be a combination of skill and health-related physical fitness. 

    There are many different types of power and power tests. Examples of power tests include shot-putting and vertical jumping.

  5. Speed
    We are all familiar with what speed is – it is the ability to perform a movement within a short period of time e.g. running speed, swimming speed, speed of hand or foot movement. 

    Among athletes, a 40-meter dash is often used to measure speed. There are a wide variety of laboratory measures of speed that are highly specific to different body parts and different human movement activities.

  6. Reaction Time
    Reaction time relates to the time elapsed between stimulation and the beginning of the reaction to it, e.g. moving your foot from the accelerator to the brake pedal in an emergency to stop a car. 

    Like other measures of skill-related fitness, there are many different types of reaction time and many different tests available. Like speed, reaction time is considered to be a component of fitness that is greatly influenced by heredity.

So there you have it, a brief and concise round-up of the main health and skill-based components of physical fitness. Whilst there is so much more to each component if you delve into science behind them, we hope this article has given you a head start in crafting an appropriate training plan for yourself.  

To re-cap, start with your goal in mind e.g. is it to lose body fat, improve sport performance or to keep your body in top shape as you grow older. Next, incorporate the health-related components into your plan before moving on to the skill-related components.  Lastly, always ensure that you are working out in a safe and effective way.

Be consistent and never give up! 

[Updated: 13 May 2020]

Which is the ability to use body parts and senses together to produce smooth efficient movement vital in sports?

Coordination: The ability to use one's senses together with one's body parts, or to use twoor more body parts together.

What is the ability to use the senses together with body when a person is standing still or moving?

Coordination is the ability to use the senses together with body parts during movement.

What is the ability to use the senses in conjunction with body parts at the same time to perform motor tasks smoothly and accurately?

Coordination is the ability to use the senses, such as sight and hearing, together with body parts in performing motor tasks smoothly and accurately.

Is the ability of the body to perform movement with perfection and efficiency?

Physical fitness is considered as a measure of the body's ability to function efficiently and effectively during work and leisure activities. In order to remain physically fit and healthy, we need to engage ourselves in physical activities and take measures for physically fit.