Class Health and Physical Fitness

The Curriculum Unit of Health and Fitness is a structuring discipline in approaching the global concept and integrating the main action of the Exercise Physiologist - the promotion of health through physical exercise and behavior modification. Updated and evidence-based approaches reflect the importance of reducing physical inactivity and promoting physical activity as structuring tools for a healthy and developed society. The notion that well-being is associated with an active lifestyle is essential in the 21st century salutogenic approach and will be taken as the structural pillar of the discipline. It will be given particular emphasis on the possibility of interdisciplinary nature, seeking the extension of content addressed and developed in previous years in terms of prescription and exercise in apparently healthy populations, and deepening this stage in populations with conditions or diseases diagnosed.

Not applicable

Concepts related to health and exercise Interrelationship between concepts of physical activity, physical exercise, sedentary behavior and health Epidemiology of Physical Activity Health-related components of physical fitness Movement Recommendations for the Healthy Adult Prescription of physical exercise in people at special stages of life Pregnancy Children and adolescents Elderly Prescription of physical exercise in people with conditions, pathologies/disease person with metabolic syndrome person with liver disease n people with diabetes person with kidney disease people with hypertension person with cardiovascular disease person with cancer people with osteoarthritis and low back pain person with dementia overweight people

In the UC, expository and experiential learning methods will be used. It will be operationalized in moments of reflection and analysis of data and projects associated with issues close to future professional intervention. In the continuous assessment regime, there will be two written tests (25% each, to be carried out at the end of each semester), a literature review work (20%), an exercise prescription (20%), and a multiple-choice mini-test carried out at the end of each class. Grades lower than 9.5 are considered insufficient, and a supplementary recovery test must be carried out, whenever the average of the partial grades is equal to or greater than 9.5 points. The aforementioned test of recovery of an element will be oral and will take place at the end of the year. The exam will involve a written, practical and oral test. Attendance should correspond to 70% of the total number of classes.  

ACSM (2025). Guidelines for exercise testing and prescription (12th Edition). Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Schoenfeld, B. & Snarr, R. (2022). NSCA Essentials of Personal Training (3rd Edition). Champaign: Human Kinetics.