Let’s explore the working definition of each:

• Health: A state of optimal physical, mental, and social well-being—not merely the absence of disease.¹
• Fitness: The condition of being physically fit.

Health and fitness are often lumped together but there’s a difference—and sometimes it’s a sizeable gap.

Let’s explore the working definition of each:

• Health: A state of optimal physical, mental, and social well-being—not merely the absence of disease.¹
• Fitness: The condition of being physically fit.

But that doesn’t tell us a lot. Dan John describes fitness as the ability to do a certain physical task. It is important to note that fitness ability is different for a professional athlete than it is for the general population. The professional athlete relies on his/her fitness for a living. If they can’t get through game or event, they see less money on their paycheck.

For those of us who are not as genetically gifted, not blowing out our knees or back after a hard day’s work is the very definition of being fit.

It’s different strokes for different folks.

An ideal state of health (and fitness) varies from person to person and day-to-day. Some days you’re ready to take on the gym and smash your PRs and other days your back hurts so badly you can barely move.

The Relationship Between Health and Fitness

Usually being healthy and having a level of fitness go hand in hand. For example, when you’re healthy you’re able to move more, which helps improve your fitness. When you’re getting fit, you’re getting healthier by dropping excess weight, gaining muscle, and improving health markers like blood sugar levels and cholesterol.

Looking a certain way physically doesn’t define fitness. A person can look fit but it is possible that they really aren’t healthy. On the flip side, there are those who don’t appear healthy but can do amazing things.

A pertinent example of this difference are those who compete as figure contestants. It is a fact that the contestant has lost a lot of body fat in order to make their muscles pop and to look a particular way on the competition stage.

By outward appearances they are extremely fit with large, strong muscles. But unfortunately the methods that are required to achieve this particular look aren’t sustainable in the long-term.

When you deprive the body of certain nutrients and train the body a certain way to lose body fat, it can mess with the body’s hormones and play tricks on the mind.

Let’s jump into the diet world for a moment. There are examples of extreme diets such as the Twinkie Diet or the McDonald’s Diet where people drop pounds and improve certain health markers by eating food that’s not the healthiest.

When it comes to weight loss, calories are king and as long as you’re in a caloric deficit you’ll lose weight, but are people who are dropping weight and eating unhealthily thus becoming healthy?

That’s up for debate.

Achieve Fitness Through the Right Methods

Although health and fitness usually go together, there is a gap. People can achieve fitness in ways that are not healthy, and people can look healthy by doing things that aren’t healthy.

Furthermore, there are people who don’t look heathy but are fit. Outward appearance is deceiving because health and fitness are more than just skin deep.

The best way to achieve lifelong health and fitness is to not rely on extremes. Stick to the proven methods of eating a balanced diet and getting regular exercise. Health and fitness is not a race—it’s for life.

Reference:

1. Herbert L. Fred, MD, MACP. Tex Heart Inst J. 2013; 40(1): 13–14. In Good Health: An Opinion at Best.

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The dawn breaks on cool, misty morning. Awakened by hunger, a young man gathers his tribe. The winter is coming and they must hunt for boar meat and hides. He instructs the tribe’s children to gather nuts and grains, while the adults start out into the forest, eager for the chase. Despite the stakes, no one is afraid. There is a sense of vitality and life to the moment. All of them have a mission. They all contribute to the whole. It’s as if each person was made for this moment.

In fact, they were. That is the point. We were all made to live and thrive in situations such as these. This is what our minds and bodies were programmed to do, and it’s the job that constitutes the bulk of human history. Our hearts were meant to compassionately work for the benefit of a group. Our bodies were meant to chase, flee, climb, fight, and play.

It is our digression from these most natural inclinations that has led to mental and physical imbalance. When we learn to respect the body for what it was made to be, we can begin to realize our true potential. A nation that does not respect and value the body and natural human movement cannot thrive, as poor health and the malaise of partial living will plague its people.

