A truly important component of physical fitness is Motor Fitness.
It is fostered simultaneously as you work to address the needs of the other components of fitness; cardiovascular fitness, muscular strength and endurance. As motor fitness advances, the brain and the body are conditioned to work in greater harmony so that the range of movements available to the body is enlarged and the quality of execution of movement augmented. This allows you to accomplish a diversity of actions smoothly, with ease and control. The central nervous system increases its proficiency in receiving messages from the countless sensory receptors in the muscles and elsewhere, and then responds instantaneously with impulses conveyed to the working parts of the body, to stimulate them to react in the manner most appropriate to the body’s particular needs.
REFLEXES: Our motor capacities are both inherent and learned. The reflexes are fundamental movements built into our systems, situated beyond our voluntary control. They are an inherent function of the involuntary autonomic nervous system and affect and mitigate all the further, voluntary movements which make up the physical skills we learn. Breathing, for example, is involuntary, leaving us free to learn all our other skilled movements.
ABILITIES: From childhood we begin to discover our inherited neuro-muscular abilities, which are to a large measure genetically determined. Sensibly, we should nurture each growing child’s ‘natural’ abilities, rather than regiment them into taking part in games or activities that satisfy only the abilities of some, while stifling others whose needs would be better served in other activities.
SKILLS: Notwithstanding the innate aptitude of each individual, each of us can learn skills, provoke the neuromuscular system into improved performance (the training effect). While few of us can become Olympic stars, we are all capable of achieving enhanced motor fitness so that through regular exercise practice and rehearsal of movements, our capacities expand and we grow in agility, reaction-time, co-ordination, power, speed, balance and agility-all the subtle factors which constitute motor fitness.
Only a privileged few are blessed with the ability to accomplish integrated movements with rhythmic poise and precision (watch most people on a dance floor!). For the rest of us, by proceeding along the training pathway our motor functions can be improved. A good aerobic class is an excellent way to develop motor fitness, as coordination, balance, agility and reaction-time are intrinsic to exercise to music activities. A good Pilates or Yoga class will encourage fluency of movement, balance and coordination, and developing conscious control over the body and its movements, as skills develop with practice, because nearly every human body movement is learned. From the initial, early cognitive stage of developing a sense of what a movement or skill requires, we move onto the next phase of motor learning, the associative one, during which we refine the skill by rehearsing it until the learned motor behaviour establishes a stored epigram or pattern in the brain. This becomes readily available for recall and the movement pattern is now under greater control, so that performance is less frustrating.
The final stage is the automatic, when we no longer have to consider how to execute a movement. Instead, the action is automatic, with the skill now fully integrated as part of our enlarged repertoire of patterns, and coordination and agility are improved. Look back to how you learned to ride a bike, and the process is fully illustrated.
HABITS: As we mature, the vast number of our movement patterns becomes unconscious ‘habits’. One of the positive roles of a good exercise class is to challenge the body to perform patterns of movements to which it is not habituated. This process has the benefit of both increasing the parameters of movement combinations and stimulating the body and brain to act harmoniously when provoked, to become more resourceful by the demands of having to cope with new actions. You can practise to improve coordination by summoning the limbs to work in harmony but independently. Automatically, most of us find it easier to move both arms together, each mirroring the actions of the other in conjunction with both legs. Challenges are created when you work to separate the arms so that one does one movement while the other limb performs another action.
BALANCE: This element of motor fitness needs to be developed consciously. It is the ability to maintain your centre of gravity over a constricted base. Your usual exercise posture, to give you a strong, secure and balanced bearing, dictates that you cover a comparatively large basal area, with your legs at least hip-width apart. Go for the natural shape of your skeleton. Femur goes into the sides of the hip, not the crotch.
To cultivate balance, include actions during which you deliberately shrink the base on which you stand, so that you strive to maintain and increase neuromuscular control over your body while transferring your weight from both legs to one, then the other. Exercises done, while poised on one leg, will foster coordination between the neuromuscular system, a large range of muscles, and the eyes and ears, all of which are intimately involved in balance (clue: keep eyes on the invisible horizon for best control).
Practise sustaining control of your movements while shrinking the base. Many of us will feel like a motor moron when first beginning to focus on improving motor fitness, but we all possess the potential to increase the versatility of our body movements. With a little imagination, the quality and range of movements we perform will improve, to help make us functionally fit.