Physical Education

Your bones give the body a frame, protect vital organs and work with muscles to produce movement. In this unit you learn the functions of the skeleton, the main types of joint and the movements they allow, the major muscles, and how muscles work in antagonistic pairs to move a limb and then move it back.

The cardiovascular system delivers oxygen and nutrients and removes waste, while the respiratory system takes oxygen in and breathes carbon dioxide out. This unit covers the heart and circulation, the three types of blood vessel, breathing and gas exchange, and how both systems respond to exercise in the short and long term.

Health and fitness are related but not the same. This unit defines health, fitness and well-being, then works through the components of physical fitness such as cardiovascular endurance, strength, flexibility, speed, power, agility, balance, coordination and reaction time, including how each one is used in sport and how it can be measured with a recognised fitness test.

To improve fitness you must train in the right way. This unit covers the principles of training that make a programme effective, such as progressive overload, specificity, reversibility and avoiding tedium, along with the main methods of training and their uses, and why every session should begin with a warm-up and end with a cool-down.

Performing well is about the mind as much as the body. This unit covers how skills are classified, how we process information to make decisions, the types of feedback and guidance that help us learn, and key psychology ideas: SMART goal setting, motivation, and how arousal affects performance through the inverted-U theory.