Physical Education Is a Core Curriculum

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”

– Socrates

Physical education (PE) will be the backbone of a movement to create a heroic nation that will confidently tackle challenges with creative solutions and inspire the world. Yes, PE.

Your perception of PE might be the “easy A” for your child. Maybe you even see it as a waste of time. Why should kids spend valuable time out of the school day in PE when it’s untested, holds little weight on college applications, and leads to few job opportunities? There’s so much information to learn, so why waste time kicking a soccer ball? Some have even advocated scrapping physical education altogether, arguing that 40 minutes twice a week of exercise makes no difference.

This limited worldview has dominated our school structure, to the detriment of our children and our society. One of the fundamental roadblocks to progress for our country is our emphasis on the immediate outcome rather than the process and end goal. If a teacher is “easy” and does not challenge the students, they’re far less likely to elicit a hailstorm of parent criticism, because they are no threat to a child’s GPA. Never mind teaching them skills of analysis, synthesis, or lessons of persistence and discipline.

Far too often, we miss the goal of education: to help our students grow so that they are prepared for the world, inspired to live vitally and do great work, and guided by an ethos of contribution and empathy for their fellow man.

Education should positively direct the path of our nation. When we clarify our intent and vision of public education, it becomes clear that PE can play a far more prominent role in the development of our youth. Physical education is the most important component for greater results in education and our national culture. To borrow from the current vernacular, nothing could be a more “core” curriculum.

Physical Health Enables Cognitive Learning

“When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless, and intelligence cannot be applied.”

– Herophilus

Health and physical education are essential foundations from which everything else blossom. But if you ask most people, they would probably say the role of schools is to get students to pass standardized tests and learn information so they can go to college. This shortsighted, uninspiring vision has created a stagnant, public-image driven system that perpetuates a progressive decline in physical and mental health.

We must tenaciously fight for a new vision. Our education system should create heroes. Core to that vision of heroism are the physical strength, endurance, and vitality to protect and help others. PE is where the change must start, because movement is where all learning starts.

Cognitive development is deeply rooted in physical development. We cannot separate the two, despite the industrial approach of most schools, where students are fed information while strapped to a desk. The learning potential of the brain is far higher when the body is nourished and physically vital. Meeting the need of children for physical activity creates far more attentive students capable of greater focus and mental acuity.

Physical health enables cognitive learning, but many schools continue to eliminate recess anyway. [Photo credit: Pedro Dias | CC BY 2.0]

We Teach Kids to Be Unhealthy

“The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.”

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We have the highest standard of living in the history of the world, but we also have lifestyles of unprecedented sedentarism. After our kids sit all day at school, they’re likely to go home and sit while they watch TV, play video games, and text.

Consequently, they are chronically anxious, epidemically unhealthy, and projected to live shorter lives than their parents. The US Department of Health and Human Services advises a minimum 60 minutes per day of physical activity for kids aged 6-17. Shouldn’t we do everything in our power to ensure each student gets that minimal essential dose on a daily basis?

All of us have one body to use for our entire life. Seeking mastery in the health and operation of this one vessel is of the utmost value to each. Yet we criminally restrict the playful, active proclivity of youth. Every natural inclination pushes them to run, to chase, to play, to move, and yet we label them with mental disorders when they struggle to sit still for seven hours straight.

Recess is being eliminated, despite evidence that free play builds cognitive development and creativity. Even when we do offer health and PE, the lack of emphasis surrounding each has created a product that is a joke. Kids are allowed to sit in the stands and text or study for another class instead of playing with the others. Health class has deteriorated to a few warning videos and vague scientific memorization delivered with little application or hope of changing anything.

Before you blame teachers, understand they are part of a system that has consistently devalued their work and lowered the standards. They, like most teachers I know, are usually hardworking, uplifting leaders. The impact PE and health teachers can make is limited when their class is only required for one semester, and even then, only for those students not in extra-curricular activities.

