Fitness & Nutrition Unit 8 th Grade

Bell Ringer Only 18 days left until summer! With this comes the opportunity to make a resolution to positively change your habits. Think about your current health, personal level of physical fitness, how often you participate in sports or recreational activities, you diet, and your knowledge of fitness information. Create a Summer resolution for yourself that will benefit you in the school year to come. Here are a few examples: This summer, I’d like to incorporate more servings of vegetables and fruit in my diet in place of fattening snack foods. This summer, I’d like to make a goal of exercising 5 out of 7 days of the week. This summer, I’d like to start weight training. This summer I’d like to learn more sports specific exercises to improve my performance on the field.

How does your exercise or fitness program measure up? Put it to the F.I.T. test! Frequency: How often do you exercise? Intensity: How hard do you exercise (the pace you walk or run, the amount of weight you lift, your heart rate)? Time: How long do you perform the activity?

Exercise Component 1: Aerobic Exercise Aerobic exercise increases the health and function of your heart, lungs, and circulatory system. For maximum effectiveness, aerobic exercise needs to be rhythmic, continuous and involve the large muscle groups (primarily located in the lower part of your body.) Walking, jogging, cycling, aerobic dance, and stair climbing are examples of activities that use large muscle groups. Activities combining upper and lower body movements such as cross-country skiing, rowing, and swimming can lead to even higher levels of aerobic capacity.

Exercise Component 2: Strength Training Strength training is the process of exercising with progressively heavier resistance to build or retain muscle. Unless you perform regular strength exercise, you will lose up to one-half pound of muscle every year of life after age 25. Muscle is a very active tissue with high energy requirements, even when you are asleep; your muscles are responsible for over 25% of your calorie use. An increase in muscle tissue causes a corresponding increase in the number of calories your body will burn, even at rest.

Exercise Component 3: Flexibility Flexibility is a critical element of an exercise program but it is often overlooked. Stretching is important for a number of reasons; increases physical performance, decreases risk of injury, increases blood supply and nutrients to the joints, increases neuromuscular coordination, reduces soreness, improves balance, decreases risk of low back pain, and reduces stress in muscles.

Health Related Components: Those factors that are related to how well the systems of your body work 1.Cardiovascular Fitness: The ability of the circulatory system (heart and blood vessels) to supply oxygen to working muscles during exercise. 2.Body Composition: The relative percentage of body fat compared to lean body mass (muscle, bone, water,etc)

Health Related Components … 3.Flexibility: The range of movement possible at various joints. 4.Muscular strength: The amount of force that can be produced by a single contraction of a muscle 5.Muscular endurance: The ability of a muscle group to continue muscle movement over a length of time.

Skill Related Components: Those aspects of fitness which form the basis for successful sports participation. 1.Speed: The ability to move quickly from one point to another 2.Agility: The ability of the body to change direction quickly 3.Balance: The ability to maintain an upright posture while still or moving

Skill Related Components… 4.Coordination: Integration with hand and/or foot movements with the input of the senses. 5.Reaction Time: Amount of time it takes to get moving. 6.Power: The ability to do strength work at an explosive pace.

Additional Information Activity Calorie Counter: The teacher will guide students through a website that has you input your weight and duration of physical activity and then outputs the amount of calories burned during various activities such as weight training and playing sports. ite/calculat.htm

Homework: Pretend you are a medical doctor assigned to write yourself an exercise prescription. Think about your current level of fitness and prescribe a regiment that would use the concepts of FIT appropriately. Your prescription must include at least two skill related components of fitness and two health related components of fitness.