Fitness School

1. What is fitness?

Fitness is how much work you can do — lots of different kinds of work, for a long time and for a short time.

Most people think being fit means one thing: being able to run a long way. That is one kind of fit. It is not the whole thing.

Think about everything a body can be asked to do. Carry the shopping in from the car. Run to the end of the road without stopping. Hang off a climbing frame. Reach the thing at the back of the cupboard. Jump over a puddle. Sit still and then get up fast.

Being fit means being able to do a lot of those, not just one. And it means being able to do them for ten seconds, and for ten minutes, and for an hour.

That is the whole idea, and the rest of Fitness School is just this idea in more detail: lots of kinds of work, lots of lengths of time.

Go and try it: Name three things your body did yesterday that counted as work. Carrying a bag counts. Running for the bus counts.

Animal Parade →

2. The ten things fitness is made of

Four of them your body learns, four of them your brain learns, and two of them both.

People who think hard about fitness came up with ten parts of it. Keeping going. Staying power. Strength. Bendiness. Springiness. Speed. Putting it together. Quick changes. Balance. Aim.

Here is the interesting bit, and it is the best fact in this whole section. They do not all get better the same way.

Four of them — keeping going, staying power, strength and bendiness — get better because your BODY changes. Your heart gets a bit bigger and stronger. Your muscles build more of themselves. That takes weeks, and you cannot rush it.

Four of them — putting it together, quick changes, balance and aim — get better because your BRAIN changes. You build new paths between your brain and your muscles, and they get faster and tidier. That can happen in one afternoon, which is why you can suddenly do something today that you could not do yesterday.

And two of them — springiness and speed — need both. That is why they are the hardest and the most fun.

Go and try it: Stand on one leg with your eyes shut. Do it ten times in a row. It will already be better by the tenth: that is your brain, not your muscles.

Stand on one leg →

3. Why it's worth it

Moving makes your heart stronger, your bones stronger, your sleep better and your mood better.

Your heart is a muscle. When you make it work, it gets better at its job, the same way your legs do. A stronger heart does the same work with fewer beats, which means it gets more rest than a lazy one does.

Your bones get stronger when you land on them and push against things. That is why jumping and carrying matter and not just running.

Moving in the day helps you fall asleep at night. It also helps you sit still and think, which sounds backwards but is true: a lot of children find reading easier after they have run about.

And it feels good. Not always while you are doing it. But afterwards, nearly always.

That is the whole list. Nothing on it is about how you look.

Go and try it: Find your pulse on your wrist and count it for fifteen seconds. Then jog on the spot for a minute and count it again.

Three Minute Shake-Out →

4. Do it right. Do it right every time. Then do it fast.

Getting the shape right comes first, every single time, before anything gets quick or hard.

There is an order to learning any move, and it never changes.

First: do it right. Slowly, with nothing in your hands, while somebody checks the shape. A squat where your knees fall in is not a squat yet.

Second: do it right EVERY time. Ten in a row, all the same, even when you are a bit tired. That is the step most people skip, and it is the one that matters.

Third, and only third: do it fast, or do it with something in your hands, or do it lots of times.

This is why the Gym gives you no clock at all until you are a bit older, and why every move here has a picture of the common mistake next to the right way. Fast and wrong is not a shortcut. It is just wrong, sooner.

Go and try it: Do ten squats as slowly as you can, counting three seconds down and three seconds up. Watch your knees the whole way.

Squat →

5. How you actually get stronger

Do something hard, a few times a week, then rest — because the building happens while you rest.

Lifting something heavy does not make you stronger on the spot. It does the opposite: it leaves your muscles a bit worn and a bit worse than they were an hour ago.

What happens next is the interesting part. Over the following day or two, while you are doing nothing in particular and especially while you are asleep, your body rebuilds those muscles slightly stronger than before — in case the same hard thing happens again.

So the work is the question and the rest is the answer. Train hard every single day without resting and you keep asking the question without ever letting your body answer it.

The other half is that it has to stay hard. Once ten push-ups are easy, ten push-ups stop making you stronger; they just keep you where you are. Add one, or slow them down, or move up to the next version.

Both halves are slow. Weeks, not days. That is not you doing it wrong — that is how long building takes.

Go and try it: Count how many push-ups you can do properly today. Write it down. Do them twice a week and count again in a month.

Tummy and Back →

6. Easier and harder: every workout fits you

Choosing the easier version is not doing less. It is doing the right one.

Every workout in the Gym has an easier way and a harder way. So does every single move.

This is not a kindness. It is how training actually works. The right version of a move is the hardest one you can still do PROPERLY. One step above that and you are practising the wrong shape, which makes you worse at it, not better.

So a wall push-up is not a worse push-up. For the person it fits, it is the correct push-up, and the floor one would be the wrong choice.

The same workout can be right for a six-year-old and a twelve-year-old. They are just doing different versions of it. Nobody has to be doing the same thing as anybody else.

Go and try it: Try a push-up against a wall, then on your knees, then on the floor. The hardest one you can do with a straight body is yours.

Push-up →

7. Warm up, cool down

A warm-up wakes your body up. A cool-down puts it down gently.

A cold muscle is like cold chewing gum: stiff, and it tears instead of stretching. A warm one is bendy. That is the whole reason for a warm-up, and it takes about three minutes.