The Consequences of Neglecting PE

“We should resolve now that the health of this nation is a national concern; that financial barriers in the way of attaining health shall be removed; that the health of all its citizens deserves the help of all the nation.”

– Harry S. Truman

Schools must begin to develop the whole person. Academic rigor alone does not a leader make. For our young men and women to be the best students, leaders, and people they can be, they must make their own health and vitality a top priority.

Despite the clear importance, our youth have little to no emphasis put on physical education and health. Many states have zero required health and PE classes throughout high school. Only Nevada, New York, and New Jersey require more than two years of health and PE combined, while most are well under that.

The consequences of this deemphasis are a lack of resources and pitifully low expectations in these fields. Working with youth, I’m amazed by what little knowledge of health and wellness they have to draw on. Few know the differences in macronutrients or where to find quality sources of each. Fewer know how to cook anything, particularly anything with nutritional value.

If you encourage them to bring a healthy snack, they’ll likely choose a chewy granola bar or fruit snacks. Encourage omelets and oatmeal for breakfast, and you’ll be met with confused stares. Breakfast is a Pop-Tart or nothing. Sometimes a proud young man will let me know he got a bowl of Cheerios. Try talking about pre-competition nutrition, and a glazed-over face might finally interrupt you with “is Chick-fil-A good?”

These young adults, like their parents before them, will grow up and raise the next generation dominated by convenience food, chronically unbalanced, and deficient in health. The consequences are dire.

Global obesity trends indicate 268 million kids will be overweight by 2025, 4 million will have type 2 diabetes, and 27 million will have hypertension. Who knows what other psychological and social consequences will arise from this crisis? There is no greater national threat, and education is where we must make the change.

A New Core Curriculum

“Intelligence and skill can only function at the peak of their capacity when the body is healthy and strong. In this sense, physical activity is the basis for all activities of our society.”

– John F. Kennedy

Despite considerably different national challenges, and though occupations and lifestyles have met considerable change, the structure of the school day has changed little from the industrial model of over 150 years ago. 20-30 students are packed into small classrooms. They are fed information a mile wide and an inch deep, in efforts to pass standardized tests and meet outdated curriculum requirements.

The emphasis is on math, science, English, and social studies. All these are fantastic, rich subjects that may contribute to the success of a student’s life. Certainly, there is a need for mastery of foundational mathematic, scientific, and English skills. But by secondary education, critical skills should already be mastered, making this gauntlet hardly essential to the lives of all.

A child with a propensity for a future in engineering might, after exposure to freshman-level social studies and reading, wisely alter their school track to focus on more pertinent science and mathematics classes. Likewise, the future geologist or cultural anthropologist may want to opt out of sophomore and up mathematics.

Our society has evolved, but our education system hasn’t changed substantially in over a century. [Photo credit: Michael 1952 | CC BY 2.0]

If a student gains little value and just scrapes by to keep the GPA up, what real benefit is the class? Is there any purpose to a class that does not create change in how students live or perceive the world? If the student retains nothing and thinks as they did before, we’ve wasted a giant opportunity at the cost of far more essential education.

By the time our youth reach high school, our core curriculum becomes so broad that it is not core to anyone. We are missing those subjects that are truly essential to everyone: computer literacy, financial health, physical and psychological health, and written and oral communications skills. These subjects should not just be available, as they are now.

They should be the new core, expanded upon in depth and infused with time and resources. When examining the cost-benefit of each subject to each student, these are the foundational secondary education subjects critical to future success. These are the subjects that will add value to every citizen, and none is as indispensable as a strong, developed physical education and health curriculum.

An Education in Health

“Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.”

– Plato

We’ve forgotten that understanding and mastering our physical bodies is one of the most important aspects of each person’s life. It has the potential to inspire optimism, passion, and creativity. PE and health should have more support, emphasis, and attention than any other subject, as the mastery of one’s body and mind will enhance and heighten the potential of every other arena.

