Learn, Act, then Get Fit.

A course for anyone focused on improving their personal fitness.

Lesson Structure

There are 8 lessons in this course:

1. Reasons for Fitness
   • basic components of physical fitness
   • reasons for fitness
   • fitness testing
   • evaluating endurance.
2. Understanding your body
   • body structure
   • cardio respiratory system
   • aerobic/anaerobic energy.
3. Testing your fitness Part A
   • types of fitness tests
   • differences due to age and gender
   • evaluating different types of fitness tests.
4. Exercises for specific purposes
   • types of exercise
   • developing physique
   • basic conditioning exercises
   • exercises for specific problems.
5. Nutrition and Weight control
   • nutrition basics
   • weight control
   • planning a diet.
6. Endurance and Suppleness
   • assessing how supple your body is,
   • exercises that increase suppleness.
7. Home Medicine and First Aid
   • basic first aid
   • acupressure
   • alternative vs mainstream medicine.
8. Designing an Exercise Program
   • designing a program
   • assessing fitness
   • designing an appropriate program.

What You Will Do

• Perform different types of fitness tests
• Perform a variety of different exercises
• Interview an inactive person to assess their fitness goals
• Determine which muscles are used in certain exercises
• Plan a diet and a weight loss diet
• Suggest exercises to improve suppleness
• Contact medical training facilities to find out about courses offered
• Suggest first aid procedures for a number of given situations
• Design more than one fitness program

Participate in Regular Exercise

A lack of exercise is a risk factor for heart disease, increased blood pressure, osteoporosis, obesity, gallstone disease, type 2 diabetes, depression and anxiety and certain cancers including cancer of the breast and colon.

Consider the mental benefits of exercise; the feeling reward, the physical hormonal boost, social aspect, the pleasurable side of participating in a sport of choice, the time exercise enables you to dedicate to something you enjoy, gives time to clear your mind;Physical activity also helps reduce weight and reduce body fat.

The Benefits of Exercise

• Helps us to feel healthier.
• Helps make our heart and lungs stronger and more efficient at supplying oxygen to muscles and other organs of the body. 
• Improves blood cholesterol and blood glucose levels.
• Helps prevent bone loss associated with osteoporosis.
• Improves symptoms of illnesses such as asthma and diabetes.
• Makes our muscles stronger, improving strength, endurance and flexibility.
• Improves immunity to certain illnesses.
• Improves self image and reduces anxiety and depression.

Exercise falls into 3 main categories:

• Aerobic
• Strength and Conditioning
• Flexibility

Aerobic Exercise

Aerobic exercise is any exercise which uses oxygen to fuel the muscles. In aerobic exercise our heart beats faster to transport oxygen around the body and our breathing rate is increased to supply more oxygen. These effects help to keep the cardiac muscle of your heart strong – like any muscle, we need to exercise it to make it strong. Exercise helps to enlarge the chambers of the heart and thicken and strengthen the muscular walls of the heart which helps the heart to beat more strongly and deliver blood more efficiently through the circulation system. It also helps to reduce the rate at which the heart beats enabling it to do the same amount of work but with less effort.  Aerobic activity also helps to strengthen the diaphragm and intercostal muscles which enables a more active person to expand their chest cavity more than an inactive person, enabling them to take in more oxygen when they breathe.

Strength and Conditioning Exercise

Strength and Conditioning exercise is all about increasing the amount of force the body is capable of exerting against resistance for a short period of time. This resistance can come from objects such as free weights or using your own body weight during certain exercises. Conditioning aims to shape up and tonne muscles generally through the use of low weights and high repetitions. Strength and conditioning exercises help to improve the strength and functioning of muscle, bones, tendons and ligaments making them less prone to injury, improves bone density, cardiac strength and function. Activities which build muscle strength also assist weight control as muscle tissue burns more energy than fat even when at rest.

Flexibility

Flexibility is the ability to stretch muscles as well as the tendons and ligaments which connect muscles to bone. Increased flexibility helps to decrease the risk of injury when exercising.

Exercise Recommendations for Optimal Health

Fitness experts generally recommended to take moderate physical activity such as brisk walking for at least 30 minutes 5 days of the week. Thirty minutes of exercise can also be split into smaller blocks e.g. 3 x 10 minutes each day. Moderate activity is where you are working hard enough to raise your heart rate and begin to sweat but are still able to talk/ sing a favourite song.

Why Study this Course?

Our Personal Fitness course is ideal for someone who wants to commit to exercise but, for whatever reason, has difficulty attending a gym or exercise classes. Studying this course will provide you with the knowledge and understanding to develop your own fitness program that you can use to suit your circumstances. This is also a great course if you are interested in starting your own small business to train other people in reaching their personal fitness goals.

You can enrol at any time. The course is studied by distance learning - you can study anywhere you choose, by selecting our online or eLearning study methods as suits you. If you have any questions or want to know more about the course, then get in touch with our specialist Fitness tutors today - they will be pleased to hear from you.