The New Physical Education

The New Physical Education

Leslie T. Lambert

Rethinking how we teach physical education can help students lead healthy lives.

Regular physical activity provides numerous health benefits—from leaner bodies and lower blood pressure to improved mental health and cognitive functioning. Even though we know these facts, however, Americans are becoming more sedentary and more obese each year (Mokdad et al., 1999). Because the school physical education program promotes physical activity and can teach skills as well as form or change behaviors, it holds an important key to influencing health and well-being across the life span. To improve the fitness of students, we need to rethink the design and delivery of school-based physical education programs.

A recent survey asked adults in the United States, "What should be taught to students prior to their graduation?" Participants indicated that information about health was more important for students to learn than content in language arts, mathematics, science, history, or any other subject (Marzano & Kendall, 1998). Despite this high ranking, most schools devote minimal curriculum time to teaching students how to lead healthy lives.

1.To provide healthy-lifestyle education, a quality program of physical education must be a core requirement in all schools and a central component in a comprehensive school health program (Allensworth & Kolbe, 1987). Our first step might be to consider ways to increase curriculum time devoted to physical education. In addition, schools need to thoughtfully analyze the design and delivery of school physical education programs to ensure that they are engaging, developmentally appropriate, inclusive, and instructionally powerful and that they are designed to teach students about the importance of leading physically active lives.

The Importance of Physical Activity

One of the most emphatic recommendations in reports from numerous federal and health promotion agencies is to increase the levels of physical activity among children and youth. Physical inactivity results in substantial, negative health consequences. Obesity, high blood glucose, high blood pressure, and high blood lipids all occur more often among sedentary adults. These problems increase the risk for chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, various cancers, Type II diabetes, and hypertension. Indeed, a direct relationship exists between leading a physically active life and developing long-term good health. Each year, physical inactivity contributes to nearly 260,000 deaths in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1997). Unhealthy behaviors take many years to present themselves clinically, but there is a compelling reason to believe that helping students learn to be active early in their lives will provide an important foundation for lifetime physical activity.

Guidelines suggest that children and youth need at least 30 to 60 minutes of accumulated physical activity on all or most days. More than 60 minutes and up to several hours of appropriate physical activities is optimal, however. Because children are intermittently active (they do not naturally engage in continuous activities, such as jogging), we need to make sure that they have multiple periods of moderate activity that are at least 10 to 15 minutes in duration each day (Corbin & Pangrazi, 1998).

Despite the importance of establishing patterns of physical activity during childhood, half of U.S. children and youth are not active on a regular basis. Levels of moderate to vigorous activity decline dramatically during adolescence. The percentage of adolescents who have opportunities for daily physical education dropped from 42 percent in 1991 to 25 percent in 1995 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1996). Recent studies have found that middle and secondary schools across the nation devote little curriculum time to physical education (Simons-Morton, Eitel, & Small, 1999). Daily physical education programs across grades 6–12 are virtually nonexistent.

Sallis and McKenzie (1991) challenge physical educators to "adopt a new role and pursue a public health goal for physical education" (p. 133). They advocate developing new curriculum, providing extensive teacher training, and working with other health professionals to accomplish health outcomes through increased physical activity.

Quality Physical Education Programs

What constitutes a quality physical education program? How do we help students gain the knowledge and abilities they need to lead an active life now and in the future? Further, how can educators work together with other health professionals to ensure that our children and youth have every opportunity to learn how to lead healthy lives? These are important questions that every school district and every school needs to ask.

Quality physical education programs are essential in helping students gain competence and confidence in a variety of movement forms, such as sports, dance, recreational activities, and fitness activities. The National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE, 1995) has developed national standards for physical education that define a physically educated person (see fig. 1). These standards acknowledge the students' motor, fitness, cognitive, affective/behavioral, and active lifestyle needs, and they focus on the importance of lifetime involvement in physical activity. They provide a sound framework for the design of physical education programs and assessments that help students learn and demonstrate their movement knowledge and skills, their fitness levels, and their habits and values related to physical fitness.

2 .Define Physical Fitness

Physical fitness can be defined as a general state of health and well-being or more specifically as the ability to perform aspects of sports or occupations. Physical fitness is generally achieved through correct nutrition, exercise, hygiene and rest. It is a set of attributes or characteristics seen in people and which relate to the ability to perform a given set of physical activities.

Before the industrial revolution, fitness was the capacity to carry out the day’s activities without undue fatigue. However with automation and changes in lifestyles physical fitness is now considered a measure of the body’s ability to function efficiently and effectively in work and leisure activities, to be healthy, to resist hypokinetic diseases, and to meet emergency situations.

3. The definition of Health-Related Fitness

According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), ineffective definitions containing unclear and subjective wordings, as well as definitions comprising terms that themselves require defining, have contributed to confounding the term "physical fitness."

There is no reliable guide for Health and Fitness professionals to measure "physical fitness", because the term has been so loosely and inconsistently defined. It is in this light that one should consider the concept of Health-Related Fitness.

According to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness (PCPFS), "Health-related physical fitness consists of those components of physical fitness that have a relationship with good health." 