Early and wide exposure should be given to many pleasurable activities and skills. Each day, youth should run and jump. They should be taught to develop proprioception, core strength, and fundamental movement patterns. Upper level PE should offer a variety of tracks guided by the interest of each student, while still ensuring general physical preparedness. School sports teams should model healthy practices, rather than being a never-ending carousel of pre- and post-game sweets for each athlete.

Classrooms should feature standing desks and encourage breaks for physical activity. Health classes should teach kids mental health skills and the mechanics of habit formation, willpower, focus, and trained optimism. Health teachers should make challenges surrounding steps in a day, or least sodas in a week.

They should create projects surrounding grocery store trips and building healthy meals. Other subjects should incorporate and respect this emphasis on an active, healthy human. Excel classes, for instance, could use sports statistics or physical assessment results of each classmate.

Physical Education and the National Ethos

“Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.”

– Thomas Jefferson

Overhauling our core curriculum to emphasize physical education and health would have far-reaching benefits to our nation. This overhaul should be guided by the philosophy that we aim to create a nation of heroes.

Having more physical activity will improve analytical skills and academic performance, but this does not scratch the surface of its benefit. The most glaring reason we should shift to this focus is that it is the right thing to do. Health is of greater consequence than learning.

The quotes included in this article could have written the article by themselves. There is a virtual consensus on the importance of health among history’s wisest and most learned. These creative giants all saw the imperative of physical education and health.

Let us heed their advice and allow ourselves to investigate how we might revitalize our system. This vision will improve the quality of life for everyone. It is a context that can be built upon to create a heroic national ethos. In embracing this vision, we clarify a mission and a purpose for future generations, and give them the tools to chase their dreams.

Gym class shouldn’t be random games:

A Lesson Plan for the Youth Athlete

The post PE: Literacy For The Body appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Our nation’s greatest need is so simple it would almost hit you over the head. Epidemic levels of obesity and disease from sedentary lifestyles have gone hand in hand with a consistent trend towards less movement in our schools.

We allow kids less free play, less recess, deemphasize physical education and health, and allow their lives to be centered around TV, social media, and video games. The dire consequences are a vastly overmedicated population, rising health costs, anxiety in record proportion, and a nation where nearly every citizen struggles with weight or health issues.

Facing such a pandemic, it’s truly insane not to promote health in schools. But instead, our schools continue to reflect the insidious and ingrained poor health practices of our nation. While a billion steps are necessary to correct the overall problem, the most obvious is to ensure that our youth move and play.

The more they learn to value movement, play, and exercise, the better off they’ll be. Additionally, we must consistently teach good health habits to counter the culture of junk food which permeates the country.

How can we ignore the consistent, rising tide of destructive health habits when a simple solution stares us right in the face? Make physical education and health top priorities in our schools, and these issues resolve themselves while academics and character improve.

Protect Our Most Valuable Asset

“The best asset we have for making a contribution to the world is ourselves. If we underinvest in ourselves… we damage the very tool we need for making our highest contribution.”

– Greg McKeown

Health must be our schools’ top value. It should permeate every subject, and the training of a heroic nation will be the context which packages this delivery and expectation. In line with this ethos must be an intentional emphasis on physical education and health as the most core of core subjects. What schools must understand is that without healthy minds and bodies, all pursuits are limited, and one can never reach their deepest potential.

In Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Greg McKeown tells the story of a young CEO who pushed himself so hard that his body began to revolt. He began to have what he described as “anxiety attacks without the anxiety.” Eventually, his organs began to shut down one by one. Doctors told him to take 2 years off, or he might die.

This man stubbornly predicted he’d be back after 2 months, but soon saw just how out of balance his life had become. He took the 2 years, changed his diet, drastically reduced stress, and returned a changed man. When asked what he’d learned from his ordeal, he said he’d “paid a high price to learn a simple yet essential lesson: Protect the asset!”

Despite being a CEO, the embodiment of what schools strive to develop, this man sacrificed health and was forced to give everything up in order to rediscover it. It’s a haunting tale that highlights what is truly essential: our health.

