EBC1 Chapter 13 Physical Fitness

The two types of physical fitness most often identified are

1. Health-related physical fitness (functional fitness) 2. Skill-related physical fitness (athletic ability)

CARE ABOUT CHILDREN'S ATTITUDES

Attitudes dictate how students participate in activity. The fitness experience works best when it is a challenge rather than a threat. A challenge is an experience that participants feel they can accomplish. A threat is a task that seems impossible no matter what the student does.

Continuity Exercises

Children are scattered, each with a jump rope. They alternate between rope jumping and exercises. Example: Hexagon Hustle

FITNESS ACTIVITIES FOR DEVELOPMENTAL LEVELS II AND III

Emphasis shifts to more structured exercises and routines. Start off the year with teacher-leader exercises because these are basic exercises that will be used in other routines.

Exercises to Music

Exercises to music adds another dimension to the developmental experiences. Use alternating intervals of music to signal exercising (30 seconds) and silence (5 to 8 seconds) to indicate passing the card. A set of prerecorded music intervals on CD is available from Human Kinetics, www.humankinetics.com. The CDs are titled Physical Education Soundtracks, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. A routine using music follows.

IMPLEMENTING FITNESS ROUTINES

Fitness routines are exclusively dedicated to presenting a variety of fitness activities.

JUMP-ROPE EXERCISES

Jump ropes can be used in many exercises and aerobic activities.

Muscular Strength and Endurance

Muscular strength is the ability of muscles to exert force. Muscular endurance is the ability to exert force over an extended period.

Partner Resistance and Aerobic Fitness Exercises

Partner resistance exercises combined with aerobic fitness routines make an excellent fitness activity. Partner resistance exercises develop strength but offer little aerobic benefit.

MODIFIED FITNESS ACTIVITIES THAT ENSURE A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIENCE

Present the activities early in the year to students in all grades. Then, when upper body or abdominal strength activities are assigned, students can select any of the modified activities they feel they can perform successfully.

Institutional Evaluation

The institutional evaluation program involves examining students' fitness levels to see if the institution (school) is reaching its desired objectives. A common approach for institutional goal setting is to establish a percentage of the student body that must meet or exceed criterion-referenced health standards for a fitness test.

Upper Body Strength

The push-up test is done to a cadence (one every 3 seconds).

1.Arm-Shoulder Girdle Strength Activities

These activities precede push-up activities and should be learned first. All the challenges encourage students to support their body weight with the arms and shoulders.

Skill-related (Athletic Ability)

are agility, balance, coordination, power, and speed:

Pilates Activities

1. Downward Facing Dog 2. Spinal Rotation 3. Rolling Ball 4.Plank 5. Star Positions

MINIATURE CHALLENGE COURSES

All types of locomotor movements: running, jumping, hopping, sliding, and so on

PERSONALIZE FITNESS ACTIVITIES

Fitness activity is neither good nor bad. The way you teach fitness activities determines how your students feel about making fitness a part of their life styles.

CREATE POSITIVE ATTITUDES TOWARD FITNESS

Fitness activity is neither good nor bad. The way you teach fitness activities determines how your students feel about making fitness a part of their life styles.

WALK, TROT, AND JOG

The three movements can be presented in random order. For variation, try other locomotor movements such as running, skipping, galloping, and sliding. At regular intervals, stop students and have them perform various stretching activities and strength development exercises.

Trunk Extensor Strength and Flexibility

The trunk lift test is done from a facedown position. This test involves lifting the upper body 6 to 12 inches off the floor using the muscles of the back. The position must be held until the measurement can be made.

Squad Leader Exercises

This gives students an opportunity to lead exercises in a small group. It is an effective method for teaching students how to lead others and for helping them learn to put together a well-balanced fitness routine. A student from each squad is given a task card that has exercises and activities grouped by how they affect different parts of the body

Partner Resistance Exercises

1. Arm Curl-Up 2. Forearm Flex 3. Fist Pull-Apart 4. Butterfly 5. Camelback 6. Back Builder 7. Scissors 8.Bear Trap 9. Knee Bender 10. Push-Up with Resistance

