Physical Education and Fitness
Physical Education and Fitness tests your grasp of fitness components, training principles and simple fitness measurements. You must distinguish health-related from skill-related fitness and apply FITT safely.
Core rules and concepts
- Health-related components: cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility and body composition.
- Skill-related components: speed, agility, balance, coordination, power and reaction time.
- Training principles: overload, progression, specificity, reversibility and recovery. FITT means frequency, intensity, time and type.
- A session should include warm-up, main activity and cool-down; warm-up raises muscle temperature and reduces injury risk.
- BMI = weight in kg divided by height in metres squared. Target heart rate is usually estimated from maximum heart rate (220 minus age).
- Fitness tests: sit-ups for muscular endurance, sit-and-reach for flexibility, shuttle run for agility, 12-minute run for cardiovascular endurance.
Worked example
A 16-year-old wants a moderate-intensity target of 70% of estimated maximum heart rate. Reasoning: maximum = 220 - 16 = 204 beats per minute. Target = 0.70 x 204 = 142.8, so about 143 bpm. This is a guide, not a medical limit; the 220-minus-age formula has error, and a beginner should build intensity gradually.
Traps that cost marks
- Listing speed or agility as health-related fitness.
- Confusing muscular strength (one maximal effort) with muscular endurance (many repetitions).
- Using BMI alone to diagnose an athlete; it does not measure body fat directly.
- Doing static stretching as the first warm-up instead of light activity.