Units

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Sample subject outline - Semester 1 2013

Note: Subject outlines often change before the semester begins. Below is a sample outline.

Rationale

A combination of theoretical knowledge and practical skills are required to enable the safe and effective prescription of appropriate exercise. This unit is designed to introduce students to these basic theoretical concepts, and to apply them to practical situations. To become competent in exercise testing and exercise prescription requires practice. Therefore, it is not expected that students will have achieved competency in all the skills presented, but students are required to complete practical skills training.

Aims

This unit aims to equip students with the basic knowledge, skills and competencies required for exercise prescription. On completion of this unit students should be able to:

1. Explain the evidence for the relationship between physical activity and health-related physical fitness.
   
2. Screen prospective clients for contraindications to exercise.
   
3. Assess physical fitness in apparently healthy clients, and write a client report.
   
4. Explain the principles for exercise prescription and the scientific evidence for physiological adaptations to aerobic and anaerobic training.
   
5. Prescribe safe, appropriate and effective exercise for apparently healthy clients.

Objectives

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

1. Explain the evidence for the relationship between physical activity and health-related physical fitness. Students are required to show the ability to explain the evidence for the relationship between physical activity and health-related physical fitness, and be able to outline the public health physical activity recommendations.


2. Screen prospective clients for contraindications to exercise. Students are required to have the ability to perform health risk screening and determine health risk stratification.


3. Assess physical fitness in apparently healthy clients, and write a client report. Students are required to perform sub-maximal and maximal fitness testing and profile health-related physical fitness.


4. Explain the principles for exercise prescription and the scientific evidence for physiological adaptations to aerobic and anaerobic training.


5. Prescribe safe, appropriate and effective exercise for apparently healthy clients.

Content

Dose-Response and Physical Activity Recommendations

1. Outline the major findings of the Surgeon General's report on the population's physical activity participation.


2. Outline the National Physical Activity Guidelines for Australians, and outline the public-health recommendations for quantity of physical activity for health benefits?


3. Explain the different ways by which physical activity and exercise are quantified.


4. Explain the concept of dose-response relationships.


5. Explain the different levels of scientific evidence for the dose-response relationship between exercise and health benefits.


6. Outline the evidence supporting the dose-response relationship between physical activity and health outcomes.


Health Risk Appraisal and Fitness Testing

7. Describe the criteria used to determine whether a given individual requires medical examination prior to, or medical supervision during, fitness testing.


8. Describe the absolute and relative contraindications to fitness testing or participation in exercise.


9. Identify the risks associated with fitness testing.


10. Describe the physiological basis and rationale for each test used in fitness testing, including direct measurement of VO2max, submaximal estimation of VO2max, body composition, muscular strength and endurance, anaerobic power and capacity, and flexibility.


11. Describe the assumptions and limitations of body mass index, and body composition assessment using skinfold measures, bioelectrical impedance, and densitometry.


12. Describe the difference between a Wingate test and a maximally accumulated oxygen deficit (MAOD) test to evaluate anaerobic power and capacity.


13. Demonstrate the ability to obtain informed consent prior to fitness testing.


14. Demonstrate the ability to design and conduct field tests to evaluate anaerobic power and capacity.


15. Demonstrate the ability to interpret a maximally accumulated oxygen deficit (MAOD) test to evaluate anaerobic power and capacity.


16. Demonstrate the ability to conduct fitness tests including submaximal exercise tests to assess VO2max, measurement of muscular strength, endurance and flexibility; and skinfold and circumference measurements and calculation of percent body fat.


17. Demonstrate the ability to interpret results of each of the tests listed above, comparing results to established norms and reporting these values to the individual tested.


18. Demonstrate the ability to calibrate equipment used in exercise physiology such as various ergometers.


19. Demonstrate the ability to measure heart rate, blood pressure and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) prior to, during, and after the submaximal fitness test.


Exercise Programming and Prescription

20. Describe intensity, duration, frequency and type of exercise recommended for health-related benefits in apparently healthy and low risk individuals.


21. Describe the relationship between exercise heart rate, work rate and rating of perceived exertion.


22. Explain the different stages of an exercise program, i.e. initial, improvement and maintenance.


23. Demonstrate the ability to use information from the fitness test in prescribing exercise for a given individual.


24. Demonstrate an ability to use RPE, subjective exercise experience, and objective measures to gauge exercise intensity.


