Effects of a physical education-based programme on health-related physical fitness and its maintenance in high school students

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a physical education-based development and maintenance programme on objective and perceived health-related physical fitness in high school students. A sample of 111 students aged 12–14 years old from six classes were cluster-randomly assigned to an experimental group (n = 54) or a control group (n = 57). During the physical education classes, the experimental group students performed a development programme twice a week for nine weeks. Then, after a four-week period of detraining, the experimental group students completed a maintenance programme twice a week for eight weeks. Students’ objective cardiorespiratory fitness (20-meter shuttle run test), objective muscular fitness (flexion-extension legs test), and perceived physical fitness (International Fitness Scale and the Contour Drawing Rating Scale) were measured at the beginning and at the end of the development programme, as well as at the end of the maintenance programme. The results of the two-way analyses of variance showed that the physical education-based development programme significantly increased the students’ objective physical fitness levels, and that these gains obtained remained after the maintenance programme (p < 0.01). However, the intervention programme did not show an influence on the students’ perceived physical fitness (p > 0.05). The physical education-based intervention programme was effective in increasing and maintaining objective physical fitness among high school students. This knowledge could help teachers to design programmes that permit a feasible and effective development and maintenance of health-related physical fitness in a physical education setting.

Keywords

Intervention programme cardiorespiratory fitness muscular fitness perceived physical fitness adolescents

Introduction

Physical fitness is nowadays considered as one of the most powerful markers of health, even above other traditional markers such as weight status, blood pressure or cholesterol level (Blair, 2009). Current evidence has shown how physical fitness status is an important predictor of morbidity and mortality in adults (Kodama et al., 2009). Particularly in children and adolescents, for instance, higher cardiorespiratory fitness levels have been associated with a healthier cardiovascular profile in adulthood, and muscular strength improvements have been negatively related to changes in overall adiposity (Ruiz et al., 2009). Furthermore, in young people higher physical fitness levels have been associated with a healthier psychological status related to markers such as depression, anxiety, self-esteem or self-concept (Ortega et al., 2008; Ruiz et al., 2009).

Unfortunately, currently low physical fitness affects a large number of adolescents. For instance, in Spain about one in five adolescents has a physical fitness level indicative of future cardiovascular risk (Ortega et al., 2005). Therefore, health promotion policies should be designed to promote physical fitness levels from childhood, especially cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness, which are the most important health-related physical fitness components (Ortega et al., 2008; Ruiz et al., 2009). Regarding this public health issue, schools may play an important role in promoting physical fitness levels. Specifically, in most countries physical education (PE) teachers are required to carry out intervention programmes in order to improve students’ health-related physical fitness levels (e.g. Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, 2007; National Association for Sport and Physical Education, 2004).

However, a PE-based planning problem for developing students’ health-related physical fitness levels is the necessity to “deliver” a large volume of curricular content during each academic year (Viciana et al., 2014). Additionally, PE potential is restricted by its limited curriculum time allocation (Hardman, 2008). Therefore, despite the fact that a long-term programme is the best way to improve physical fitness (Meyer et al., 2014), in many countries the application of a short-term physical fitness development programme is one feasible option in the PE setting (Viciana et al., 2014). In this line, previous PE-based studies found that a short-term intervention programme performed only twice a week can improve students’ physical fitness levels (Faigenbaum and Mediate, 2006; Mayorga-Vega et al., 2013; Ramírez Lechuga et al., 2012; Santos et al., 2011; Weeks et al., 2008).

Another PE-based planning problem related to physical fitness is its expected decrease after a period of detraining. Previous studies have found that after eight to 12 weeks of detraining, children show a significant loss in the obtained gains in physical fitness levels (e.g. Ingle et al., 2006; Tsolakis et al., 2004). Therefore, previous authors have suggested that, after a physical fitness development programme, PE teachers should include some maintenance programmes to retain students’ physical fitness levels throughout the entire academic year (Viciana et al., 2014). In this line, after a physical fitness development programme performed twice a week, Mayorga-Vega et al. (2013) carried out a maintenance programme once a week, while the students performed other PE curricular content in the other weekly session. This intervention programme permitted the retention of the physical fitness levels previously achieved; however, it involved consuming too much time available for PE lessons. Hence, this kind of maintenance programme would interfere with the normal development of other curricular content in PE.

A possible alternative for this problem could be the planning of physical fitness maintenance through other PE curricular content. This way, apart from maintaining the physical fitness levels previously obtained, these programmes would allow the teaching of other PE content at the same time. To our knowledge there are no previous studies examining the effect of a PE-based maintenance programme through other curricular content in order to maintain physical fitness levels achieved through a development programme. Consequently, the main purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of a PE-based development and maintenance programme on objective and perceived health-related physical fitness in high school students. A secondary purpose of this study was to analyze the objective and perceived physical activity levels during the PE-based development and maintenance programme.

