Level One

Level One

We are learning what it means to be fit and healthy.

When you think you are ready for the level one quiz, ask Krish for a copy, fill in the answers at home and if you can also do squats, lunges, press ups and rows with good form, you can get your level one certificate in assembly and move onto level 2!

·      We are looking at four main components of health and fitness at the moment, in level 1.

These are:

1.    Cardiovascular Health and Fitness

2.    Muscular strength and endurance

3.    Balance

4.    Nutrition

Let’s look at each of these in a little more detail.

·      Cardiovascular Health and Fitness

You might also hear this called CV or cardio.  It is to do with keeping your heart and lungs in tip-top condition. 

You need good CV fitness to be able to play football, to run around, ride a bike or swim, etc.

• Your lungs deliver oxygen to your blood.
• The oxygenated blood is taken to your heart and pumped around your body, fuelling your muscles with oxygen and glucose (you get the best glucose from eating carbohydrates – fruits and vegetables and whole grains).
• The de-oxygenated blood is returned to your lungs and you breathe out carbon dioxide.

So, you see how your heart and lungs work together to help your muscles work?

The better your lungs work, the greater the amount of oxygen they can deliver to your blood.

The better your heart works, the greater the amount of oxygenated blood it can deliver to your muscles.

The greater the amount of oxygenated blood your heart can deliver to your muscles, the longer they can work for before they get tired!

Bigger muscles need more oxygen, that’s why you need to do both resistance training and cardio.

The kinds of exercises you need to do to improve your CV health and fitness are anything that gets you:

1.    Hot

2.    Sweaty

3.    Out of breath

·      Muscular Strength and endurance

This is resistance training either with body-weight exercises or using free weights or machines and it’s how we get stronger and leaner.

You need muscular strength to do everyday tasks like sitting down and standing up, climbing across monkey bars and lifting things.

In order for your muscles to get stronger, they need to regularly work harder than they are used to working normally.  This is called overload.

Sometimes, if you are working your muscles really hard, they will get tired and not work as well.  This is perfectly normal. 

They might also burn a little.  This is because of a build-up of lactic acid in your muscles and is also perfectly normal.  It’s a sign you have done enough.  It’s called your lactate threshold.  

You can train to raise your lactate threshold so that you can work for longer without your muscles getting tired.  This is why we do resistance training.

Sometimes if you have worked your muscles really hard, they will ache a day or two later.  This is called DOMS or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness and is also perfectly normal.  It is a sign you have worked really hard and people who love exercise learn to love DOMS as a sign they have worked hard!

·      Balance

The stronger we are, the better able we are to balance as we are able to control our muscles better and for longer. 

You need good balance for agile moves in football or netball or cool dancing.

The major muscles we use for balance are our core muscles – we will go into our core muscles in more depth in level 2.

Our core muscles are located in our abdomen (around our lower back and tummy) and serve three main purposes:

    1.    They protect our spine

    2.    They protect some of our internal organs

    3.    They assist us with functional movements

·      Nutrition

Your body needs certain things to survive and the better you nourish your body the healthier you will be.

You need to nourish your body with healthy things to feel good, build muscle and for energy.

It’s no good doing loads of lovely exercise and then eating really unhealthy stuff.  We will look at nutrition in more depth at level 4.

Your body needs these things to remain healthy:

(Note that it doesn’t say anywhere here that you need sugar or processed foods like chips, crisps, cakes, pies or sweets.  They won’t kill you, of course but you do not need them to survive or be healthy.)

1.    Roughly 60 % Carbohydrates (fruit, vegetables and whole grains)

2.    Roughly 25% Protein (Meat, fish, dairy, nuts, pulses, beans)

3.    Roughly 15% Healthy Fats (Nuts, dairy, animal fats)

4.    Vitamins and Minerals

5.    Water

Krish x