The human body is an incredible working system that keeps us breathing, moving, and thinking. But do your students truly understand how amazing it is? Share these 10 interesting PE facts with them to reinforce the importance of physical fitness and taking care of their bodies.
Here are a couple ways to share:
- Ask a trivia question at the start of every class period.
- Post questions about the human body in the hallway and place a flap over the answer that students can lift to see if their answers are right.
- Announce the trivia question over the loudspeaker on Monday morning and let students enter their answers in a bucket throughout the week. At the end of the week, choose a winner who had the correct answer.
- Hand the questions out as a quiz and have each student take it independently. Afterward, go over the answers. For every correct answer, have them do 5 jumping jacks, sit ups, etc., and for each incorrect answer, double that amount.
What’s the largest muscle in your body?
Your booty! Well, the gluteus maximus muscle, to be more exact. Interestingly, it may not be the strongest muscle. Did you know that your calf muscles actually produce the most force, while your jaw muscle exerts the most pressure?
Where are 25% of your bones located?
In your feet! Each foot contains 26 bones, 33 joints, and over 100 muscles, ligaments, and tendons, with both feet totaling 52 bones, or about 25% of the total bones found in your entire body. Your balance, strength, power, and control begins with your feet.
How many times does the average human heart beat per day?
The average adult heart beats 72 times per minute; 100,000 times per day; 3,600,000 times per year; and 2.5 billion times per lifetime.
How many gallons of blood does a healthy heart pump per day?
Though weighing only 11 ounces on average, a healthy heart pumps 2,000 gallons of blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels each day. A kitchen faucet would need to be turned on all the way for at least 45 years to equal the amount of blood pumped by the heart in an average lifetime.
What would happen if you didn’t have valves in your veins?
If you didn’t have valves in your veins, all of your blood in your body would literally fall downward, filling up your feet and legs.
What happens to your balance when you walk?
Forward locomotion, such as walking or running, is actually the process of losing and catching one’s balance.
What are the benefits of walking backwards?
Walking backward provides a number of benefits to your mind and body. These include the following:
- Enhanced sense of body awareness
- Increased body coordination and movement in space
- Improved overall mood, better sleep cycles
- Motivation to step outside your comfort zone
- Sharpened thinking skills and enhanced cognitive control
- Increased strength in lesser-used leg muscles
- Help with rehabilitation of knee injuries
- Improved walking technique and form
- Improved balance
- Burned calories
- Healthy weight maintenance
- Strengthened bones and muscles
- Increased energy levels
- Elevated metabolism
Perhaps it’s time to start walking backwards!
Why is exercise good for your brain?
Regular exercise improves the functioning of your brain. Exercise increases blood flow to your brain and releases serotonin, which improves your mood and helps you think more clearly.
How fast can the human nervous system relay messages to the brain?
Your nervous system can relay messages to the brain at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour. Your brain receives 100 million nerve messages each second from your senses.
How long does it take for your blood to circulate through your entire body once?
Blood circulates through your body very quickly. It takes about one minute for all your blood to circulate through your entire body once. And if you took all the blood vessels out of an average adult and laid them out in one line, the line would stretch over 100,000 miles long.
How many synaptic connections does your brain use to pass signals?
The average human brain has about 100 billion neurons (or nerve cells) and many more neuroglia (or glial cells), which serve to support and protect the neurons. Each neuron may be connected to up to 10,000 other neurons, passing signals to each other through as many as 1,000 trillion synaptic connections. This is equivalent by some estimates to a computer with a 1 trillion bit per second processor.
Can a human breathe and swallow at the same time?
Nope! Humans are the only mammal that cannot breathe and swallow simultaneously.
Hi thanks for shharing this
Physical Education is very important for everybody. Regular exercising makes your brain function faster.