Material and methods

Participants

The study protocol was first approved by the Ethical Committee of the University of Granada. Then, a public high school from an urban area in the Andalucía Region (Spain) was selected for the study. This high school was chosen because it had the appropriate conditions for the study: (a) an adequate indoor sports facility for the tests, and (b) a large number of classes per grade. After the school approvals were obtained, according to the school's suggestion all the students from the second grade (i.e. eighth grade of schooling) were invited to participate in the present study. Adolescents and their legal guardians were fully informed about all the features of the study and were required to sign an informed consent form.

For practical reasons and due to the nature of the present study (the intervention was focused on already established classes in a school setting) a cluster-randomized controlled trial was used (Mayorga-Vega et al., 2013; Merino-Marban et al., 2015). Therefore, the six established classes were assigned randomly to form one of the following study groups: control group (CG) or experimental group (EG). All the experimental and control sessions were performed by the same PE teacher of the participating school. The inclusion criterion was to have an attendance rate of 85% or higher for PE classes during the intervention period. Finally, a sample of 111 students, 70 boys and 41 girls, aged 12–14 years old agreed to participate and met the inclusion criterion. For general characteristics of the participants, see the Results section. According to the school reports, most of the students’ families had a middle socioeconomic status. All the participants were free of any health disorder such as heart diseases, uncontrolled asthma, bone/ joint problems or other reasons why children should not undergo physical activity.

Measures

Evaluation was carried out during the PE classes at the beginning and at the end of the development intervention programme (pretest and posttest, respectively) in order to examine possible changes produced. Subsequently, after a period of detraining (coinciding with the Christmas holidays) and the application of the maintenance intervention programme, the participants were evaluated again in order to observe the levels of retention (retest). Each evaluation was carried out during two PE sessions of the same week. Students’ perceived physical fitness and objective muscular fitness were assessed during the first test session. During the second test session, students’ objective cardiorespiratory fitness was evaluated.

Each evaluation was carried out by the same tester, using the same instruments and under the same conditions. The measurements were taken in an indoor sports facility with a non-slippery floor, under the same environmental conditions, on the same day of the week and at the same time for each student. Prior to the objective physical fitness tests, the participants completed a standardized warm-up consisting of five minutes of running from low to moderate intensity followed by some joint mobility exercises. The order and a brief description of the measures protocol were as follows:

Perceived physical fitness

Perceived overall physical fitness, cardiorespiratory fitness and muscular fitness were measured using the three specific single-response items included in the International Fitness Scale (Ortega et al., 2011). The three 10-point Likert-scale items asked the participants to compare their perceived overall physical fitness, cardiorespiratory fitness and muscular fitness with their friends’ physical fitness (from 1 = “very poor” to 10 = “very good”). Then, the students’ perceived body image was also assessed by Thompson and Gray’s (1995) Contour Drawing Rating Scale. For this purpose, participants were asked to choose among nine possible figures which one would best represent their own bodies. Both scales have demonstrated adequate reliability and validity among adolescents (Ortega et al., 2011; Viciana et al., 2015).

Objective muscular fitness

The flexion-extension legs test was used to assess the lower limbs’ muscular endurance. Standing parallel close to the wall, the participants placed their feet at the width of their shoulders. Then, the participants raised their right upper-limb extended touching a mark with their fingers. From this position, the participants had to flex their knees until touching the floor with both their hands and then return to the starting position as many times as possible in 30 seconds. Participants were urged to fix their feet on the floor during the test, avoiding jumps or displacements. The participants carried out two repetitions before the test, and then they performed the test once. The total number of repetitions performed by each participant in 30 seconds was recorded. The flexion-extension legs test has shown adequate reliability and validity among adolescents (Martínez López, 2002).

Objective cardiorespiratory fitness

The 20-meter shuttle run test was used to assess cardiorespiratory fitness. The participants ran between two parallel lines placed 20 meters apart, in the rhythm marked by a recorded beep. The starting speed was 8.5 km/h and it increased 0.5 km/h every minute. The test ended when the participants stopped running because of fatigue or failed to reach the line before the next signal for two consecutive times. During the test each participant wore a heart rate monitor (Polar® RS300X, Finland). Participants were allowed to perform the test once. The total time in seconds was retained. The 20-meter shuttle run test has demonstrated adequate reliability and criterion-related validity among adolescents (Léger et al., 1988; Mayorga-Vega et al., 2015).

