High intensity exercises reduce CVD risk factors better than aerobic activities in adolescent youth (study)

Image by Jett Loe via Flickr
Some questions for you:

• Do you provide activities that are of high intensity or do we primarily focus on moderate levels of activity?
• How might you take advantage of this new study and create more high intensity activities?
• How will you deal with the fact that children do not have high cardiovascular fitness levels and then you're asking them to work extra hard? 
• Do you know how the body (especially youth) responds to movement and the bioenergetics involved in exercise?  
• Have you taken EXS 387, EXS 397 prior to student teaching?  
• Do you think it's important to have this knowledge and skill set in human movement to be a great and transformative educator?

This article examines the effects of brief, intense exercise in comparison with traditional endurance exercise on both novel and traditional markers of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in youth.


The effects of time and intensity of exercise on novel and established markers of CVD in adolescent youth - Buchan - 2011 - American Journal of Human Biology


DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.21166


Related articles

• Better a sprint than a marathon: Brief intense exercise better than endurance training for CVD (physorg.com)
• Short, intense exercise can also improve heart health: study (canada.com)
• A quick sprint beats a long run when it comes to your health (dailymail.co.uk)

More $ from USDA for fruits and veggies in schools

Good news as we continue our pursuit of healthier children, schools and communities as the USDA announced more money for schools to bring more fruits and veggies. Now I think bringing more food is good, I really think we need to support bigger initiatives that encompass the entire community including the family in raising healthier children.  At AAHPERD I met up with PE guru Dolly Lamdin and she was explaining their UT Elementary School initiative WellNest that does all of the above and recently received some great press. 

Families engage in WellNest Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM) Nights where they participate in fitness activities, participate in cooking demos, take nutrition classes and leave with a bag of farm fresh organic vegetables each time. It is our belief that with this support the whole family will work together to enjoy a healthy and active lifestyle. 

For more info check out:
Website http://www.utelementary.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=123385&type=d&termREC_ID=&pREC_ID=244357
Blog http://blogs.utexas.edu/utes_wellness/
Videos http://www.youtube.com/user/kniper1


Click here to read more from Yahoo: USDA funds more fruits and veggies for school kids

The Air We Breathe: Ice Rink Air Quality

Image via WikipediaYikes!  Hearing about the poor quality of air in some arenas makes me wonder about all the time we spend at the local arenas.  What can we do to monitor the situation as teachers, parents and coaches?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Dartmouth arena closure squeezes ice time (cbc.ca)
• Grand Manan prepares for permanent ice rink (cbc.ca)

"Whatever" it Takes

Hip Hop Doc (Dr. Rani Whitfield) and Dee-1 (middle school teacher) are on a mission and their message goes straight to the heart (literally and figuratively). From "Walking the Walk" to "Whatever" the duo have been on a mission to educate and motivate youngsters to live a healthy and active lifestyle (YouTube Channel). Truly inspiring and in education we call what the Hip Hop Doc does so well, is enlist the interests of his target audience - the youth that love Hip-Hop. Let it Flow Doc!

Giving Thanks

Taking time to be with or remember our loved ones is the essence of Thanksgiving. As teachers, we should also be thankful of the plentiful resources available for all levels and disciplines. Some of the free resources and online guides that I've neglected to feature include: Lifehacker - most popular top 10's of 2008 - Persuade people subconsciously, Chris Brogan - social media master gives you 50 ways to take your blog to the next level, send text messages via e-mail, Think Anatomy, Zamar, Gizmodo's post on video formats, NYT article on reaching teens with autism, GTD-free is a personal TODO/action manager inspired by GTD (Getting Things Done) method by David Allen (see David Allen & Co. official site), Pazera - audio extractor, Audicity - free open-source all-purpose audio editor, Gmail Drive Config - mount more than one Gmail account as a remote disk drive Excel Chart Advisor, Busuu , Frengly, and Mango - language learning sites. Given the plethora of free resources and the ease of online tools and social networking sites there really is no excuse for not learning new skills to help you become a Rockstar PE Teacher. To see previously featured resources that can help you and your students just click on the "resources" label in the right-hand column of this blog and you'll find stuff for nutrition, physical activity, disability awareness, and many more topics.