Physical fitness, within the realm of Health-Related Physical Fitness, is therefore a set of 'measurable' characteristics, or Components. Broken down, the 5 Health-Related Fitness Components are: Cardiorespiratory Fitness, Body Composition, Muscular Strength, Muscular Endurance and Flexibility.

The authority on Health-Related Physical Fitness assessment is the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). ACSM's Health-Related Physical Fitness Assessment Manual provides thorough guidelines for the assessment of Health-Related Physical Fitness. This publication also refers to doses of activity and/or exercise required to produce health benefits. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the definition of physical fitness emphasises the difference between health-related physical fitness and athletic ability physical fitness. Its point-of-departure is the health of the US nation, which is often referred to as the "public health perspective."

In this regard, the 5 health-related fitness components are more important than those related to athletic ability (or skill-related components). The factors which distinguish health-related fitness from skill-related fitness are shown below:

Health-Related Physical Fitness Components:

·         Cardiorespiratory Fitness

·         Body Composition

·         Flexibility

·         Muscular Strength

·         Muscular Endurance

·         1.CARDIORESPIRATORY ENDURANCE-is the ability of the circulatory and respiratory systems to supply oxygen during sustained physical activity.

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·         2.MUSCULAR STRENGTH-is the maximum amount of force a muscle can produce in a single effort.

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·         3.MUSCULAR ENDURANCE-is the ability of the muscle to continue to perform without fatigue.

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·         4.FLEXIBILTY-is the ability to bend and move the joints through the full range of motion.

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·         5.HEALTHFUL BODY COMPOSITION-is a high ratio of lean tissue to fat tissue in the body.

Definition of Skill Related Fitness

The abilities or components of skill related fitness are not the skills associated with any particular sport, such as running, catching, tackling or kicking, but are the underlying skills which are brought to bear when participating in a sport.

There are six skill related components of fitness. These are Agility, Balance, Coordination, Power, Reaction Time, Speed. These are important fitness components, not just for sporting ability, but for use in everyday life.

In times of illness, or in ageing, these components are often features of our lives that fail and their levels are reduced. Exercise and activities that promote skill components of fitness are therefore very important at all ages.

Skill-Related Fitness Components:

·         Balance

·         Reaction Time

·         Coordination

·         Agility

·         Speed

·         Power

·         AGILITY

·         - ability to rapidly change the position of the body

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·         BALANCE

·         - ability to keep from falling when a person is in a still position or moving

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·         COORDINATION

·         - ability to use the senses together with body parts during movement

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·         REACTION TIME

·         - time it takes a person to move

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·         after they hear, see, feel or touch a stimulus

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·         SPEED

·         - ability to move quickly

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·         POWER

·         -

·         ability to combine strength and speed

The definition of health-related fitness also shows this concept's integral association with "good health." However, the 5 components are addressed individually by health professionals to allow for their measurement. 

Now we know what the term means, but what purpose does it serve?

Continuing from the definition above, the objective of measuring the components is to advise clients about the state of their health-related fitness - and to use data obtained from the tests to design appropriate exercise programs which can then be evaluated.

It is intended that all 5 components contribute evenly to make up a holistic health-related physical fitness.

So in sum, health-related physical fitness is of interest to the health of the ordinary citizen, in that the concept is normative.

It is therefore important for those working in the health and fitness industry not to mistake "overall physical fitness" with "health-related physical fitness."

Regular or planned physical exercise can improve overall physical fitness as well as health-related fitness. However, overall fitness is a generic term and is up to subjective interpretation, while health-related fitness can be assessed.

The distinction therefore, between the 2 terms, exists in that health-related physical fitness can be measured according to a set of established

4.Physical Education Teacher: Job Description & Requirements

Physical education teachers require some formal education. Learn about the education, job duties and licensure requirements to see if this is the right career for you.

Essential Information

Physical education teachers help children develop physical abilities and healthy habits that can last for the rest of their lives. Becoming a physical education teacher generally entails completion of a bachelor's degree program and state licensure. Internship experience is also usually required.

 the differences between teaching and coaching occur mainly in the depth of knowledge transfer and the focus of that transfer. There are also differences between the level of qualification and the focus of those qualifications between teaching and coaching, as well as the financial reward for each.

However, the main similarities lie in the fact that teaching and coaching are both essentially athlete-centred and excellent communication and planning skills are need for both. Teaching and coaching are, in my view, both worthwhile and rewarding, and I am proud to do both.

5. If you want to improve your physical fitness, but you find the idea of exercise overwhelming, it may help you to know exercise and physical activity are not the same thing—yet both are beneficial to your health.

Exercise is a physical activity that is planned, structured, repetitive, and purposeful.  Physical activity includes any body movement that contracts your muscles to burn more calories than your body would normally do so just to exist at rest. Although learning to enjoy and plan structured exercise into your routine would definitely improve fitness, it is not the only way to improve fitness.

Everyday physical activities such as performing housework, walking, or taking a hike keep your body moving and still count toward the recommended amount of weekly physical activity. 

Most importantly, no matter what your current fitness level, you are able to improve your physical fitness—and, therefore, your heart health—by increasing physical activity and/or exercise as you are able.

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