Procedures

A physical fitness programme was applied to the EG during the PE classes. In accordance with the established curriculum and the approval of the educational institution, the sessions were designed by the PE teacher with the supervision of the main researcher (DMV). Then, the intervention programme was carried out by the PE teacher. First, the EG students performed a development programme twice a week for nine weeks. Then, after a four-week period of detraining coinciding with the Christmas holiday, the EG participants completed a maintenance programme twice a week for eight weeks. Since two lessons of each programme coincided with holidays, in the end the EG students completed a total of 16 and 14 sessions of the development and maintenance programmes, respectively.

Each intervention session lasted approximately 50 minutes and consisted of a 5-to-10-minute warm-up, 35-to-40-minute main part, and five-minute cool-down. During the warm-up the students performed low-to-moderate aerobic activities followed by some joint mobility and stretching exercises of the main body parts. For instance, a general warm-up consisted of three to five minutes of jogging followed by six to eight joint mobility exercises (eight to 10 repetitions) and six to eight static stretching exercises (10–15 seconds) of the main regions. During the development programme, in the main part students performed commonly used PE-based physical fitness sessions (e.g. strength games, running games, circuit training, multi-jumps, or multi-throws) followed by some team games. For example, during the strength games session students performed six traditional strength games and their variants (tug-of-war, pushing game, piggy-back races, sumo fighting, and standing and all fours games that consist of throwing the opponent off balance) for five minutes each followed by the team game dodgeball for 10 minutes.

Regarding the maintenance programme, in the main part of the sessions students carried out 10–15 minutes of sports-integrated training activities followed by 20–30 minutes of introduction activities to these same sports (basketball, futsal, volleyball and acrosport). For example, the main part of a basketball session consisted of walking while bouncing a ball (two minutes), an endurance race while bouncing a ball (five minutes), and a three-minute circuit while bouncing a ball (two repetitions) for the sports-integrated training part; then, for the introduction activities to the sport, traditional basketball learning exercises were performed depending on the session objective (i.e. bounce, pass, throw, etc.); finally, students performed a match in a small-sided game situation such as 2 × 2, 3 × 3, and so on. During the whole intervention period one session a week was mainly focused on aerobic activities and the other one on muscular fitness activities. The PE teacher placed special emphasis on reaching a moderate-to-vigorous intensity during the experimental sessions. Finally, students carried out some conventional light activities during the cool-down period.

As regards the CG students, they also participated in their PE sessions twice a week during the intervention period. Similarly, the sessions lasted approximately 50 minutes and consisted of a 5-to-10-minute warm-up, 35-to-40-minute main part, and five-minute cool-down. However, the content and methodology followed during the main part of the sessions were different. During the development programme period, the CG performed sports sessions (volleyball and badminton) instead of physical fitness. On the other hand, during the maintenance programme period, the CG students were involved in similar sports to the EG students (basketball, hockey and acrosport). However, during both the development and maintenance programme, the EG sessions were based on the intensity of the tasks, implicating big muscle groups, and performing games. Meanwhile, the CG sessions were mostly based on technique-learning practice.

Intensity control

The intensity of all the sessions was controlled during the intervention period. At the end of each PE session all the students reported their global perceived exertion using a pictorial perceived exertion scale (from 0 = “not tired at all” to 10 = “very, very tired”). The pictorial perceived exertion scale has demonstrated adequate reliability and validity among adolescents (test-retest reliability, intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) = 0.95; validity, r = 0.89) (Pfeiffer et al., 2002). Additionally, the heart rates of students were recorded during the sessions. For this purpose, in one session a week, five students from each class were randomly selected to wear a heart rate monitor (Polar® RS300X, Finland) during the whole session. One week prior to the first evaluation all the students performed a familiarization session with the pictorial perceived exertion scale during which they were taught how to use the scale. Then, they performed five to six activities of different intensities during which they had to self-report their perceived exertion. Then, in the next session of the same week, in addition to taking the anthropometric data, children were taught how to properly place the heart rate monitor.

Analysis

Besides some common exploratory analyses for potential data errors such as in the extreme cases (i.e. values greater than three standard deviations), additional examinations of data were carried out. For the 20-meter shuttle run test the scores of those participants who did not reach a heart rate value equal to or higher than 90% of estimated maximum heart rate were deleted. For the objective physical activity levels, the data of the participants whose heart rate had been registered less than 50% of the time of the session were also eliminated. Because of the deleted data for the above-mentioned exploratory analyses or simply because the participants did not attend some evaluation session, sample sizes vary slightly for the different variables. However, to make the maximum use of the data, all valid data on physical fitness and physical activity variables were included in this study.

Afterward, statistical tests assumptions (i.e. normality, homogeneity of variance, sphericity, etc.) were examined and met for all the tests conducted. Descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations) for general characteristics of the sample, objective and perceived physical fitness, and objective and perceived physical activity levels were calculated. Then, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to examine potential differences between the two groups in terms of body mass, height, body mass index, and baseline values of both objective and perceived physical fitness. Additionally, chi-squared analyses were carried out to test the ratio differences of gender and extracurricular sport practitioners between the two groups.