AVOID HARMFUL PRACTICES AND EXERCISES

1. Avoid techniques when performing abdominal exercises that lift the head and trunk off the floor. 2. Two types of stretching activities have been used to develop flexibility: 1. Ballistic stretching -strong bouncing movement. 2. Static stretching- involves increasing the stretch to the point of discomfort, backing off slightly until the position can be held comfortably, and stretching for an extended time. 3. If forward flexion is done from a sitting position in an effort to touch the toes, the bend should be from the hips, not from the waist, and it should be done with one leg flexed. 4. Straight-leg raises from a supine position should be avoided because they may strain the lower back. 5. Deep knee bends (full squats) and the duck walk should be avoided. They may damage the knee joints and have little developmental value. Flexing the knee joint to 90 degrees and returning to a standing position is more beneficial. 6. When stretching from a standing position, students should not hyperextend their knees. The knee joint should be relaxed rather than locked. 7. Avoid activities that place stress on the neck. 8. Do not have students perform the so-called hurdler's stretch. This activity is done in the sitting position with one leg forward and the other leg bent and to the rear. Substitute a stretch using a similar position with one leg straight in front and the other leg bent with the foot placed in the crotch area. 9. Avoid stretches that demand excessive back arching.

Flexibility Exercises

1. Bend and Twist 2. Sitting Stretch 3. Partner Rowing 4. Lower Leg Stretch 5. Achilles Tendon Stretch 6. Body Twist 7. Standing Hip Bend 8. Upper Body Strength Challenges 9. Pull-Ups 10. Supported Pull-Ups 11. Hangs

Yoga Activities

1. Lotus Pose 2. Sunrise and Sunset 3. Tree Pose 4. Up Cat 5. Down Cat 6. Fish 7. Child's Pose 8. Downward Facing Dog

Arm-Shoulder Girdle Exercises

1. Push-Ups 2. Reclining Pull-Ups 3. Triceps Push-Up 4. Arm Circles 5. Crab Kick 6. Crab Alternate-Leg Extension 7.Crab Full-Leg Extension 8. Crab Walk 9. Flying Angel

Leg and Agility Exercises

1. Running in Place 2. Jumping Jack 3. Treadmill 4. Power Jumper

Trunk-Twisting and Bending Exercises

1. Trunk Twister 2. Bear Hug 3. Side Flex 4. Body Circles 5. Windmill

Abdominal Exercises

1.Reverse Curl 2. Pelvis Tilter 3. Knee Touch Curl-Up 4. Curl-Up 5. Curl-Up with Twist 6. Leg Extension 7. Abdominal Cruncher

Aerobic Fitness Routines

Aerobics is a fitness activity that helps people of all ages develop cardiorespiratory fitness, strength, and flexibility.

ANIMAL MOVEMENTS

Animal activities are enjoyable for Developmental Level I children, who enjoy mimicking animal sounds and movements.

BE A ROLE MODEL

Appearance, attitude, and actions speak loudly about teachers and their values regarding fitness. Teachers who display physical vitality, take pride in being active, participate in activities with children, and are physically fit will positively influence children to maintain an active life style.

Astronaut Exercises

Are performed in circular or scatter formation. Routines involve moving using various locomotor movements, alternated with stopping and performing exercises in place. This exercise routine can be adapted successfully to any developmental level. The movements selected will determine the intensity of the routine. More active children pass on the outside. Enjoyment comes from being challenged by a variety of movements.

WHY CAN'T ALL CHILDREN MEET FITNESS STANDARDS?

Beyond heredity lies another factor that predisposes some children to high (or low) performance. Recent research has shown that differences in "trainability" are strongly influenced by genetic predisposition The factors that influence fitness performance in children more than any other are physical maturation and age.

EXPOSE CHILDREN TO A VARIETY OF FITNESS ACTIVITIES

By offering children a variety of fitness opportunities, teachers can decrease the monotony of doing the same routines week after week and help students discover the fitness activities they enjoy.

3.Abdominal Strength Lead-Up Activities

Challenges should lift the upper and lower portions of the body from the floor, either singly or together

Circuit Training

Circuit training incorporates several stations, each with a designated fitness task. Students move from station to station, generally in a prescribed order, completing the designated fitness task at each station. Exercises for the circuit focus on developing all parts of the body. Activities also will involve the various components of physical fitness (i.e., strength, power, endurance, agility, and flexibility) Example: Alternate Toe Touching

IMPLEMENT A YEARLONG FITNESS PLAN

Developing a yearlong plan of fitness instruction helps ensure that students have a variety of experiences. Adhere to one principle: No single method of developing fitness is best for all children. Developmental Level I children are unstructured and allow for wide variation of performance. For children in Developmental Levels II and III, emphasis on proper technique and performance increases. Allow for variation in performance while emphasizing the importance of "doing your best."

START EASY, AND PROGRESS SLOWLY

Developing fitness is a journey, not a destination. This usually means self-directed workloads within a specific time frame.