This brings us back to Christopher McDougall’s definition of a hero as a protector. To create a nation of heroes, we must first take the heroic step of making our youth’s number one priority to “protect the asset” in their own life. No longer can this be a fringe characteristic of the “fitness fanatic” or “health nut.” It’s truly the only logical path for a loving nation to take.

The Minimum Dose of Movement

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.”

– George Bernard Shaw

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend at least 60 minutes per day of physical activity. This is the minimum daily requirement for the hope of health. Habits create health, and the nation’s predominant health habits could hardly be worse.

Physical inactivity alone is the fourth leading risk factor for death worldwide. Even with the best nutrition practices, lack of movement is deadly. Most kids sit between 10 and 14 hours per day, much of that time being forced to sit in school.

We must guarantee our youth at least that minimum 60 minutes of daily movement. We see youth whose physical bodies are frailer than any generation before, and who lack the mental toughness necessary to overcome the obstacles which undoubtedly come to all humans. Physical education and health must become the foundation on which our education systems are built. But what do these systems look like?

Work With Natural Inclinations to Play

“Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold.”

– Joseph Chilton Pearce

It’s just not that complicated: We need to move and play much more. At the elementary age, when many essential skills are being taught, kids might only need organized physical education three days a week. But on a daily basis, they should have at least three 20-minute recesses interspersed.

Since the 1970s, youth have seen a 50% decrease in their unstructured outdoor play time. Among first graders, 39% get 20 minutes or less of recess each day. Promoting free play and accepting the nature of the elementary age is essential to a healthy nation and a successful elementary school. At this age, their bodies revolt at the idea of prolonged sitting. Allowing 20-minute active breaks for free play and creativity each hour is essential.

Dr. Jane Hewes, Chair of the Early Childhood Education Program at Grant MacEwan College has written much about the formative role of free play. She insists it is possibly the most fundamental ingredient for socialization, as well as physical, emotional, and intellectual development. She goes so far as to link certain types of play with the specific cognitive abilities they develop.

Play is learning. Kids are natural scientists, experimenting on the world and constantly refining their understanding of how it works. One Fort Worth school began offering recess 4 times a day. While initially anxious about the negative effects on academics, teachers have been overwhelmed by the positive results.

Discipline issues are way down, students are far more attentive and cooperative, and autonomy has even gone up, as students are more likely to try to solve their own problems. All this from paying attention to the nature of youth and working in cooperation with it, rather than in conflict with natural inclinations for movement, experimentation, and play.

Hero Lessons in P.E.

“The secret of success is consistency of purpose.”

– Benjamin Disraeli

Physical education at this age should expose children to many organized games and sports, so that kids can find physical pursuits they grow to love. Clear values of teamwork, selflessness, consistent effort, sportsmanship, and physical toughness should be taught and modeled daily.

This should be the workshop where youth begin their mental training, as process mindsets and growth mindsets are groomed through daily teachable moments. Competition is a beautiful thing, and when approached correctly, brings out people’s best efforts.

All schools must accept the mission of creating heroic citizens who are exposed to daily reminders of their duty for empathy towards others. Each physical education class should begin with a lesson on a heroic value.

This should be followed by 5 to 10 minutes of structured exercises or skill drills, then structured games or sports. At the end, short lessons should be given on the role of proper nutrition in creating strong bodies and healthy minds.

Nutrition and health as an independent element of the curriculum need not begin until after elementary school. At the elementary age, it should be interwoven into all subjects and modeled throughout the school day. This model will be far more powerful and hold more weight at the elementary age than any assignment could.

Structure in Middle School

“A healthy state can exist only when the men and women who make it up lead clean, vigorous, healthy lives; when the children are so trained that they will endeavor, not to shirk difficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek ease, but to know how to wrest triumph from toil and risk.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

During the defiant, transitional period of middle school, P.E. should remain quite structured. Youth at this age need physical movement as much as any, but also must have structure or quickly risk anarchy.