Subsequently, the effect of the PE-based development and maintenance programme on objective and perceived physical fitness was examined using a two-way ANOVA applied over the dependent variables (body mass index was used as a covariate when the objective cardiorespiratory fitness was analyzed), including group as an independent variable (CG, EG) and time as a dependent variable (pretest, posttest, retest). Afterwards, for the post hoc analyses, α values were corrected using the Bonferroni adjustment. Moreover, the Hedges’ g effect size was used to examine the magnitude of treatment effects (Hedges, 2007). Additionally, the test-retest reliability of the dependent variables was estimated using the ICC from two-way ANOVA (ICC_{3, k}) (Shrout and Fleiss, 1979), as well as the 95% confidence interval. Finally, a one-way ANOVA was used to compare the objective and perceived physical activity levels during the PE-based development and maintenance programme between the EG and CG. All statistical analyses were performed using the SPSS version 20.0 for Windows (IBM® SPSS® Statistics 20). The statistical significance level was set at p < 0.05.

Results

General characteristics

The EG participants obtained an average attendance of 98% and 97% in the development and maintenance programmes, respectively. The general characteristics of the participants are shown in Table 1. The one-way ANOVA results did not show statistically significant differences in body mass, height, and body mass index values between the EG and CG (p > 0.05). Additionally, the chi-square analyses showed that the two groups had a balanced representation of boys and girls and extracurricular sport practitioners and non-practitioners (p > 0.05). Moreover, the one-way ANOVA results did not show statistically significant differences in the baseline values of any objective and perceived physical fitness variables between the EG and CG (p > 0.05).

Table 1.

General characteristics (mean ± standard deviation/ frequency) of the participants and differences between experimental and control groups.

	Sample (n = 111)	Control (n = 57)	Experimental (n = 54)	p ^a
Age (year)	12.5 ± 0.7	12.6 ± 0.7	12.4 ± 0.6	–
Body mass (kg)	54.5 ± 16.0	56.9 ± 19.3	52.0 ± 11.2	0.106
Height (cm)	158.7 ± 7.8	159.9 ± 7.8	157.5 ± 7.6	0.117
Body mass index (kg/m²)	21.4 ± 5.1	22.0 ± 6.2	20.8 ± 3.6	0.215
Gender (boys/ girls)	70 / 41	38 / 19	32 / 22	0.419
Extracurricular sport (yes/ no)^b	86 / 25	46 / 11	40 / 14	0.403

^aSignificance level from the one-way analysis of variance for body mass, height and body mass index, and from the chi squared test for the gender and extracurricular sport ratios.

^bChildren that regularly participated (yes) or not (no) at least twice per week in extracurricular sport activities.

Objective physical fitness

Table 2 shows the effect of the PE-based intervention programme on objective physical fitness levels. The results of the two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) on the average obtained in the cardiorespiratory fitness test showed a significant interaction effect between the group and time variables (F _2,178 = 11.410; p < 0.001). Subsequently, for post hoc analyses, the ANCOVA with the Bonferroni adjustment showed that the EG increased statistically significantly from pretest to posttest (p = 0.032) and from pretest to retest (p = 0.001). However, no significant differences were found from posttest to retest for the EG (p = 0.098). For the CG no significant differences were found (p > 0.05), except from the pretest to posttest, which decreased statistically significantly (p = 0.034). The test-retest reliability for cardiorespiratory fitness measure was 0.96 (0.93–0.98).

Table 2.

Effect of the physical education-based intervention programme on objective physical fitness.

Group	Pretest (1) (M ± SD)	Posttest (2) (M ± SD)	Retest (3) (M ± SD)	p ^a	Effect size^b
Group	Pretest (1) (M ± SD)	Posttest (2) (M ± SD)	Retest (3) (M ± SD)	p ^a	1–2	2–3	1–3
Cardiorespiratory fitness (s)
Experimental (n = 50)	312.7 ± 128.0	327.7 ± 116.5^c	338.9 ± 118.4^g	< 0.001	0.25	0.08	0.33
Control (n = 42)	289.9 ± 119.5	273.7 ± 117.2^c	275.3 ± 111.1
Muscular fitness (n)
Experimental (n = 52)	27.0 ± 3.5	29.2 ± 3.5^e	29.5 ± 3.5^h	0.009	0.29	0.16	0.44
Control (n = 48)	27.2 ± 3.4	28.4 ± 3.1^d	28.2 ± 3.2^f

M: mean; SD: standard deviation.

^aSignificance level from two-way analysis of variance (and with the covariance body mass index for the variable cardiorespiratory fitness) with the post hoc analysis with Bonferroni adjustment: Change statistically significant from pretest to posttest (^c p < 0.05, ^d p < 0.01, ^e p < 0.001) and from pretest to retest (^f p < 0.05, ^g p < 0.01, ^h p < 0.01).

