What is endurance?

Physical therapy

﻿Hi there! My name is Sophie Brazier. I'm a children's physiotherapist. Thank you for joining me today for our lesson. So we now are on unit six and this is lesson one, and we are looking at endurance in this unit. So for today's lesson, we are going to start with what is endurance. So we'll just begin by looking at types of endurance and just a general introduction. And then we will do an activity at the end that we'll begin to start looking at how you can build some endurance and the activity will be marching on the spot. And as always, there'll be options for you. So don't worry if you find it challenging because you can simplify it, or if you find it too easy and you want more of a challenge, there will be that option as well. So you just need yourself and you don't need any equipment. You may need some help from a parent or carer. So if you'd like to ask them first, get yourself ready, and then we can get going today. I just like to give you a little message from our team. We, as therapists, have tried to think of the best way to continue to support children, young people and their families. So we will be exploring topic areas that we regularly provide advice and support on across all ages and abilities. Each lesson will have ideas and activities that can be carried out either at home or in school. And any information I'm giving you is to be used alongside any specific strategies or resources that may have been given to you by your child's school or perhaps a therapist. So if you have got any questions where you need help tailoring this to their needs, then please contact your local therapy service. So let's begin by looking at what is insurance. So endurance or stamina as it can also be called is how long you can keep moving without tiring. So how does this happen? It gradually develops when you are growing through play and activities, and then you can build your endurance through exercising as he gets older. And this means that you'll have stronger muscles, your cardiovascular system, so this is your heart and lungs, will be working well, so they'll be carrying oxygen to your muscles, which then helps being able to sustain an activity for longer, being able to keep up with your friends and peers in games and overall contribute to a healthy body. So there are different types of endurance. So you can have muscular endurance. So this is the ability of your muscles to work without tiring. So when we looked at muscle strength, we talked about what muscle strength is and we looked at what muscle endurance is. So your muscle strength is how much force one contraction in your muscles can make. And then your endurance is how many times you can keep going. So endurance is really important for other elements of your health as well. And your cardiovascular endurance, and this is the ability of your heart and lungs to pump the blood around your body and supply your muscles with oxygen, which is a real vital bodily process. So the activity we're going to look at now is called marching on the spot. And I would like you to stand with your feet directly below your hips, so you're stable and balanced, and then you're going to lift one knee up and down, and then the other one slowly in a controlled way to start with. So then you'll see that you're beginning to march. So you're going to repeat this for about 30 seconds to start with and then rest and then try again. So I'll now demonstrate on a video and talk you through it. And then we will look at the activity a little bit further, but what you want to start to think about here is with endurance you want to be starting to raise your heart rate a little bit, because that will start pumping the blood around your body. And this can help. So although we're not doing high level exercise, these gradual exercises will help build up some endurance. So just think about that when you're starting it and just see if you notice if your heart rate raises. You'll see here that I'm demonstrating the marching on the spot. So I'm lifting one leg at a time really slowly and controlled. And then I'm starting to lift my knees a little bit higher. So you'll see that you can vary the speed that you do it. So now I'm lifting him up a little bit higher. I'm showing you from the side, so you can see from a different angle, and I'm keeping my arms just by my side. And now I'm starting to march with my arms. So you'll see here that this activity will increase your heart rate a little bit because you're lifting your arms and you're lifting them above the level of your heart. And also your probably going to raise your heart rate. So now you can vary the speed. You can also vary the distance, so you can go forwards and backwards when you're marching. So if you pause the video now and have a go at that activity yourself, and then we'll rejoin and we'll look at it a little bit further. So, let's think about the activity a little more, did you start to feel out of breath and what was happening in other areas of your body? Did you start to feel warmer? Maybe your skin became a little bit moist and your heart to start it to beat a little bit faster? So this is your heart pumping the oxygen around the body to the muscles that are working. And did your arms and legs work harder to keep you at the same pace? So here are some options: you can try to make it harder, so count for longer. So just increase the length of time you're doing it for. Step with higher knees and really actively move your arms up and down. So as you saw that I started to march with my arms, so a little bit like a soldier. and you're going to increase your speed, so that you're running on the spot. So you can lift your knees and do some high knees, and then you can increase it, so that you're doing some running on the spot. And this will definitely increase your heart rate and start to get you out of breath. So you can try that one. And you can make it easier, so count for less time, support yourself with a hand on something sturdy, say some furniture, a table maybe, or at the wall, and take really low steps and just slow your pace down. So there's two options there. And just remember if you are increasing it and you're going to running on the spot, just do it gradually to begin with, because he needs to be careful. So that now brings us to the end of our lesson. So thank you for joining me today. I hope you found it useful, and it was a good introduction into what endurance is. So please join me next time for unit six, lesson two, where we will be continuing looking at endurance and we'll start looking at why endurance is important. So all that leads me to say now is have a great rest of your day, take care of yourself, and I hope to see you soon. Goodbye!

What is endurance?

What is endurance?

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

Lesson slides

Lesson details

Key learning points

Content guidance

Supervision

Licence

Lesson video