Squad Leader Relay

Divide the class into groups of 4 or 5 students. Give each group a task card listing 8 to 10 exercises. One of the group members begins as the leader and leads the group through an exercise. Each time an exercise is completed, the card is passed to a new leader.

EXERCISES FOR FITNESS ROUTINES

Exercises in this section fall into seven categories: (1) flexibility, (2) arm-shoulder girdle, (3) abdominal, (4) leg and agility, (5) trunk twisting and bending, (6) partner resistance, and (7) yoga. Include 6 to 10 exercises in a fitness routine, with two exercises from the arm-shoulder girdle group and at least one from each of the other categories. Remember that many students will not be able to perform some abdominal and arm-shoulder girdle exercises. Allow them to select some of the modified fitness activities (push-ups and abdominal modifications)

FITNESS GAMES

Fitness games are highly motivating and excellent for cardiovascular endurance.

EFFECTIVE USES OF FITNESS TESTS

Fitness tests are designed to evaluate and educate students about the status of their physical fitness. Fitness tests can be used in three major ways: (1) to teach personal self-testing (2) to establish personal-best fitness performances (3) to evaluate institutional fitness goals.

ARE CHILDREN FIT?

From 1999 to 2002, 16% of youth ages 6 through 19 years were overweight, and another 31% were at risk for becoming overweight Body fat is dead weight that does not contribute to muscular or cardiovascular performance. Thus, all strength and aerobic performance scores decrease as obesity increases rapidly among youth.

HEALTH-RELATED PHYSICAL FITNESS TESTS

Health-related fitness benefits all students (regardless of athletic ability) by improving their health status through daily physical activity. Specific components include aerobic capacity, body composition (ratio of leanness to fatness), flexibility, and muscular strength and endurance.

SHOULD PERFORMANCE RECOGNITION AWARDS BE USED?

If awards are used, it is best to reward participation in daily activity (behavior) such as accumulating 60 minutes of activity. The physical education teacher's role is to encourage lifelong behavior. Awards are extrinsic and not available to all children, and children need to be taught in a way that does not undermine their intrinsic motivation.

EVALUATING STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

If there is a school-wide fitness testing program, it makes sense to assure that students with disabilities also have the same opportunity. Similar needs to promote health and prevent unnecessary disease.

GIVE STUDENTS POSITIVE FEEDBACK ABOUT THEIR EFFORT

Immediate, accurate, and specific feedback regarding effort encourages continued participation.

FITNESS ACTIVITIES FOR DEVELOPMENTAL LEVEL I

Introductory and fitness activity offer broad coverage by including activities for each of these five areas: 1. Arm-Shoulder Girdle 2. Trunk 3.Abdomen 4.Legs and Cardiorespiratory System 5. Flexibility.

4.Leg and Cardiorespiratory Development Activities

Leg and cardiorespiratory development activities include a range of movement challenges in general space or in place. Children fatigue and recover quickly. Take advantage of this trait by alternating cardiorespiratory activities with strength and flexibility exercises.

USE LOW-INTENSITY ACTIVITY

Make activity appropriate to the child's developmental level. The amount of activity needed for good health is dictated by intensity and duration.

2.Trunk Development Activities

Movements that include bending, stretching, swaying, twisting, reaching, and forming shapes help develop trunk strength. No particular sequence exists, but the activity should move from simple to more complex. Vary the position the child is to take: standing, lying down, kneeling, or sitting.

DEFINITIONS OF PHYSICAL FITNESS

Physical activity is a process that involves accumulating a wide variety of movement. Physical fitness is a set of attributes that people have or achieve relating to their ability to perform physical activity. An alternative definition is "a state of well-being with a low risk of premature health problems and energy to participate in a variety of physical activities"

TEACH PHYSICAL SKILLS AND FITNESS

Physical education has two major objectives: fitness and skill development.

DEVELOP AN UNDERSTANDING OF PHYSICAL FITNESS PRINCIPLES

Physical education instruction should teach activity habits that carry over to out-of-school activities. Consider the following suggestions for integrating fitness concepts into the physical education program: 1. Provide basic explanations of rudimentary anatomy and kinesiology. 2. Provide an understanding of how fitness is developed. 3. Bring the class together at the end of a lesson to discuss key fitness points that help students understand why fitness is important. 4. Develop cognition of the importance of fitness to health. 5. Place bulletin boards in the teaching area to explain components of the physical education program to parents and students. 6. Use music to accompany fitness routines and motivate the students. 7. Help children understand the values of physical fitness and the physiology of its development and maintenance. 8. Emphasize self-testing programs that teach children to evaluate personal fitness levels without concern that others may be judging them.