^bHedges’ g effect size.

Regarding the muscular fitness test, the results of the two-way ANOVA showed a significant interaction effect between the group and time variables (F _2,196 = 5.139; p = 0.009). Subsequently, for post hoc analyses, the ANOVA with the Bonferroni adjustment showed that the EG increased statistically significantly from pretest to posttest and from pretest to retest (p < 0.001). However, no significant differences were found from posttest to retest for the EG (p = 0.723). Regarding the CG, the ANOVA with the Bonferroni adjustment also showed statistically significant differences from pretest to posttest (p = 0.001) and from pretest to retest (p = 0.047), but not from posttest to retest (p = 1.000). The test-retest reliability for the muscular fitness measure was 0.92 (0.86–0.95).

Perceived physical fitness

Table 3 shows the effect of the PE-based intervention programme on students’ perceived physical fitness levels. The results of the two-way ANOVA on the average obtained in the perceived physical fitness values did not show significant interaction effects between the group and time variables: overall physical fitness (F _2,214 = 0.816; p = 0.437), cardiorespiratory fitness (F _2,214 = 1.301; p = 0.273), muscular fitness (F _2,214 = 0.784; p = 0.458) and body image (F _2,214 = 0.995; p = 0.372). The test-retest reliability for the perceived physical fitness values was good: overall physical fitness 0.87 (0.78–0.93), cardiorespiratory fitness 0.80 (0.67–0.89), muscular fitness 0.84 (0.72–0.90), and body image 0.85 (0.74–0.91).

Table 3.

Effect of the physical education-based intervention programme on perceived physical fitness.

Group	Pretest (1) (M ± SD)	Posttest (2) (M ± SD)	Retest (3) (M ± SD)	p ^a	Effect size^b
Group	Pretest (1) (M ± SD)	Posttest (2) (M ± SD)	Retest (3) (M ± SD)	p ^a	1–2	2–3	1–3
Overall physical fitness^c
Experimental (n = 54)	7.2 ± 1.6	7.0 ± 1.4	6.8 ± 1.6^f	0.437	–0.03	–0.13	–0.15
Control (n = 55)	7.1 ± 1.5	6.9 ± 1.2	6.9 ± 1.4
Cardiorespiratory fitness^c
Experimental (n = 54)	6.8 ± 1.8	6.7 ± 1.7	6.5 ± 1.8	0.237	0.24	–0.15	0.10
Control (n = 55)	6.8 ± 1.7	6.2 ± 1.6^e	6.2 ± 1.6^f
Muscular fitness^c
Experimental (n = 54)	6.7 ± 1.8	6.6 ± 1.6	6.6 ± 1.7	0.458	0.16	–0.14	0.02
Control (n = 55)	6.9 ± 1.2	6.5 ± 1.4	6.8 ± 1.4
Body image^d
Experimental (n = 54)	5.5 ± 1.2	5.3 ± 0.9	5.5 ± 1.1	0.372	–0.18	0.13	–0.07
Control (n = 55)	5.5 ± 1.2	5.5 ± 1.2	5.6 ± 1.1

M: mean; SD: standard deviation.

^aSignificance level from two-way analysis of variance with the post hoc analysis with Bonferroni adjustment: Change statistically significant from pretest to posttest (^e p < 0.05) and from pretest to retest (^f p < 0.05).

^bHedges’ g effect size.

^cThe scores ranged from 1 = “very poor” to 10 = “very good.”

^dThe scores ranged from 1 to 9.

Objective and perceived physical activity

Table 4 shows the comparison of the perceived and objective physical activity levels during the PE-based development and maintenance programme between the EG and CG. The results for the physical activity levels during the PE sessions in both the development programme and the maintenance programme were similar. The results of the one-way ANOVA found that the EG had statistically significantly greater levels of objective physical activity (i.e. average heart rate, average of the percentage of maximum heart rate, and percentage of total time involved in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity) than the CG (p < 0.001). Similarly, the EG participants reported statistically significantly higher values of perceived exertion rating than the CG (p < 0.001). On the other hand, no significant differences were found in the total time of PE sessions between groups (p > 0.05).

Table 4.

Comparison of perceived and objective physical activity levels during the physical education-based development and maintenance programme between the experimental and control groups.

