Taking part in health related fitness prevents a range of diseases such as obesity, coronary heart disease, diabetes and other diseases. Taking part in a health-related fitness programme will reduce a persons

An area of fitness that people often neglect is flexibility. As we get older our bodies become less flexible. If a person lacks flexibility they are more likely to injure themselves through overstretching or pulling a muscle

Maintaining muscular strength is very important for many different reasons. By taking part in resistance training exercises or weight-bearing activities a person will be less likely to suffer from osteoporosis, a disease in which bones become very fragile and more likely to break after a fall.

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends three to five days a week for most cardiovascular programmes this physical activity should be spread throughout the week rather than being done on consecutive days in order to minimise the risk of injury.

The exercise session should last 20 minutes not including warming up or cooling down in order to gain significant aerobic and fat-burning benefits. The longer the duration of the exercise session the more kilocalories and fat will be burned and the greater the benefits to the cardiovascular system.

A person should exercise at a target heart rate of 60% to 90% of maximum heart rate. Target heart rate can be determined by doing the following calculations.

220 - age = maximum heart rate

(maximum heart rate x 60)

(Maximum heart rate x 90)

Health-related fitness has more importance in some sports than others, for example Footballers need to train a variety of the health-related fitness components of fitness. A player's position influences their training regime, however the main components of fitness footballers need to train are:

* Aerobic endurance - This is required because the length of a game of football is 90+ mins in which the players will be running and for long periods.

* Muscular endurance - This is also required due to the length of a football match in which the players will have to sustain repeated muscle contractions.

* Strength - Their training should include some resistance work which will benefit the players in the game when making tackles and holding the ball up etc.

A contrasting sport to football would be swimming, swimming consists of using all the muscle groups in the upper and lower body, in this respect it is a whole body exercise where as in football its mostly the legs that are used. The type of fitness a swimmer a fitness needs depends on which stroke and what distance they compete in. However, both sprint and distance swimmers will need:

* Muscular endurance - this is needed to ensure that their muscles are able to continue to function and propel the body through water for periods of time.

* Flexibility - this allows swimmers to complete strokes effectively; the butterfly stroke especially requires the swimmer to have a good range of movement in the shoulder joint to complete the stroke efficiently and effectively.

* Aerobic endurance - this is needed especially for distance swimmers in order to complete long-distance swims.

* Muscular strength - this is needed mostly for the sprint swimmer to increase speed through water.