Teaching Fitness Education

Physical fitness is defined as being physically fit and healthy. The question that many physical educators are faced with today is; how do to get across the importance of these two factors? This is not always an easy thing to accomplish. When taking a look at the three major levels of school students go through (elementary, secondary and high school) the educator faces some sort of difficulty in teaching the five parts of fitness. This paper will give information concerning these factors and also a few ideas on how to teach these topics to students at various age groups.

The five parts of fitness are flexibility, muscular endurance, muscular strength, cardio vascular fitness and body composition. Each and everyone one of these components are important to one another. For example in order to have optimal muscular strength it is important to have good flexibility. When working a muscle one of the major things to look at is if a full range of motion is being used. This will ensure that the muscle in question is being strengthened at every angle possible. Another example would be body composition and train. Fat is a liability in either cardiovascular training or weight training. When partaking in cardiovascular training someone with a poor body composition will be at a disadvantage to someone with an optimal body composition. When partaking in weight training exercises someone with a poor body composition would not be able to partake in plyometric training or any high intensity work outs without a safety concern.

Now that it has been shown how the five parts of fitness are important to one another it is time to break them down into deeper detail.

Muscular endurance is the ability of a muscle to overcome a percentage of a given...

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... five parts of fitness can be a very complicating thing that takes a little time to teach and understand. This time is often not allotted in elementary school so it is up to the physical educator to find a way to break these concepts down into a practical and skill based learning session in order for students to understand and be able to use and advocate throughout their entire lives.

Works Cited

Dr. Daniel Switchenko class lecture notes, 328 Anatomy and Physiology, 329 Anatomy and Physiology II. Spring 2013 & Fall 2013

American Alliance for Health. Physical Education for Life Long Fitness. 2nd ed. N.p.: National Association for Sport and Physical Education, n.d. Print.

Telljohann, Susan Kay, Symons Cynthia Wolford, Dean F. Miller, and Dean F. Miller. Health Education: Elementary and Middle School Applications. Dubuque, IA: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Print.