Timing and Dosage

Setting a fixed time limit at each station is the easiest way to administer circuit training. Give students a 10-second interval to move from one station to the next. Later, reduce the interval to 5 seconds. A second method of timing is to sound only one signal for the change to the next station. With this plan, all students cease activity at their station, move to the next, and immediately begin the task at that station without waiting for another signal.

SKILL-RELATED PHYSICAL FITNESS

Skill-related fitness is related to athletic ability. Speed, agility, coordination, and so on are the basis for excelling in sports.

FOUR-CORNERS MOVEMENT

Students move around the perimeter of the rectangle. Each time they pass a corner, they change their movement pattern.

Challenge Courses

Students move through the course with proper form rather than run against a time standard. The course is designed to exercise the entire body through a variety of activities.

Student Leader Exercises

Students need time to practice before leading their peers effectively in a stimulating exercise session. Examples: Arm circles, Push-up challenges, bend and twist, treadmill, sit-up challenges, single-leg crab kick, knee-to-chest curl, run in place, and spinal rotation. Conclude the routine with 2 to 4 minutes of jogging, rope jumping, or other aerobic activity.

Abdominal Strength

The curl-up test uses a cadence (one curl-up every 3 seconds).

REPORTING BODY MASS INDEX TO PARENTS

The percentile indicates the relative position of the child's BMI number among children of the same sex and age

Personal Self-Testing

The personal self-testing program is student centered, concerned with the process of fitness testing, and emphasizes learning to self-evaluate.

Personal-Best Testing

The personal-best testing approach appeals to gifted performers and to motivated students. The objective is to achieve a maximum score in each of the test items.

Push-Up Lead-Up Activities

The push-up and crab positions are excellent for developing upper-body strength.

EXAMPLES OF FITNESS ROUTINES

The routines should exercise all major parts of the body. When placing fitness activities into a routine, avoid overloading the same body part with two similar exercises. Measure exercise dosage for students in time rather than repetitions. When time is used to determine the workload, each child can personalize the amount of activity performed within the time constraints. Develop positive attitudes toward activity by asking students to do the best they can within the time allotted.

PERSONALIZE FITNESS ACTIVITIES

To develop positive attitudes toward activity, fitness experiences should allow children to determine their personal workloads. Use time as the workload variable, and ask children to do the best they can within a time limit. People dislike and fear experiences they view as forced on them from an external source. Voluntary long-term exercise is more likely when individuals are internally driven to do their best.

PARACHUTE FITNESS ACTIVITIES

Usually used to promote teamwork, provide maximum participation, stimulate interest, or play games, the parachute can also be a tool for developing physical fitness.

FITNESS TESTING ISSUES

When fitness testing children, the overriding consideration should be to make the experience positive and educational. Help children learn about improving personal fitness and developing a life style that maintains good health without being turned off by the testing experience.

Health-Related (Functional Fitness)

aerobic capacity, body composition (ratio of leanness to fatness), flexibility, and muscular strength and endurance.

Trainability

explains why some individuals benefit from training (regular physical activity) more than others do.

Aerobic Capacity

is the ability of the heart, the blood vessels, and the respiratory system to deliver oxygen efficiently for an extended time. Continuous, rhythmic activities require the delivery of a constant supply of oxygen to the muscle cells. Activities that benefit this aerobic capacity are paced walking, jogging, biking, rope jumping, aerobics, and swimming.

Power

is the ability to transfer energy explosively into force. Developing power requires performing strength activities with maximum force and as quickly as possible. Skills requiring power include high jumping, long jumping, shot putting, throwing, and kicking.

Speed

is the body's ability to move rapidly. Usually associated with running forward, speed is essential for success in most sports and general locomotor movement skills.

Coordination

is the body's ability to perform more than one motor task at a time. In football, baseball, tennis, soccer, and other sports that require hand-eye and foot-eye skills, coordination can be developed by repeatedly practicing the skill to be learned.

Body Composition

is the proportion of body fat to lean body mass. BMI is calculated from a child's height and weight. The easiest way to calculate BMI is to use a BMI calculator for children.

Flexibility

is the range of movement through which a joint or sequence of joints can move Inactive individuals lose flexibility, whereas frequent movement helps retain the range of movement. Stretching activities increase the length of muscles, tendons, and ligaments.

Agility

refers to the body's ability to change position rapidly and accurately while moving in space. Sports requiring agility include wrestling and football.

Balance

refers to the body's ability to maintain a state of equilibrium while either stationary or moving. Maintaining balance is essential to all sports and especially important in gymnastics.