Health and Fitness Portfolio

Wendy Wu June 12, 2012 PPL1OF Health – Fitness Portfolio Reflection: Fitness is the condition of being physically fit and healthy, which is what we’ve learned and have been working towards for the entire second semester of this school year (2011 – 2012) in our grade 9 physical education and healthy living course. Through tests that we have completed three separate times during this semester, we can see the progress and improvements that we’ve made throughout the five months. These tests pushed us to do our best and see how we do when we are at our best.

These tests were there so that the teacher and ourselves to see how well we were doing in six components: cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular endurance, muscular strength, flexibility, and agility. Cardiorespiratory endurance is the ability of one’s respiratory system (the heart and lungs) to provide oxygen and fuel for our bodies during sustained physical activity. This ability helps prevent any heart related illnesses, diabetes, etc. You could improve your cardiorespiratory endurance by continuously running, swimming, or cycling. In class, we were tested on this component by doing the beep test.

The beep test consists of us continuously running from one point to another, stopping when reached the point and continuing after a beep. This cycle is continued until you feel like you cannot continue. The first time I completed the beep test was on February 21st and I received a 3. 5. After completing the test, I set a goal for myself the next time we do the beep test (which was in 8-9 weeks). This goal was to reach stage four of the beep test, meaning I had to run three more beeps to reach my goal. I thought this goal was “SMART” (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time).

The second time I completed the beep test, I received a 4. 2, two more beeps over my goal. This means that I have improved by five beeps (0. 5). My goal for the last beep test that was in four weeks was to reach level 4. 5, which meant that I had to run three more beeps than the beep test I had just completed. June 1, was the day that I ran my final beep test of the year. I finished the test with a 4. 7, improving by five beeps. Completing the test with a 4. 7 means I had accomplished my goal and exceeded it. Overall, I had shown a steady increase throughout the semester when it comes to my cardiorespiratory endurance.

I believe that this increase was because I was involved in track and field throughout the semester. For warm-up during track and field, we had to run four laps. I think this helped in improving my cardiorespiratory endurance. I can improve my cardiorespiratory endurance even more by running up and down the street in the mornings daily (or weekly) or swim laps every week to boost my cardiorespiratory endurance and the amount of air my lungs can intake. Muscular endurance is the ability of a muscle to contract repeatedly. This helps with sports and daily activities.

Some sports or activities that need muscular endurance are weightlifting, stairs, etc. The main idea of this ability is so that we “feel the burn”. We figure out our muscular endurance by doing a test of abdominal crunches and push-ups. The first part is to see how many abdominal crunches you could do in a minute. The second part was to see how many continuous push-ups you could do. On the first test, I did 34 crunches in a minute and 20 continuous push-ups. After this testing, I set a SMART goal for myself of 35 abdominal crunches and 22 push-ups. The second test, I did 36 abdominal crunches and 22 continuous push-ups.

With these results, I know that I have improved by 2 in abdominal crunches and 3 in push-ups, as well as showing that I had exceeded my goal by one with both sections of the testing. This led me to set my goals for the third testing which were to do 38 abdominal crunches and 25 continuous push-ups. The third testing results ended up to be 38 for abdominal crunches and 33 for continuous push-ups. This displayed an improvement on both tests, as well as accomplishing my SMART goals. In the abdominal crunches sections, I advanced by 2 crunches from last time and reach my goal.

For my push-ups, I bettered myself by 10 push-ups and surpassed my goal of 25 continuous push-ups. In the end, these result show a steady increase for the first part (the abdominal crunches) and a slow increase that becomes greater for the second section of the muscular endurance test (continuous push-ups). I think there was an increase because in between the first and second testing, our class had spent a week in the weight room doing a new unit. The first half of the week, we focused on muscular endurance and I think that helped improve my results in the second test.

The training we did in the weight room included bench presses, lat pull-downs, abdominal exercises, etc. I continued to do similar exercises before I went to be after the unit had ended, which help improve my third test results. If I continue to do abdominal exercises and push-ups on my own time, my muscular endurance level would steadily increase. Muscular strength is the next component I am going to focus on. It is the amount or weight a muscle can contract once. This component increase muscle mass and increases your power, as well as helping with sports and daily activities like weightlifting, shot-put, javelin, discus, etc.

We do a vertical jump test to determine our muscular strength level, which is when we are to stand against the wall with your arm extended to see your standing height. You would then jump with your arm extended to see how high you could jump and the difference between your standing height and your jumping height. I ended my first vertical jump test with 12 inches as my difference and set my goal for next time as 14” for my difference. My second testing result was a difference of 14”, which was my goal. During this test, I improved my muscular strength level by 2”. Then I had written my goal down as 16” for my next difference.

I achieved this goal when I completed my third vertical jump and advanced myself from last time by 2”. Therefore, my overall muscular strength level had increased at a constant rate and improved because of the weight training unit we had done. Earlier I mentioned working on muscular endurance in the weight room for a part of the week; the other part was to work on our muscular strength. This helped me better myself in my muscular strength. I could improve my muscular strength level by doing weekly leg exercise like squats or free-weight/machine-weight/body-weight training with more sets than repetitions (reps).