Health and Physical Fitness - Grade 4 Physical Health Education Revision Notes

• Warm Up And Cool Down Activities
  • Importance of Warm Ups
  • Importance of Cool Down Activities
• The Human Heart.
  • Functions of The Heart
  • What happens to the body during exercise?
  • Cardiorespiratory Endurance.
• Human Muscles
  • Muscular Strength
  • Muscle Endurance
  • Muscular And Joint Flexibility.

Warm Up And Cool Down Activities

• Warm up: activities that are done to prepare the muscles for vigorous activities.

Importance of Warm Ups

1. They prepare the body for the game of the day
2. Muscles become warm
3. The blood begins to warm up.
4. The joints become more flexible, they can move easily.
5. Helps to prevent injuries.
6. The brain becomes prepared for the activities.

Cool down activities are activities that are slow and easy.

Importance of Cool Down Activities

1. The heart beat goes back to normal gradually.
2. The muscles stretch easily without being injured.
3. Helps to take blood back to the heart and the rest of the body gradually.

The Human Heart.

• The human heart is located between the lungs.
• It is protected by the ribs in the rib cage. It helps to pump blodd thoughout the body.
• The heart pumps blood to the lungs to get oxygen and remove carbon dioxide.
• This pumping gives the heartbeat. the normal heart beat of an adult is 60-100 beats per minute/

Functions of The Heart

1. Pumping oxygenated blood to the other body parts.
2. Pumping hormones and other vita substances to different parts of the body.
3. Receiving deoxygenated blood and carrying metabolic waste products from the body and pumping it to the lungs for oxygenation.
4. Maintaining blood pressure.

What happens to the body during exercise?

• The heart beats faster.
• The person sweats a lot
• The person gets thirsty.
• The body tempeerature increases.
• The person breathes harder.
• Blood flow inside the body increases to the brain and muscles.
• The bones becomes stronger.
• One gets tired and hence gets difficult to talk.

Cardiorespiratory Endurance.

• The system is composed of the lungs, the heart, the blood and the blood vessels.
• Cardiorespiratory endurance is the ability of the heart and lungs to work together when you are doing an exercise for an extended period of time. We can develop the endurance by:
  • Running
  • Brisk Walking
  • Jogging
  • Cycling
  • Swimming
  • Dancing.

Human Muscles

Muscular Strength

• Muscular strength refers to the maximum force produced by a muscle or group of muscles in a single muscular contraction.
• Muscular strength can be achieved by using weights.

We need strong muscles because:

1. They reduce the chances of getting injuries while doing your daily activities.
2. They reduce body fat and increase lean(containing little or no fat) muscles in the body.
3. Helps to maintain correct posture.
4. Helps in carrying out the day-to day activities.
5. Helps in maintaining strong bones that have high bone density.

Muscular contraction: changes in the length of muscle

Muscle Endurance

• Refers to the ability of a muscle group to perform a repeated action without getting tired.

Importance of muscular endurance.

• Helps increase our stamina for performing daily chores for example cleaning the classroom and gardening.
• Helps us in preventing injuries that would be caused by overuse of our active muscles throughout the day.
• Increasing your muscular endurance will make everyday chores and tasks easier. Training muscular endurance will increase your stamina- you'll have more energy to go from your job to playing with your kids, for example.
• You will find that performing repititive physical activity such as gardening, raking leaves and washing your car- will become less fatiguing too. Emphasizing the importance of endurance in your training will also limit injuries sustained from physical exertion and from the overuse of active muscles throughout the day.
• Helps us improve our posture by strengthening our major muscles that are necessary for activities such as sitting in class for long hours.
• Helps avoid lower back pain by strengthening the endurance of the abdominal and lower back muscles.

Muscular And Joint Flexibility.

• Flexibility refers to the capacity of a joint or muscle to move through its full range of motion.

The benefits of taking part flexibility.

• The body gets more freedom of movement.
• Body posture is improved.
• Tearing of muscles is reduced.
• Helps to relieve muscle tension.
• Increases our mental and physical relaxation