25. Demonstrate an ability to calculate target heart rate using the two methods:

(a) heart rate reserve
(b) percentage of age-predicted maximum heart rate

26. Demonstrate an ability to write exercise prescription for apparently healthy and low risk individual for:

(a) loss of body mass and body fat
(b) increasing anaerobic power
(c) increasing anaerobic capacity
(d) improving aerobic power

Approaches to Teaching and Learning

The teaching format will incorporate a mixture of lectures (2 hours per week) and laboratories (2 hours per week) during which students will participate in class discussions, problem solving tasks, and practical demonstrations. Each lecture will focus on improving knowledge and understanding of appropriate screening, assessment and prescription methods. A selection of assessment and prescription methods will be demonstrated in tutorials with time provided for students to practise these.

Assessment

Formative Assessment

1. Feedback and discussion during lectures, tutorials and laboratory sessions.


2. Tutorial/ Study Questions - Class discussion and feedback on tutorial questions and data collected during laboratories


3. Progress Quizzes - a short quiz will be held at the start or end of each Laboratory session. These are designed to help students assess their progress in the unit by attempting questions targeting key concepts using formats similar to summative assessment.


4. Laboratory Activities - Laboratory sessions will involve a series of practical and theory-application activities. Students are required to complete reports of data collected during the practical session and short answers to practical questions.

Summative Assessment

1. Quizzes

Multiple-choice and short answer exam incorporating topics covered in lectures, readings, tutorials and laboratories.


2. Final Exam

A multiple-choice, short and long written answers and calculations exam incorporating all topics covered in lectures, tutorials and laboratories.

Assessment name: Quiz 1
Description: Multiple-choice and short answer exam incorporating topics covered in lectures, readings, tutorials and laboratories.
Relates to objectives: Aligns with learning objectives covered in week 1-3 lectures and laboratories 1&2
Weight: 20%
Internal or external: Internal
Group or individual: Individual
Due date: Early Semester

Assessment name: Final Exam
Description: Multiple-choice and short answer exam incorporating topics covered in lectures, readings, tutorials and laboratories.
Relates to objectives: Incorporates all topics covered in lectures, tutorials and laboratories with greater weighting to material covered in lectures 8-11 and laboratories 8-11.
Weight: 50%
Internal or external: Internal
Group or individual: Individual
Due date: Exam Period

Assessment name: Quiz 2
Description: Multiple-choice and short answer exam incorporating topics covered in lectures, readings, tutorials and laboratories.
Relates to objectives: Aligns with learning objectives covered in week 4-7 lectures and laboratories 3-7
Weight: 30%
Internal or external: Internal
Group or individual: Individual
Due date: Middle-Late Semester

Academic Honesty

QUT is committed to maintaining high academic standards to protect the value of its qualifications. To assist you in assuring the academic integrity of your assessment you are encouraged to make use of the support materials and services available to help you consider and check your assessment items. Important information about the university's approach to academic integrity of assessment is on your unit Blackboard site.

A breach of academic integrity is regarded as Student Misconduct and can lead to the imposition of penalties.

Resource materials

Students would benefit from accessing a wide range of resources. The two main texts for the course are outlined below. A selection of readings to accompany lecture material will be provided on the Blackboard web site for this unit.

Required:

1. McArdle WD, Katch FI, Katch VL. Exercise Physiology: Energy, Nutrition and Human Performance. Seventh Edition, Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins, 2009.
   
2. American College of Sports Medicine. ACSM's Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription. Eighth Edition, Baltimore: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, 2010.

Other useful texts:

1. Silverthorn D. Human Physiology: An Integrated Approach (5th Edition). San Francisco: Pearson/Benjamin Cummings, 2010.
   
2. American College of Sports Medicine. ACSM's metabolic calculations handbook [editors Stephen Glass, Gregory B. Dwyer]. Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2007.
   
3. Brooks GA, Fahey TD, Baldwin KM. Exercise physiology: human bioenergetics and its applications. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2005.
   
4. Jones D, Round J, de Haan A. Skeletal muscle from molecules to movement. Edinburgh, Scotland : Churchill Livingtone, 2004.
   
5. Spurway N & MacLaren D. Genetics and Molecular Biology of Muscle Adaptation. Churchill Linvingstone Elsevier, 2006.
   
6. Maughan R & Gleeson M. The biochemical basis of sports performance. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Risk assessment statement

This unit will involve laboratory-based sessions. As part of HMB273 all students will have completed the laboratory induction session during which safety precautions to be observed while working in the laboratory were outlined. Students were required to read the laboratory safety manual and sign the form indicating that they have read and understood the material contained in the manual. Hard copies of the manual are displayed within the exercise physiology lab (O-A214). Given HMB273 is a prerequisite unit for HMB382 it is expected that all students understand the requirements for safely working in the exercise physiology laboratory. Should any student not feel confident with this information, please direct any questions regarding safe working procedures to the unit coordinator.

Disclaimer - Offer of some units is subject to viability, and information in these Unit Outlines is subject to change prior to commencement of semester.

Last modified: 10-Dec-2012