Physical Exercise: Warm-up, Endurance, Speed, Strength, and Flexibility

Posted on Jan 7, 2025 in Physical Education

Physical Exercise: Warm-up, Endurance, Speed, Strength, and Flexibility

Dr. Cooper defines physical exercise as “the way to put more years on your life and more life in your years.”

Warming Up

Warming up is part of the initial phase of any physical education session. It improves performance and helps to prevent possible injuries.

Factors to consider:

  • Age
  • The sport
  • Personal level
  • Time of the day

Types of Warm-ups:

  • General: Required when you are going to do an activity that involves using the majority of your muscles.
  • Specific: Done before participating in a specific sport.
  • Preventive: Includes massages.
  • Active: Done at the start of any session that involves physical activity.

Characteristics of a Warm-up:

  • Between ten and twenty minutes
  • Progressive rhythm
  • Adapted to the activity that is going to follow
  • Individually or in pairs
  • Equipment may be required

Phases of a Warm-up:

  1. Slow run
  2. Joint mobility exercises and dynamic stretching
  3. General exercises to work all of your muscles
  4. Specific exercises that depend on the activity that is going to follow

Endurance

Endurance is defined as the capacity that allows us to maintain physical exercise for a prolonged time and recover quickly after doing a physical activity.

Factors to consider:

  • Volume of the effort
  • Intensity of the effort
  • Oxygen

Types of Endurance:

  • Aerobic Stamina:
    • High volume of effort
    • Low or moderate intensity
    • Enough oxygen reaches the muscles to do the activity
    • Heart rate fluctuates between 120 and 160 per minute
  • Anaerobic Stamina:
    • Low volume of effort
    • High intensity
    • Not enough oxygen reaches the muscles to do the activity
    • Heart rate fluctuates between 170 and 190 per minute

Sports can be classified by the types of endurance:

  • Aerobic Sports: Cross-country skiing, the marathon, swimming competitions, running.
  • Anaerobic Sports: Some races in track and field, a judo match, a bout in fencing.
  • Mixed Sports: Football, basketball, water polo, handball, field hockey.

Speed

Speed is defined as the ability to perform one or several movements at maximum intensity in the shortest time possible.

Types of Speed:

  • Travel Speed: The ability to cover a distance in the shortest time possible.
  • Reaction Speed: The time that passes from the appearance of a stimulus until the first movement a person does.
  • Movement Speed: The ability to do a movement at the right speed to achieve optimum performance.

Strength

Strength is defined as the body’s ability to beat or overcome resistance using the tension produced in muscles by the contraction of muscle fibers.

Types of Strength:

  • Maximum Strength: The ability to produce maximum muscle tension with a muscle contraction. It is the most strength a person is capable of producing. Example: weightlifting, gymnastics.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to overcome a small or medium load at maximum movement speed. Example: high jump or javelin in athletics.
  • Strength Endurance: The ability to do a strength activity using an average mass and acceleration for a specific length of time and to resist the fatigue that it causes. Example: rowing, cycling in an uphill trial.

Flexibility

Flexibility is defined as the maximum possible range of a joint during a movement. It has a huge influence on the ability to correctly execute technical moves in any sport.

Types of Flexibility:

  • Functional Flexibility: Needed to complete a technical move.
  • Residual Flexibility: Needed, along with functional flexibility, to avoid injuries when you have to do a move with a greater degree of mobility than you expected.
  • Absolute Flexibility: The sum of both functional and residual flexibility.

Other Concepts

  • Dynamic Stretching: Performed during your warm-up.
  • Static Stretching: Performed at the end of your training session.
  • Your Range of Movement depends on your degree of flexibility.
  • Joints, muscles, and tendons are directly involved in flexibility.
  • Elasticity is the body’s ability to return to its resting position when there is no force acting on it.