Components of Physical Education

The components of physical education stress the instruction of physical activities designed to strengthen the human body. Courses in schools focus on topics like general physical health, coordination, team sports and hygiene. Early childhood physical education involves more game play and general education while junior high and high school focus on team sports and physical fitness.

Functions

The health components of a physical education focus on four specific areas of physical fitness. The first, cardiovascular fitness involves endurance. While children do not benefit from workouts on cardio machines, they do run, play ball and ride bikes. Strong cardiac health and lung capacity means a person can exercise for longer periods of time.

The second health component of physical education focuses on muscular strength while the third focuses on muscular endurance. Muscular strength refers to the amount of force muscles can exert and endurance refers to how often a muscle can be used without exhausting. The last component focuses on flexibility and range of motion. These four different components are important to the functioning of a healthy human body. Physical education instructors use a wide variety of activities and lesson plans to teach students about their personal physical fitness.

Type

Skill related components of physical education are integrated into the sports-related portions of physical education classes. While not all activities require sports training, youths in junior high and high school are more likely to develop these skill related tasks as they become more involved in extra-curricular activities. Agility, balance, coordination, power, speed and reaction are fundamental to athletic and personal success.

For the non sports inclined students, these components may be integrated into dance classes, cheerleading, gymnastics and sports-related activities. Physical exercise and fitness are important to all students, not just athletes. A student can gain a great deal from a casual game of basketball and not be required to excel at the sport.

Features

PE Central offers instructors, coaches and room moms ideas, guidelines and suggestions on how to emphasize physical education to children from Pre-K through high school. The needs and desires of different age groups are an important distinction for instructors to recognize. What appeals to and benefits a third grader, for example, are throwing and catching activities combined with running and jumping. A number of different lessons and games can emphasize these skill sets.

By contrast, high school students are going to focus on more sport-specific activities. Students may focus on basketball, baseball, cheerleading, lacrosse, swimming and more. Their physical education credits will be directly associated with their chosen sport and their lessons will focus on enhancing their sport-related skills as well as their overall fitness.

Considerations

Physical education should emphasize self-esteem, self-reliance and building healthier bodies. Too often, physical education courses and sports focus too much on competition and being the best, forgetting that the reason for physical sports, physical fitness and physical education is the well-being of the whole child: mental, physical and emotional. Instructors, parents and coaches should focus on positive reinforcement, team-building exercises as well as health focused fitness exercises.

Warnings

A growing trend of physical fitness assessments performed by school districts has parents on edge about the physical well-being of their children. In Texas, for example, students must undergo a rigorous assessment of their physical fitness beginning in the 3^rd grade as of the 2009-2010 academic school years. The assessment will include recommendations on height and weight as well as increasing levels of physical activity. Parents should beware trying to mould their children into adult-like physical activities (treadmill, exercise bike) and instead focus on activities that build a healthier child such as outdoor play.