ABC Fit

1
ABC Fit

• A New Paradigm
• Glenn Young, BEd, MEd
• Physical Education and Athletics Coordinator

2
Why Schools Fitness Test

• To improve overall performance
• Diagnosing weakness/deficiency
• Improvement over baseline
• Effectiveness of program
• Gathering data
• Communicate achievement
• Only standardized test we have for PE

3
Lab vs Field Based Tests

• Much more accurate than field based
• Lab tests to costly
• Can not be replicated with large numbers

4
Field-Based Fitness Tests

• Canada Fitness Award, CFA (1970), European Test
  of Physical Fitness, Eurofit (1988), Presidents
  Challenge, Fitnessgram
• Focus primarily on Health-Related components of
  fitness (endurance, flexibility, strength)

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What are we actually measuring?

• Genetics/heredity (potential)
• Maturation (young people show a linear increase
  in VO2 max w/age)
• Intervention (our PE programs, PA programs)
• Motivation
• Lifestyle
• Skilled at taking the test
• NOT True Improvement

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Critical Questions

• Are you fit?
• How do you know?
• What criteria did you use?

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ABC Fitness

• District has defined fitness for our students
• Aerobic Fitness (4 station circuit)
• Balance (Stork)
• Core (Plank)

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Why Aerobic?

• One of the best indicators of overall fitness
• Obvious positive health-related outcomes
• Tests are easy to administer to large groups
• Many standards developed

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Why Balance?

• Used on a daily basis (static dynamic)
• Foundation for all movement
• Changing and controlling your center of gravity
• Directly rewires the brain
• Injury prevention

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Why Core?

• Bridges lower body to upper body
• Effective force transfer and skillful movement
  depend on the core to sustain proper spinal
  position
• Enhances throwing, jumping, rotary skills
• Engine of the body
• Wrong focus on extremities first

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Why a Paradigm Shift

• Fitness testing antithetical to the goal of
  promoting physical activity
• Children are not small adults
• Tests need to be appropriate
• Testing needs to be efficient
• Functional fitness (used daily) before
  performance
• Criterion referenced standards
• Safe--not maximal exertion or to exhaustion
• Promote learning and positive attitudes

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Effects on Children of Fitness Testing

• Intrinsic motivation increased with positive
  feedback after test, but decreased after negative
  feedback (Whitehead Corbin, 1991)
• Major contributor to negative attitudes towards
  PE (Luke Sinclair, 1991)
• Tests only motivate those that do well (PEA,
  1988)
• Over emphasis on the product-related issues
  (fitness level, performance) rather than the
  process-related issues (health, physical activity
  behavior) (Cale Harris 2002)

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Effects on Children of Fitness Testing

• Improper testing turns many off activity rather
  than on(Docherty Bell, 1990, Corbin et al.
  1995)
• Communicates a false message that competition and
  excellence are necessary for health and fitness
  (Cale Harris, 2005)
• Children have little understanding why they are
  tested (Hopple Graham, 1995)
• Inappropriate or undesirable use of fitness
  scores to grade children as a primary indicator
  of achievement (Corbin, 2002)

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Recommendations (Cale Harris, 2005)

• Be child-centered developmentally appropriate
• Positive meaningful experience
• Provide individualized baseline scores and
  feedback to improve
• Promote learning and positive attitude towards
  being active
• Scores interpreted carefully because of
  limitations
• Use criterion-referenced standards

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Aerobic Fitness
Grade 8 Emerging Developing Acquired Accomplished
Aerobic Fitness Uses more than 3 rest intervals to engage in moderate physical activities for less than 10 minutes Uses 1-3 rest intervals to engage in moderate to vigorous physical activities for 10 minutes Engages in vigorous physical activities continuously for 10 minutes eg. skip, hop, jog, dance, fitness circuit, school run, etc. Engages in vigorous physical activities continuously for 12 minutes
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Balance
Emerging Developing Acquired Accomplished
Balance (Stork) Adjusts body position more than once to achieve the allotted time Adjusts body position once to achieve the allotted time Maintains a static body position for 60 seconds Maintains a static body position for all 3 trials
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Core
Emerging Developing Acquired Accomplished
Core (Plank) Uses more than 1 rest interval to maintain the proper position for the allotted time Uses 1 rest interval to maintain the proper position for the allotted time Maintains the proper body position for 60 seconds Maintains the proper body position for 2 trials
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Pilot Results