National Year 10 Physical Education
Chapters: 4
1. 3.1.1 Applied anatomy and physiology
Musculoskeletal system · Cardio-respiratory system · Aerobic and anaerobic exercise · Short- and long-term effects of exercise
- The Skeletal System – The skeleton is the body's frame of 206 bones (adult). It has five main jobs: support and shape, protection, movement (with muscles), making blood cells in red marrow, and storing minerals like calcium. Bones meet at joints; hinge joints (elbow, knee) bend one way, ball-and-socket joints (shoulder, hip) move in all directions. Ligaments join bone to bone, tendons join muscle to bone, cartilage cushions the ends. Muscles only pull, so they work in antagonistic pairs such as biceps and triceps.
- Transportation in Humans: Heart, Blood Vessels, Blood and Lymph – The heart is a four-chambered muscular pump. Blood passes through it twice in one full round: once to the lungs to pick up oxygen, and once to the rest of the body. This is double circulation. Arteries carry blood away from the heart, veins bring it back and capillaries do the exchange. Blood (plasma, RBCs, WBCs, platelets) and lymph together carry food, gases, hormones and wastes.
- Energy Systems: How Muscles Get Energy for Exercise – Muscles can only use one fuel directly: ATP. The store of ATP lasts about 2–3 seconds, so the body rebuilds it in three ways. The ATP-PC system uses creatine phosphate: very fast, about 10 seconds. Anaerobic glycolysis breaks glucose without oxygen: fast, about 10 s to 2 minutes, and makes lactate. The aerobic system uses oxygen to break glucose and fat: slow but lasts for hours, making only carbon dioxide and water. All three work together; intensity and time decide which one leads. After exercise, EPOC (extra oxygen) refills stores and clears lactate. Altitude and heat make the aerobic system work harder.
- Physical Fitness – Physical fitness is the body's ability to do daily work, play and sport with energy to spare. It has five health-related components (heart-lung endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, body composition) and six skill-related ones (speed, agility, power, balance, coordination, reaction time). We improve it with a planned programme using FITT (frequency, intensity, time, type) and training principles like overload, progression, specificity, rest and reversibility.
2. 3.1.2 Movement analysis
Lever systems and mechanical advantage · Planes and axes of movement
- Levers: How a Small Push Lifts a Big Load – A lever is a stiff bar that turns about a fixed point called the fulcrum. It balances when load × load arm = effort × effort arm (the law of moments). A longer effort arm means less effort is needed. By where the fulcrum, load and effort sit, levers are Class 1, 2 or 3.
- Sports Biomechanics – Biomechanics is the physics of the moving body. Movement happens in three planes (sagittal, frontal, transverse) around three axes. Bones, joints and muscles work as levers: a pivot, an effort and a load. Most body levers are third class: they give little force but fast, wide movement. Newton's three laws explain starting, speeding up and pushing off the ground; friction gives grip. Stability depends on the centre of gravity, the base of support and the line of gravity. Turning movements follow the same ideas: torque starts a spin, and with no outside torque angular momentum stays the same, so pulling the arms in makes you spin faster. A thrown ball, javelin or jumper is a projectile: speed, angle and release height set the distance. Air and water push back with drag; spin and shape can create lift (the Magnus effect).
3. 3.1.3 Physical training
Health, fitness and exercise · Components of fitness and fitness testing · Principles and methods of training · Optimising training and preventing injury · Warm up and cool down
- Physical Fitness – Physical fitness is the body's ability to do daily work, play and sport with energy to spare. It has five health-related components (heart-lung endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, body composition) and six skill-related ones (speed, agility, power, balance, coordination, reaction time). We improve it with a planned programme using FITT (frequency, intensity, time, type) and training principles like overload, progression, specificity, rest and reversibility.
- Fitness Testing: How We Measure Each Part of Fitness – A fitness test measures one component of fitness and gives a number. Each component has its own test: the multi-stage beep test for stamina, hand grip for strength, sit and reach for flexibility, a 30 m sprint for speed, the Illinois run for agility, jumps for power, the stork stand for balance, the ruler drop for reaction time and BMI for body composition. A good test is valid and reliable. Results are compared with norms and with your own earlier scores, tracked with simple devices, and used to plan training, including for job recruitment tests.
- Sports Training: Principles and Methods – Sports training is planned exercise that makes the body fitter for a sport. Every session has a warm-up (raise heart rate, temperature and flexibility slowly), the main work and a cool-down (bring the heart rate down and remove waste such as lactic acid). Good training follows principles: Specificity (train for your sport), Progression and Overload (do a little more over time so the body adapts), Reversibility (fitness is lost when you stop) and Tedium (vary training to avoid boredom), plus rest and recovery. FITT sets the dose: Frequency, Intensity, Time, Type. Intensity can be measured with heart rate: maximum heart rate ≈ 220 − age; 60–80% trains the aerobic system and 80–90% the anaerobic system. Main methods are continuous, interval, fartlek, circuit, weight (resistance), plyometric and flexibility training. A training year can be split into pre-season, competition and off-season phases (periodisation).
- Sports Injuries: How They Happen, How to Prevent and Treat Them – A sports injury is damage to the body from sport or exercise. Acute injuries happen suddenly (a twisted ankle); chronic or overuse injuries build up slowly (shin splints). Soft tissue injuries hit muscles (strain), ligaments (sprain) and skin; hard tissue injuries hit bones (fracture) and joints (dislocation). Risk comes from inside you (fitness, past injury) and outside (weather, equipment, opponents). Warm-up, good technique, the right kit, rules and sensible training load prevent most injuries. Treat a soft tissue injury with RICE, then rehabilitate step by step before returning to play.
4. 3.1.4 Use of data
Collecting, presenting and analysing data
- Data Handling: Collect, Organise and Show Data – Data is a set of facts, such as answers, counts or measurements. Data can be qualitative (words) or quantitative (numbers); numbers are discrete (counted) or continuous (measured). We collect data by surveys, observation, experiments or from existing sources, then organise it with tally marks into a frequency table. We show it with the right graph: bar graphs to compare groups, pie charts to show parts of a whole, line graphs for change over time and scatter graphs for links between two variables. Computers store data as structured tables or unstructured text, images and sound.