Three days a week, classes should begin with a dynamic warm-up, then feature 20 to 30 minutes of bodyweight circuits and gymnastics. This can be followed by sprints or structured sports and sport skills, and finished with stretching. Two days a week, class should begin with the same warm-up, but feature more free-flowing games and challenges.

Games like tag variations, capture the flag, ultimate Frisbee, and dodgeball variations are playful and accessible to the novice. Sports should be taught in units throughout the year and progress from heavy coaching and teaching early in a unit, to more all-out play later. Sport subjects should include basketball, volleyball, flag football, soccer, and handball.

Education in Natural Movement

“Embrace the wisdom of your inner child. A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest of men.”

– Roald Dahl

As our youth get to middle and high school, health and physical education must become daily staples and the most core subjects. Physical education must start with an understanding of natural human movement. The goal of physical education should be humans who are able to move, play, and operate like humans would in nature.

French physical education pioneer Georges Herbert developed his “Natural Method” of training from watching human movement, particularly that of youth. His fascinating conclusions were that when kids played, they were training to be heroes, as all their play was “role playing disaster scenarios.”

When left to free play, children would “run, wrestle, hide, roll around, kick-fight with their feet, and leap off anything they can climb.” This ingenious natural programming at once displays the absurdities of our early childhood education, as well as the best methods for natural training. Herbert divided “natural training” into 3 menus:

• Pursuit—walk, run, crawl
• Escape—climb, balance, jump, swim
• Attack—throw, lift, fight

It is these abilities which we usually begin to lose in high school, and that we must foster and maintain even into our late lives. While walking is overly mild, and overt fighting a bit too much for P.E. classes, those in-between skills should be daily staples. An obstacle course must be developed on each campus that serves as the standardized assessment and uniting experience for all physical education.

As our nation trends toward disconnected overspecialization in everything from sports to our jobs, it is essential that we maintain these natural abilities. Even high school athletics must be balanced by quarterly obstacle courses and team challenges which convert physical fitness into displays of broad and diverse athleticism. Think of it as a physical manifestation of the term paper.

Diversity in High School

“I live in possibility.”

– Emily Dickinson

By high school, there should be great variety in class offerings, all at a greater depth and sophistication. Athletic training should be offered to any student who wants a more intense physical development experience geared at training for sports.

Joe Kenn provides an ideal model for this training with his tier system. The freshman introduction phase to this system should begin with Kenn’s block 0 model for beginning strength training.

Qualified CSCS’s should be hired at all schools to implement athletic strength classes. Other P.E. offerings should range from gymnastics, to swimming, to outdoor sports and survival training, to martial arts, to an experience-based course on methods of personal training.

The number and variety of classes is only limited by a school’s resources. Course offerings should also be guided by geography, with additions like hockey in Minnesota, or lacrosse in Baltimore.

A general continuation of the middle school model for P.E. should be offered. This will emphasize general physical preparation with exposure to safe, simple strength training, running at a variety of distances and intensities, stretching, and a continued emphasis on exposure to sports and games. All P.E. classes, including the athletic training classes, should continue to incorporate daily warm-up and cool down activities, and should include some degree of play.

How to Grade P.E.

“Keep your eye on the spirit, not the scoreboard.”

– Phil Jackson

The standard of success for a physical education program should be based on a few distinct criteria. We must not view P.E. with the same lens we would an algebra class. Emphasis should be placed on the process.

While rigor should be higher in academic curricula such as health classes, P.E. should be a place where all may experience great success. Options must be available to accommodate all perspectives, from those seeking great physical mastery and skill, to those seeking general physical enjoyment.

What is important is that each of our youth set goals for their physical education, display understanding of the values of heroism, and adhere to the expectations of punctuality, proper dress, cooperation, and maximum effort. Additionally, PE classes should have a citizenship element where students are required to participate in community service.

It is from these goals and expectations that grades will be assigned. While a bell curve is appropriate for typical classes, every student should be able to find success and enjoyment in their physical education.

