Fitness for Life - FAQs
GENERAL: Is there such a thing as too much practice?
Yes, there is such a thing as too much practice. Perfect or good practice helps you learn skills. Practicing or repeating a skill the wrong way doesn’t help because you’re learning the skill incorrectly. If you practice for too long all at once, you can become fatigued, and your good practice turns into bad practice. When you get tired, you start to make mistakes, and that makes your practice ineffective. Also, if you get bored with practice, you might start to practice a skill incorrectly. This doesn’t mean that you should always stop practicing when you get tired. During a...
GENERAL: I’ve heard that eating protein builds muscles and that eating fat makes you fat. Is this true?
The nutrients that provide energy to your body are carbohydrate, protein, and fat. For good health, you should eat foods that include all of these nutrients. National nutrition guidelines recommend that your diet include 45 to 65 percent of calories from carbohydrate, 10 to 35 percent of calories from protein, and 20 to 35 percent from fat. So, carbohydrate is the type of foods that will be the biggest part of your diet. Carbohydrate includes basic foods such as grains, vegetables, and fruits. Protein, such as milk products, meats, nuts, and beans, also provides energy and are necessary for building...
GENERAL: Skateboarding is my favorite activity. Is skateboarding a good activity for building physical fitness?
Skateboarding can be a very good activity for building physical fitness and for meeting national physical activity guidelines. Skateboarding requires balance, agility, and coordination, all parts of skill-related physical fitness. Depending on how you do it, it can build different parts of health-related physical fitness, too. For example, if skateboarding increases your heart rate into the target zone and keeps your heart rate elevated (see page 41 of the Fitness for Life: Middle School text or page 165 of the Fitness for Life, Sixth Edition high school text), it builds cardiorespiratory fitness. It can also contribute to muscle fitness and...
GENERAL: What do you call the ability to combine strength and speed?
Strength is the ability of the muscles to lift a heavy weight or exert a lot of force (page 9). Speed is the ability to get from one place to another in the shortest possible time (page 17). The combination of strength and speed is commonly referred to as power. Power, the ability to combine strength with speed while moving, allows you to do explosive movements such as jumping high, putting a shot, or swinging a softball or baseball bat to hit a ball a great distance (page 17). Strength is considered a health-related part of physical fitness, and speed...
GENERAL: What is the difference between aerobic activity and active aerobic activity?
Aerobic activity (as defined in your textbook) is any activity for which the body can supply enough oxygen to allow you to continue to be active for long periods. By this definition, walking, watching TV, playing computer games, and playing a musical instrument are aerobic activities because your body can supply enough oxygen to allow you to do them for a long time. Active aerobic activity (as defined in your textbook) is an aerobic activity that is intense enough to elevate your heart rate into the aerobic target zone. Active aerobics are good for building cardiorespiratory fitness. Activities generally considered...