	Control		Experimental		p ^a	g ^b
	n	(M ± SD)	n	(M ± SD)	p ^a	g ^b
Development programme
RPE	56	3.0 ± 1.3	54	6.2 ± 1.1	< 0.001	2.71
Heart rate average (bpm)	50	131.0 ± 13.7	50	145.5 ± 14.4	< 0.001	1.04
Heart rate average (%)	50	64.5 ± 6.7	50	71.7 ± 7.1	< 0.001	1.04
MVPA (%)	50	35.6 ± 20.8	50	57.6 ± 18.9	< 0.001	1.11
Total time (minutes)	50	51.3 ± 2.2	50	50.5 ± 2.7	0.122	−0.31
Maintenance programme
RPE	57	2.9 ± 1.2	54	5.7 ± 1.2	< 0.001	2.28
Heart rate average (bpm)	45	133.3 ± 16.5	44	147.4 ± 13.3	< 0.001	0.94
Heart rate average (%)	45	65.7 ± 8.1	44	72.6 ± 6.5	< 0.001	0.94
MVPA (%)	45	37.5 ± 25.3	44	59.3 ± 22.0	< 0.001	0.92
Total time (minutes)	45	49.6 ± 2.6	44	50.2 ± 1.7	0.212	0.27

M: mean; SD: standard deviation; RPE: rating of perceived exertion (the scores ranged from 0 = “not tired at all” to 10 = “very, very tired”); MVPA: moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (percentage of total time involved in an intensity ≥ 70% of maximum heart rate).

^aSignificance level from one-way analysis of variance.

^bHedges^’ g effect size.

Discussion

Objective physical fitness

The main purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of a PE-based development and maintenance programme on objective health-related physical fitness in high school students. Planning a long-term physical fitness programme is the best way to improve physical fitness levels (Meyer et al., 2014). However, a PE-based planning problem for developing students’ health-related physical fitness levels is the fact that much curricular content must be developed in a school year (e.g. health-related physical fitness, sports, body expression, or physical activities in the natural environment) (Viciana et al., 2014). Moreover, another planning-related problem is the fact that PE is restricted by its limited curriculum time allocation (Hardman, 2008). For instance, in several European countries PE is limited to only two sessions a week (European Commission/ EACEA/ Eurydice, 2013).

Consequently, since physical fitness programmes cannot last the whole academic year or a large part of it, in the PE setting the application of a short-term physical fitness development programme is one feasible option (Viciana et al., 2014). In this sense, the results of this study showed that a PE-based physical fitness programme performed twice a week for only nine weeks significantly improved both objective cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness in high school students. Similar to the present results, some previous PE-based studies found that a short-term intervention programme performed twice a week can significantly improve students’ cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness (Faigenbaum and Mediate, 2006; Mayorga-Vega et al., 2013; Ramírez Lechuga et al., 2012; Santos et al., 2011; Weeks et al., 2008).

As regards the objective muscular fitness, the CG students also showed a statistically significant increase of their test scores compared to their baseline levels. However, these findings could be simply due to several previously described reasons such as maturation or testing effects (Thomas et al., 2011). Similar to the present study, previous short-term intervention studies have also found a statistically significant increase in CG students’ scores (e.g. Weeks et al., 2008). Nevertheless, it must be highlighted that in the present study the two-way ANOVA results showed statistically significant interaction effects, and in the EG the intra-group comparisons showed a greater increase in the objective muscular fitness values. In this line, the effect size for the muscular fitness was also positive in favor of the EG. Therefore, the results of the present intervention showed a clear statistically significant positive effect on EG students’ objective muscular fitness.

On the other hand, another PE planning-related problem is that physical fitness gains are expected to decrease after a period of detraining. PE teachers usually carry out a physical fitness programme for a few weeks, and then they teach other content without considering how long the effect will last. Furthermore, in addition to all the above-mentioned limitations that PE teachers have to face (i.e. many curricular contents must be developed in a school year and with limited curriculum time allocation), the academic year is frequently interrupted by several holiday periods. In this line, previous studies have found that after eight to 12 weeks of detraining children show a significant loss of the physical fitness obtained gains (e.g. Ingle et al., 2006; Tsolakis et al., 2004). Therefore, a maintenance programme should be applied in order to maintain the physical fitness levels previously gained during the rest of the academic year (called reinforced teaching units) (Viciana et al., 2014; Viciana and Mayorga-Vega, 2015).

Currently the evidence about the efficacy of physical fitness maintenance programmes among school-age children is still limited and contradictory (Blimkie et al., 1989; DeRenne et al., 1996), especially in the PE setting (Mayorga-Vega et al., 2013). On the one hand, DeRenne et al. (1996) found that a maintenance programme carried out once a week in young basketball players was efficient to retain muscular fitness. However, on the other hand, Blimkie et al. (1989) found that a maintenance programme carried out once a week in children was not sufficient to retain muscular fitness. Nevertheless, it should be noted that those previous studies were carried out in different settings and, also, in contrast to the present study, in those studies the maintenance programme was applied right after the development programme. Regrettably, as mentioned before, since academic periods are frequently alternated with holidays, this is not a real situation in a PE setting.