Staffing Up for the Revolution

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

– Nelson Mandela

For all this to be possible will require an infusion of talent and high standards into the field of physical educators. This vision can only be successful with a cast of highly qualified and highly motivated instructors who are empowered to adapt their courses to the needs of each situation.

As this is the field which will serve as the backbone of school cultures, it is imperative that standards are set, and our best candidates are recruited. We have some extremely talented P.E. teachers right now, but could improve the field by enhancing the training and pulling from more diverse backgrounds of work.

We need greater promotion of health-related fields, and an intensification of physical and health education certification. This should become the standard for fitness certifications above those of the NSCA and NASM.

More teachers will need to be hired to increase variety and reduce student to teacher ratios. Just as we now hire specialists in biology, chemistry, or physics, we should hire physical education specialists in fields such as strength and conditioning, gymnastics, and martial arts.

Progression of Physical Education

“I wonder what the Russians are doing.”

– Dan Gable

To clarify the breakdown of what is emphasized in physical education over time, I’ve created a chart similar to that used in the Soviet Union. Their physical education system is probably the best ever put together, and we would do well to copy many of the institutional habits of the Soviet school day.

For example, in the Soviet Union many schools began their day with around 10 minutes of general exercises conducted either in the school yard, auditorium, or hallways. In between classes, students took similar active breaks to refresh themselves. This model is intriguing and begs the question of how discretionary time might best be used.

I’ve split the possible P.E. activities into 4 categories:

1. Games are characterized by active competitions that typically have a less organized format.
2. Sports are active competitions which traditionally have been more organized, and which students could choose to play competitively. These include team sports like basketball and soccer as well as individual sports like gymnastics and karate.
3. Strength and conditioning refers to all athletic development—everything from stretching, to sprints, to resistance training.
4. Outdoor sports encompass everything from natural movement, to obstacle courses, to hiking, to survival skills.

Unite Behind the Vision of a Healthier Nation

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

– George Bernard Shaw

Even among those who value this mission of change, consensus will be impossible to reach. Some will think P.E. must be tougher, and have a rigid evaluation system that promotes intense effort and focus.

Others will want P.E. to be more free-flowing as it guides students through their own exploration of health and fitness. We must remember that our vision of a stronger, healthier, more heroic America is the same. Compromise and respectful discourse must reign.

It’s impossible to predict all the challenges, and each step, while better, will be imperfect. What’s essential is that we bring a spirit of mutual respect. One of the greatest roadblocks to good educational change is lack of ability to adapt and grow. For any change to be successful long term, the vision must be clear enough to inspire dialogue and promote clarity.

Core to the vision presented in this article must be the understanding that physical vitality and health are the utmost value for our nation. Without them, none of our youth can thrive. With them, we can communicate values and character development.

How can we model fitness to our kids outside of school?

Fitness and Fatherhood: Natural Movement for Superhero Dads

The post A Heroic Nation’s P.E. Curriculum appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Human development is a funny thing. We start life by exploring our surroundings via touch and movement. This exploration develops not just our understanding of the world but of our bodies too.

But then something funny happens around age six – we get sent to school. Gone are the days of moving and exploring, replaced instead by sitting and learning. While there may be some playtime in the middle of the day, more and more that time is a thing of the past. There are even some schools in Australia that have banned children from doing cartwheels for fear of a lawsuit. When the policymakers at school are more worried about a lawsuit than about developing good, well-rounded human beings you know we’ve got problems.

As school budgets get slashed time and again, we lose more and more of the accessory programs – the ones that actually help our children become well rounded. These days it’s not uncommon for children to have no Physical Education classes once they’ve entered high school. In other words, by the time they leave school it is entirely possible that the last time our kids actually had a chance to spend time moving was when they were six.