A good warm-up does three things. It gets you a bit out of breath. It moves every joint you are about to use. And it does the hard moves slowly first, so your brain remembers the shape.

A cool-down is the other end: slow stretches, long and still, while your heart comes back down. It is the nicest part of a workout and the one everybody skips.

Every workout here warms you up and cools you down on its own. You do not have to remember.

Go and try it: Do ten arm circles each way, then reach for your toes. Notice how much further you get after the circles.

Morning Stretch →

8. Sore is not hurt

Sore is spread out, dull, and comes later. Hurt is sharp, in one spot, and comes now.

A day or two after a workout, muscles can ache. It is spread across the whole muscle, it is dull, it gets better when you move, and it goes away in a couple of days. That is being sore. It is normal, and it happens most after you have done something new.

Hurt is different. Hurt is sharp. It is in ONE spot, often near a joint. It happens while you are moving, not two days later. It gets worse when you move, not better.

Sore: carry on, go a bit easier, drink some water.

Hurt: stop. Tell a grown-up. Do not try to finish the round.

And these are the ones where you always stop straight away, whatever else is happening: you feel dizzy, your chest hurts, you cannot catch your breath, something hurts sharply, or you feel sick. Stopping is always the right answer, and nobody is ever cross about it.

Go and try it: Learn the five stop signals by heart. Dizzy, chest, breath, sharp pain, sick.

9. Your heart and your breath

Out of breath means your muscles are asking for more air. It is your body working, not your body failing.

When your muscles work hard they need more oxygen, so you breathe faster to get it in and your heart beats faster to deliver it. That is all being out of breath is. It is the system working exactly as designed.

There is a quick test for how hard you are going, and it needs no watch. Can you talk in whole sentences? That is easy. Can you only get a few words out? That is working hard. Can you not talk at all? That is as hard as it goes, and it should only last a few seconds at a time.

Your heart rate coming back down quickly after you stop is one of the real signs of being fit, and it improves surprisingly fast — in a few weeks of moving most days.

You can find your own pulse on your wrist, just below your thumb, or on your neck beside your windpipe. The Body section has a whole page on it.

Go and try it: Do the talk test in the middle of your next workout. Say your name and your address out loud and see how it comes out.

Twenty On, Ten Off →

10. Food is fuel

Food is where the energy to move comes from. Eat some, drink water, and go and play.

Your muscles run on energy, and the energy comes from what you eat. That is what food is for.

If you have not eaten for a long time, a workout feels harder than it should. If you have just eaten a big meal, it also feels harder. Somewhere in between is nice.

Water matters more than people think. You lose water when you get hot, and being short of it makes you tired and gives you a headache long before you feel thirsty. Have a drink before you start and a drink after.

That is everything the Gym has to say about food. If you want to make some, the Kitchen is full of things you can cook yourself.

Go and try it: Drink a glass of water, then do your workout. Have another one after.

11. Sleep and rest days

You do not get stronger while you train. You get stronger afterwards, while you rest.

This surprises everybody. Training is the signal. The building happens later, mostly while you are asleep.

So a day off is not a day wasted. It is the day the work from yesterday actually turns into something.

That does not mean sitting still. A rest day is a good day for a walk, a stretch, a bike ride, or messing about outside. It just means not doing the hardest thing two days in a row.

Children need a lot of sleep — more than grown-ups, and a lot more than most children get. If you want one thing that makes everything else better, it is going to bed earlier.

Go and try it: Do the Bend and Stretch shelf on a rest day. It counts, and it feels great.

After Sitting All Day →

12. Everybody's body is different

Bodies come in every shape and size, and they are all doing their job.

Some people are tall, some are short. Some have long arms, some have short ones. Some are naturally springy, some are naturally strong, some are naturally bendy. Nobody gets all three for free.

That means two people doing the same workout will be good at different bits of it, and that is interesting rather than a problem.

It also means there is no right shape for a body. There is only what your body can do, and what it could do next month if you kept at it.

If anybody — anybody at all — makes you feel bad about your body, that is about them, not about you. Tell a grown-up you trust.

Go and try it: Find a move you are already good at, and one you are not. Everybody has both.

13. Your own best

The only score worth having is the one you beat yourself.

The Gym keeps your times and your counts on your own device. Nobody else sees them. There is no league table and there never will be.

That is not because competing is bad. It is because comparing a nine-year-old with another nine-year-old tells you almost nothing — they might be a year apart in how grown-up their body is, which matters far more than how hard either of them tried.

Comparing you with you last month, though, tells you everything. It is the only comparison that is actually fair.

So write your number down, have a rest, and come back next week. That is the whole game.

Go and try it: Pick one workout and do it today. Write the number down. Do it again in a week.

Up and Down the Hallway →

14. Three ways to move

Move your own body, move something else, or go somewhere. Do all three.

Nearly everything a body can do is one of three kinds.

Move your own body: squats, push-ups, planks, crawls, hanging, climbing. You are the only thing you lift.

Move something else: pick a thing up, carry it, throw it, put it down. The thing can be a ball, a bag, a bucket or your little brother's toy box.

Go somewhere: run, hop, skip, climb stairs, ride a bike, swim.

People nearly always pick one and stick to it. Somebody who only runs has one strong side and nine thin ones. That is what the Skills Wheel on the front page is showing you: do all three and the wheel goes round.

Go and try it: Look at your Skills Wheel. Which of the three ways have you been skipping?

Quiet Six →