Intensity of Physical Education classes: Team Sports vs. Individual Sports

Due to the increase of childhood obesity, it is recommended that children and adolescents practice 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous (MVPA) exercise most days of the week. However, Physical Education lessons are the only time where students are required to exercise. To check the effect of team sports (TS) or individual sport (IS) on the intensity of the lessons, a non-experimental study that was descriptive and comparative was done. Mean heart rate from 107 students from Region of Murcia (60 boys and 47 girls), aged between 12 and 18 years, was assessed during 9 different Physical Education lessons. Significantly higher (p = 0.000; p = 0.004) average heart rates and percent of lesson time spent in MVPA existed for TS (141.77 +/- 14.75ppm; 45.13 +/- 18.01%) compared to IS (119.06 +/- 19.20ppm; 23.81 +/- 25.85%). There was a low effect size of session type (TS vs. IS) on average heart rate, % MVPA and time spent at MVPA values (ES < 0.020). Boys attained higher MVPA percentage time during TS, while girls had higher results during IS, though this was not significant (p > 0.05). Although results show that intensity and duration of analysed classes do not comply with recommendations for cardiovascular improvement, the highest heart rate values were observed in lessons with TS as the main content.