Do Circuit Training Programs Improve Student Fitness More Than Traditional Physical Education Classes in Secondary Schools?

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Do Circuit Training Programs Improve Student
Fitness More Than Traditional Physical Education
Classes in Secondary Schools?

• By
• Jeffrey Uebelhoer

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Problem

• Students are not receiving an adequate amount of
  physical activity intensity in P.E. class to
  elicit improvement in physical fitness.
• Obesity among young children and adolescents has
  increased in the past 20 years with the rates of
  obesity ranging between six and 33 percent .

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Key Terms

• Circuit Training
• Circuit Training is a type of exercise program
  designed to work on selected exercises and
  activities performed in a sequence or order.
  Circuit Training combines a high-energy aerobic
  workout combined with weight resistance equipment
  in a series of stations, stopping only briefly
  before each exercise to keep your heart rate
  within an acceptable range.
• Conceptual Physical Education
• According to Dale and Corbin (2000) Conceptual
  Physical Education is ideally a curriculum that
  includes classroom lessons that teach concepts of
  health and fitness, as well as laboratories or
  activity sessions that focus on personalized
  fitness programs, self-monitoring, and a
  noncompetitive environment for fitness
  assessment (p. 61).
• Traditional Physical Education
• The Traditional Physical Education program is
  one where the students take part in a more sports
  based curriculum such as basketball, soccer,
  floor hockey, volleyball, football, softball, or
  some type of dodge ball.
• Target Heart Rate
• According to the Bio-Nutritional Glossary
  (http//www.nutros.com/nsr-05zzz.html) the ideal
  intensity level at which your heart is being
  exercised but not overworked and is determined by
  finding your maximum heart rate and taking a
  percentage of it (60 to 85 percent).

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Hyposthesis

• Implementing circuit training in physical
  education programs will improve student fitness
  levels more than traditional P.E.

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Method

• Secondary school physical education class setting
  
• Four Middle Schools, grades 6-8, and four High
  Schools
• Two Middle Schools and two High Schools will be
  randomly selected as the control group. The other
  four schools (2 Middle Schools and 2 High
  Schools) will serve as my experimental group.
• The research will take place in the spring
  semester.
• Students will also have to be classified as
  weather or not they play a school sponsored sport
  in the spring

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Research Design

• Quantitative
• Quasi-Experimental
• Cluster Sampling - schools are naturally
  occurring groups
• Independent Variable Type of P.E. Curriculum
  (CPE or TPE)
• Dependant Variable subjects fitness level

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Instrument

• Fitnessgram
• one mile walk/run to measure aerobic capacity
• BMI to measure body fat percentage
• Curl-Up test for abdominal strength
• 90 Push-Up test for upper body strength
• Sit-and-Reach for flexibility

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Circuit Training Program
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Limitations

• When students are tested Student test scores
  may be affected by the time of day they take do
  the Fitnessgram testing. I think if they have
  class later in the day they will be fatigued from
  their full day of school.
• Students on Sports Teams Students who
  participate in sports will obviously have
  increased fitness scores and most likely those
  scores will be higher than those not in sports. I
  tried to eliminate this by grouping those who
  play sports and those who dont.
• BMI is unreliable The BMI measures body fat by
  comparing body weight to height. It does not take
  into account that lean muscle mass weighs more
  that fat mass. Unfortunately with a large group
  of students in is not time feasible to do a skin
  fold test on all of them.
• Different Curriculum Within the Control Groups
  Because each control group has the teachers going
  about their regular set curriculum there in no
  guarantee that the lessons will be the same. A
  set traditional curriculum could be set up by
  researcher but the curriculum would have to me
  each schools curriculum standards.
• Student Nutrition What the students eat is not
  being controlled. If students are eating
  unhealthy they will not get the benefits of the
  exercise.
• Puberty students in the age group being looked
  at go through hormonal changes at this time in
  their life which may affect fitness test outcomes
  such as BMI.

