Teaching Lifetime Sports

The benefits of lifelong fitness activity are enormous, but the United States seems to be experiencing a decline in health-related fitness levels. The information presented here will be especially suited to undergraduates in physical education methods classes or those with limited teaching experience, for planning, organizing, and sequencing activities. It also provides the novice teacher with a starting point to effectively teach lifetime sports and fitness activities. For more experienced teachers, the book will serve as a guide for teaching lifetime sports, and more importantly, assist them in focusing their efforts on sound teaching principles based on current research.

Focusing on activities in which a person can participate over the course of a lifetime, this book can make a major contribution to the development of health-related components of physical fitness through sport. The book will assist teachers in meeting the letter and intent of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education's Content Standards in Physical Education. These standards promote the development of a physically educated person, who is defined as one who has learned skills necessary to perform a variety of physical activities, is physically fit, participates regularly in physical activity, knows the implications of and the benefits from involvement in physical activities, and values physical activity and its contribution to a healthful lifestyle.

LAWRENCE F. BUTLER is Associate Professor, Department of Physical Education, United States Military Academy at West Point.