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Lecture Notes

The fourth component of health-related fitness is flexibility, or the ability to move your joint through its complete range of motion. This can be improved through stretching exercises where you purposefully work to improve muscle elasticity. Think about all the real-world implications for flexibility, being able to bend, to reach, to twist. All of these things require flexibility. Some of these examples from real-world things that you need flexibility for: reaching for something that's on a high shelf, bending over to tie your shoes, squatting down to plant a garden. All of these things require some level of flexibility. Think of more examples. The final component of health-related fitness is body composition, the ratio of body fat to fat-free mass. Fat-free mass is simply other things in your body such as muscles, bones, organs, water. And remember that this is not a person's weight, but rather the makeup of their body. Regular physical activity and eating a healthy diet are just two of the behaviors that are associated with body composition or how your body's made up. We'll talk a lot more about body composition, obesity and the connection to health in a later chapter.