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Review of Related Research

• Kerner, M.S. (2005). Leisure-time physical
  activity, sedentary behavior, and physical
  fitness among adolescents. Journal of Physical
  Education, Rectration, Dance. 76(8), 26-30.
• Discusses the relationship between kids who
  partake in leisure physical activity or sedentary
  activity and their fitness levels. They found
  that sedentary behavior such as watching
  television or being on the internet are reasons
  for not participating in physical activity. This
  article gave me a lot of information on the
  growing obesity problem in our country and the
  health issues correlated to inactivity in
  children

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• Beets, M.W. Pitetti, K.H. (2005). Contribution
  of physical education and sport to health-related
  fitness in high school students. Journal of
  School Health. 75(1). 25-29.
• Studies the fitness levels of kids that partake
  in school sports along with P.E. class and those
  who only take P.E. They found that students who
  participate on school sport teams have a greater
  cardiovascular fitness level than those only
  participating in P.E. class. This article is the
  one that started me off on my direction towards
  the problem that traditional P.E. classes alone
  are not helping students fitness levels.

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• Baquet, G., Berthoin, S., Van Praagh, E.
  (2002). Are intensified physical education
  sessions able to elicit heart rate at a
  sufficient level to promote aerobic fitness in
  adolescents? Research Quarterly for Exercise and
  Sport. 73(3), 282-288.
• This article studied the affects of a high
  intensity P.E. class on students targets heart
  rate for the duration of class time. They found
  that the high intensity lesson done once a week
  improved students cardiovascular fitness more
  than traditional P.E. This article gave me the
  idea to come up with some program that could be
  done in P.E. that can get students in their
  target heart rate zone.

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• Corbin, C.B. Dale, D. (2000). Physical activity
  participation of high school graduates following
  exposure to conceptual or traditional physical
  education. Research Quarterly for Exercise and
  Sport. 71(1), 61-68.
• This article studies how physically active high
  school graduates were who took part in two
  different P.E. type classes. Conceptual P.E. and
  Traditional P.E. The graduates filled out a
  survey and mailed them in. They found that those
  who took conceptual P.E. classes we less
  sedentary than traditional P.E. students even
  though it was based on the subject perceived
  level of physical activity. This article relates
  to my idea because circuit training can be
  considered conceptual P.E.

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• Talley, J.S. (2004). Shapes for kids! Life
  fitness for grades 5 through 12. Journal of
  Physical Education, Recreation, Dance. 75(2),
  14.
• This article talks about a physical education
  teachers circuit training program that she has
  implemented in her curriculum. This was important
  to my research because I used her program for my
  experimental group.

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• Krampf, H. (1993). Circuit training for young
  children. Journal of Physical Education,
  Recreation, Dance. 64(1), 15.
• This article is just basically another teachers
  version of a circuit training program. The author
  also discusses why circuit training good thing to
  teach children.

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• Kwong, W.T. Macfarlane, D. (2003). Childrens
  heart rates and enjoyment levels during physical
  education classes in hong kong primary schools.
  Pediatric Exercise Science. 15, 179-190.
• This particular article studied students heart
  rates during different types of physical activity
  and whether or not the students enjoyed the
  activity or not. They found that student heart
  rates are in their target heart rate zone for at
  most 20 of their active class time. This is
  another article that looked into how P.E. classes
  are not giving students the adequate exercise
  they need.

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• Kliber, A., Kulinna, P.H., Lai, Q., Martin, J.,
  Reed, B. (2003). Student physical activity
  patterns Grade, gender, and activity influences.
  Journal of Teaching in Physical Education. 22,
  298-310.
• This article studied students cardiovascular
  response differed based on gender, grade, and the
  activity. This article shows that fitness type
  activity keeps students in their target heart
  rate zone for a greater of class time as
  opposed to a traditional P.E. lesson such as
  basketball.

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• Corbin, C.B., Dale, D., Welk, G.J. (2000).
  Measurement issues in the assessment of physical
  activity in children. Research Quarterly for
  Exercise and Sport. 71(2), 59-73
• This article discusses some things that can make
  it complicated to assess physical activity in
  children. It also discusses the pros and cons of
  using certain measurement techniques such as the
  use of a heart monitor which are weakly
  correlated due to signal interruptions causing
  lost data, delayed heart rate response, and
  discomfort. This article did not help me because
  I was looking for any kind of problems with the
  Fitnessgram assessment and none were mentioned.

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• Keating, X.D. (2003). The current often
  implemented fitness tests in physical education
  programs Problems and future directions. Quest.
  55, 141-160.
• This articles examined youth fitness tests used
  in the U.S. to see what problems they have and
  what they can do to fix it. Again I was looking
  for any issues with the Fitnessgram test. None
  were found so this article was on not use.