Physical Education class is not just about learning how to play sports. As a PE teacher myself, my main goal is to teach my students how to stay healthy for a lifetime. That’s why teaching the health related fitness components in physical education is crucial to the development of graduating physically literate students by the end of high school.
Sometimes we teach the typical basketball or soccer unit. Other times it’s the lifelong fitness units such as swimming or dance.
But your students in your physical education class should understand at an early age is what the 5 fitness components are and why they are beneficial to our lives for a lifetime.
What Are The 5 Health Related Fitness Components?
The 5 fitness components can assess what type of shape we are in as individuals.
They include:
- Cardiovascular endurance
- Muscular endurance
- Muscular strength
- Flexibility
- Body composition
According to the data, total fitness can be assessed by how well the body performs in each one of the 5 fitness components as a whole.
Studies show that just being able to bench press your body weight is not efficient enough to say you are overall physically fit. You also need to determine how well you assess in the four other fitness tests, such as cardio, sit and reach, body fat composition etc.
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What Does Each Fitness Component Assess?
Cardiovascular endurance is the ability of the heart, muscles and lungs to work together to provide oxygen that is needed to fuel the body during extended periods of time. Types of cardiovascular endurance exercises include running/jogging, swimming and cycling.
Muscular endurance is the ability of the muscles to perform repeated exercises without fatiguing. In simpler form, muscle endurance measures the number of reps your body can do without needing to stop. Exercises include, lunges, body weight squats sit ups, push up etc.
Muscular strength gauges your ability to move and lift objects and is measured by how much weight you can lift for a short period of time and the force your body exerts. Examples would include weight lifting, resistance training and climbing.
Body composition is the amount of fat vs. non fat mass your body is made up of. Men and women differ in healthy body weight percentages. Skinfold measures are most common in schools, although many teachers have been cutting back on testing this component on their students due to embarrassment.
Flexibility is measured by the range of motion in the joints or the ability to move joints efficiently through a wide range of motion. The most common test for this would be the Sit and Reach test in schools testing the lower back and hamstrings. Yoga is one of the best ways to improve flexibility in the body.
Why Am I Teaching Fitness Components in my Physical Education Class?
Kids need to understand what their bodies are going through as they move.
In elementary school from grades K-4, the SHAPE National Standards Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education state students must understand the why when it comes to physical activity. Even in kindergarten they should be learning the benefits.
- K: Recognizes that when you move fast, your heart beats faster and you breathe faster. (S3.E3.K).
- 1st: Identifies the heart as a muscle that grows stronger with exercise, play and physical activity. (S3.E3.1).
- 2nd: Recognizes the use of the body as resistance (e.g., holds body in plank position, animal walks) for developing strength. (S3.E3.2a).
- 2nd: Identifies physical activities that contribute to fitness. (S3.E3.2b).
- 3rd: Describes the concept of fitness and provides examples of physical activity to enhance fitness. (S3.E3.3).
- 3rd: Recognizes the importance of warm-up and cool-down relative to vigorous physical activity. (S3.E4.3).
- 4th: Identifies the components of health-related fitness. (S3.E3.4).
- 4th: Demonstrates warm-up and cool down relative to the cardio respiratory fitness assessment.(S3.E4.4).
Once the students hit 5th grade, they start to learn the difference between health-related fitness which includes the fitness components vs. skill related fitness components.
For a better understanding of what this might look like to your students, I found a great visual created by Joey Feith. Check out his website for more visuals to hang around your gym.
What Students Should Know Leaving High School:
So from K-4th grade the fitness components are simple enough. But no matter what grade or age group you teach, each year you are building on knowledge and setting your students up to live healthier longer lives.
With that being said, leaving high school, your students have a whole new set of grade level outcomes they should be knowledgeable on.
The following are some of the SHAPE National Standards students leaving high school should be proficient in:
- Designs and implements a strength and conditioning program that develops balance in opposing muscle groups (agonist/antagonist) and supports a healthy, active lifestyle. (S3.H7.L2).
- Identifies the different energy systems used in a selected physical activity (e.g., adenosine, triphosphate and phosphocreatine, anaerobic glycolysis, aerobic). (S3.H8.L2).
- Identifies the structure of skeletal muscle and fiber types as they relate to muscle development. (S3.H9.L2).
- Adjusts pacing to keep heart rate in the target zone, using available technology (e.g., heart rate monitor), to self monitor aerobic intensity. (S3.H10.L2).
Note: all Fitness Knowledge grade level outcomes should be at a level 2.
- Level 2: allows students to build on Level 1 competencies by augmenting knowledge and skills considered desirable for college or career readiness.
Bringing it all Together
You wouldn’t start talking about agonist and antagonist muscle groups to your 1st graders, just like you wouldn’t teach animal walks to your 12th graders.
There is a scope and sequence (coming later this year created by Detroit PE) you should be following in order to prepare students to leave the K-12 education world feeling confident enough to take their health goals into their own hands.
The 5 components of fitness we teach in physical education should be taught as early as possible, in order for kids to develop into physically literate individuals.
As condescending as it may sound when people ask you “your job is to teach kids how to walk like different animals?” They aren’t wrong.
We teach in progression. So when our animal walking 2nd graders graduate high school, we can feel proud and confident that our students will live healthy productive lives.
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Find out how my high schoolers are responsible for their own fitness journeys when they create daily workouts to log in their own notebooks. It started with the fitness components, but is transpiring into more in depth workouts to increase their overall fitness levels.