The body is an amazing machine and incredibly adaptable. The problem becomes that when the thing you spend half your life doing is detrimental to your body, your body actually learns to become better at that thing. The modern human life is a series of sitting positions. From sitting to eat breakfast, to sitting to drive to work, to sitting at work, and then reversing it all to get home again – nine to twelve hours a day of the same posture. And because of that adaptive mechanism the average person is going to get really, really good at sitting. But probably not so good at any other posture.

So do we really need some fancy conjugate plan that waves loads over a six-month period, or do we need to go back in time and do some of the things we’d want our kids to do if we hoped for them to be strong and athletic? Most people’s bodies are like sleepy six-year-olds trapped in a classroom on a sunny day. Their bodies are bored, idle, and screaming to move, yet the modern fitness world welcomes them in and then tells them to sit on an exercise bike or in a chest press machine and to continue developing their ability to sit better. It’s inner child abuse.

What would you do with a six-year-old if your goal were for him or her to be overall athletic in years to come? Would you have the child spend time sitting in a machine or spend time moving a variety of ways?

And this is where Phase One comes in. Phase One is where every program should start. Phase One is (depending on which group you wish to feel aligned to) FMS, Primal Move, MovNat, Ido Portal Method, Original Strength, Ginastica Naturale, or any other form of movement-focused training where the goal is to be mostly in quadruped and move. It is crawling, crab walking, frog hopping, animal movement. It is fluid, tactile training. What I mean by this is that instead of just having our feet connected to the ground, we are also going to have our hands on the ground, which will add sensory input, enhance proprioception, and awaken all our senses.

I know some of you right now are reading this thinking that you have a double bodyweight deadlift and crush WODs and can do the RKC snatch test easily and therefore have no need to crawl like a baby. To you I say this – go outside right now, ditch the shoes, and crawl non-stop for twenty minutes. Hell, you can even change variations if you want to. In fact, that will be even better for you because you’ll develop more motor patterns.

The benefit of Phase One training is simple – it allows the body to reset. Whether you need a reset because you’re coming to movement for the first time in twenty or more years or whether you need it because you are so stiff and tight from all the hard training you’ve been doing doesn’t matter. Everyone needs Phase One.

Phase One is characterized by bodyweight movements, nothing explosive, and the fitness work is aerobic in nature and longer, rather than anaerobic interval type work. Work to rest ratio is two to one, meaning that if you work for a minute you get to rest for half a minute. This allows for a high quality of work to be done that will help us focus on cementing good movement and greasing up the machinery of the body after we’ve let it rust in place for so long.

A sample plan might look like this

Warm Up – Some joint rotations and easy movement, slowly building up the intensity. A good suggestion would be to follow the warm up in this video and then do a further ten minutes of basic skipping and running drills.

Workout – We’re going to combine two elements here that tie together well. First, we’re going to use movement, and second, we’re going to combine structural and core holds. The main body will be in three blocks, each running for two minutes at a time with a sixty second rest. Completed for three rounds, that makes each block nine minutes. You’ll take an extra minute rest before moving onto the next block and repeating the process.

Block 1: Crawl 30 seconds, push up position plank hold 30 seconds. Do this twice before resting for 60 seconds. Repeat that sequence two more times.

Block 2: Sideways frog hops to the left 30 seconds, squat hold 30 seconds, sideways frog hops to the right 30 seconds, squat hold 30 seconds. Do this twice before resting for 60 seconds. Repeat that sequence two more times.

Block 3: Crab walk 60 seconds, handstand hold 60 seconds. Do this twice before resting for 60 seconds. Repeat that sequence tow more times.

Cool Down – A good buddy of mine, Max Shank, has an excellent little mobility flow he’s put together and it makes an ideal cool down for our Phase One sessions.

Follow a similar plan for four weeks, training three times weekly. On your other days go for extended walks, slow runs, or swims. Just don’t let your heart rate start getting anywhere near race pace or a perceived hard effort. In four weeks you’ll feel relaxed and supple, yet strong and athletic. These deliberate reset periods, while feeling easy, will help push the body to new heights when you’re ready to go that little bit harder closer to your competition or event.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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