Similar to the present study, Mayorga-Vega et al. (2013) found that, after a physical fitness development programme carried out twice a week followed by a four-week period of detraining (coinciding with the Christmas holiday), a PE-based maintenance programme helped maintain the cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness levels previously obtained. This is the most common situation in PE planning because of the typical alternation of PE sessions with holiday periods. However, in the aforementioned study the maintenance programme was carried out once a week (alternated with sports content in the other weekly session) instead of through other curricular content such as in the present study. Although the Mayorga-Vega et al. (2013) intervention programme permitted the retention of the physical fitness levels previously achieved, by following this approach (i.e. alternating sports and fitness sessions during the maintenance programme) teaching health-related physical fitness content could consume too much of the time available in PE planning. Hence, this approach followed in the maintenance programme would interfere in the teaching of the other PE curricular content. Consequently, one of the most important outcomes of the present study was to find out that a maintenance programme delivered through sports activities allows the retention of physical fitness levels previously obtained. Moreover, a maintenance programme delivered through sports activities seems to be more feasible in a PE setting.

Regarding the magnitude of the effects of the intervention on objective physical fitness, previous studies with short-term PE-based physical fitness programmes carried out twice a week among high school students found similar results both for objective cardiorespiratory fitness (median g = 0.21, 0.16 to 0.31) (Ramírez Lechuga et al., 2012; Santos et al., 2011) and muscular fitness (median g = 0.23, –0.15 to 0.45) (Faigenbaum and Mediate, 2006; Santos et al., 2011; Weeks et al., 2008). Regarding the maintenance programme, however, to our knowledge there are no previous studies examining the effect of a PE-based maintenance programme throughout sports sessions. Nevertheless, similar to the present study, Mayorga-Vega et al. (2013) carried out a PE-based maintenance programme once a week while in the other session the schoolchildren performed sports sessions like the CG did. Although children improved muscular endurance slightly more than in the present study (g = 0.27 vs. 0.16), the cardiorespiratory fitness was not maintained like in the present study (g = –0.11 vs. 0.08). Therefore, the magnitude effects of the present study on the objective health-related physical fitness were moderate, indicating that the intervention was effective.

On the other hand, increasing training factors such as frequency, duration and/ or intensity of the intervention programme could have a positive consequence for the magnitude effects. In this line, Ramírez Lechuga et al. (2012) examined the effects of a PE-based programme and found that increasing the frequency of sessions from two to three times a week had a positive effect on cardiorespiratory fitness among adolescent girls (g = 0.16 vs. 0.56), but not among adolescent boys (g = 0.18 and 0.19, respectively). Similarly, Ardoy et al. (2011) found that, among high school students, simply doubling the PE sessions per week (i.e. from two to four sessions) had a significant increase in cardiorespiratory fitness within 16 weeks (g = 0.40). Moreover, these same authors found that, in addition to doubling the frequency of sessions per week (i.e. volume), when the intensity of the PE sessions was also increased the improvement was even higher (g = 0.85). Unfortunately, the preceding authors did not find the same increase in muscular strength (g = –0.01/ –0.06). Additionally, since in most European countries PE is limited only to two sessions per week (European Commission/ EACEA/ Eurydice, 2013), currently the application of these programmes seems to not be feasible in the PE setting.

Perceived physical fitness

The second main purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a PE-based development and maintenance programme on high school students’ perceived physical fitness. Health is regarded not merely as the freedom from disease or injury, but also a state of complete physical and psychosocial well-being (World Health Organization, 1946). Physical self-concept, which is regarded as an important subdomain of overall self-concept, incorporates different characteristics such as perceived fitness and appearance (Marsh et al., 1994). In this line, perceived physical fitness attains relevance due to its potential effects on the levels of physical activity (Planinsec and Fosnaric, 2005), and in turn on physical and psychosocial well-being (Alfermann and Stoll, 2000).

Consequently, improving students’ perceived physical fitness should also be an important issue in the PE setting. Unfortunately, the results of the present study showed that the PE-based development and maintenance programme did not show an influence on the students’ perceived physical fitness variables studied. Previous studies examining the effects of PE-based physical fitness programmes on students’ perceived physical fitness are limited (Mayorga-Vega et al., 2012; Sadres et al., 2001; Schmidt et al., 2013), especially among high school students (Schneider et al., 2008). Similar to the present study, Schneider et al. (2008) found that a PE-based intervention performed five sessions a week did not improve students’ overall perceived physical fitness, or students’ perceived cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular fitness and body image. Moreover, in most of the preceding studies carried out with elementary schoolchildren the intervention did not improve students’ perceived physical fitness (Mayorga-Vega et al., 2012; Sadres et al., 2001; Schmidt et al., 2013; Schneider et al., 2008). On the contrary, Schmidt et al. (2013) found that a physical fitness intervention carried out twice a week for 10 weeks improved children’s perceived cardiorespiratory fitness, but they did not find the same effects on students’ perceived muscular fitness.

