Physical Education: Benefits and Key Concepts
Physical Education
Physical education is an educational discipline that uses body movement to develop the physical, emotional, and cognitive needs of an individual. This improves the quality of human participation in various life domains, such as family, social, and work.
Importance of Physical Education
Physical education improves mood, promotes mental alertness, relieves depression, and makes stress management easier. Long-term physical activity can improve self-esteem and increase social interaction and integration. Regular physical activity, combined with good eating habits, helps prevent cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, colon cancer, and health complications associated with overweight and obesity.
Strength
Many authors consider strength the most important physical quality, as it supports other qualities like speed and flexibility. In physical education and sports, strength is the ability to overcome resistance.
Flexibility
Flexibility is the body’s ability to demonstrate muscle elasticity and joint mobility. It is determined by muscle and bone growth, which can limit flexible actions. Source
Types of Flexibility
- Joint Mobility
- Muscle Elongation
Joint Mobility
Joint mobility involves performing several repetitions of each joint movement, trying to reach the maximum amplitude in each repetition. This can be done in pairs or individually.
Muscle Stretching
Muscle stretching involves carrying out various joint movements, reaching the maximum amplitude in each. It is usually performed with one slow repetition, holding the position of maximum amplitude for a few seconds. This is also called muscle stretching, as it stretches the muscles involved in the joint movements.
Dynamics
Dynamics refers to anything related to force when movement occurs.
Static
The word static comes from the Greek word estatikos, meaning stationary.
Types of Resistance
Anaerobic
Anaerobic resistance is the physical property that allows the completion of further work in a given time, using phosphagen reserves (ATP-CP) and activating the glycolytic mechanism if necessary to meet energy requirements.
Aerobics
Aerobics is the ability to produce work using oxygen as fuel. Aerobic capacity is a function of VO2 max, which represents the maximum capacity of the body to metabolize oxygen in the blood.
Speed
Speed is the change in the position of a body per unit of time (the lowest possible). In physical activity, speed refers to the speed of action or movement.