Regarding the magnitude effects of the intervention on students’ perceived physical fitness, the present study showed similar results as previous studies for overall perceived physical fitness (median g = –0.03, –0.07 to 0.18) (Mayorga-Vega et al., 2012; Sadres et al., 2001; Schneider et al., 2008), perceived cardiorespiratory fitness (median g = 0.18, –0.10 to 0.21) (Mayorga-Vega et al., 2012; Schmidt et al., 2013; Schneider et al., 2008), perceived muscular fitness (median g = 0.04, 0.04 to 0.30) (Mayorga-Vega et al., 2012; Schmidt et al., 2013; Schneider et al., 2008) and body image (median g = 0.10, 0.05 to 0.14) (Mayorga-Vega et al., 2012; Schneider et al., 2008). Therefore, a physical fitness programme in children seems not to have the same positive influence on perceived physical fitness like in adults (e.g. Brazell-Roberts and Thomas, 1990). Apart from the physiological differences between children and adults, one reason for this difference could be the fact that in the present study the baseline values were high and, therefore, such scores could be difficult to increase as a result of a short-term programme (Mayorga-Vega et al., 2012).

Objective and perceived physical activity

A secondary purpose of this study was to examine students’ objective and perceived physical activity levels during the PE-based development and maintenance programme. PE has been considered as a key opportunity for adolescents to contribute in the achievement of recommended moderate-to-vigorous physical activity levels for several reasons (Brusseau et al., 2011). Firstly, in many countries PE is a compulsory subject for all students. Secondly, PE has been shown to contribute significantly to adolescents’ total daily physical activity (Brusseau et al., 2011). Ideally, children should spend at least 50% of their PE time on moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2010). Several previous studies found that the above-mentioned target is rarely met in most PE sessions (Fairclough and Stratton, 2005). The results of the present study indicated that the EG students had greater levels of objective and perceived physical activity than the CG during the PE sessions both in development and maintenance programmes. Furthermore, another important outcome of the present study is the finding that the intervention programme allows the meeting of the above-mentioned target during PE sessions.

Recently, Lonsdale et al. (2013) carried out a systematic review of interventions designed to increase moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in PE lessons. Similar to the present study, most previous studies found that a PE-based intervention increased statistically significantly the time of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in PE lessons. However, two of the seven studies included did not find a statistically significant increase in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (Strand and Anderson, 1996; Verstraete et al., 2007). On the other hand, as regards perceived physical activity, previous studies examining the effect of a PE-based intervention on students’ perceived physical activity levels were not found. Finally, regarding the magnitude effects of the intervention, the present study showed similar results to previous studies about interventions designed to increase moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (median g = 0.84, 0.16 to 2.79) (Lonsdale et al., 2013). Therefore, the magnitude effects of the present study were moderate, indicating that the intervention was effective in increasing health-enhancing physical activity levels during PE lessons.

Conclusions and future studies

In conclusion, to our knowledge this is the first study that examines the effect of a short-term physical fitness programme followed by a maintenance programme through sports activities in a PE setting. The results of the present study suggest that it is possible to develop and maintain objective cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness in the PE setting. However, this kind of intervention programme does not seem to change the students’ perceived physical fitness variables studied. On the other hand, another important outcome of the present study is the fact that the intervention programme increased the objective and perceived physical activity levels, exceeding the recommended moderate-to-vigorous physical activity levels during PE sessions. In addition to the development and maintenance of physical fitness levels, at the same time the present intervention programme permits the regular development of other PE curricular content. Therefore, this finding could help teachers to design programmes that would permit a feasible and effective development and maintenance of health-related physical fitness in a PE setting. Future research studies should examine the effects of PE-based intervention programmes through other curricular content in order to maintain the physical fitness levels achieved through a development programme. Moreover, future research studies should also examine the effects of alternative PE-based approaches such as, for example, the Dynamic PE model in order to develop health-related physical fitness at the same time that students focus on other curricular content such as skills and games.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge all the participating students and their parents, without whom the present study could not have been carried out. Additionally, the authors acknowledge all the members of the school for their enthusiasm and collaboration, especially the school principal and the physical education teachers. We also thank BSc Adrián Brenes Podadera for his great collaboration on the data collection. We thank Raquel Merino and Anna Szczesniak for the English revision. Finally, the authors would like to express our gratitude to the Editor Dr Nollaig McEvilly and two anonymous reviewers for all the hard work and detailed care that have undoubtedly improved the present manuscript.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (grant number AP2010-5905 (Daniel Mayorga-Vega)).

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