Physical activity and health are linked inseparably. If you want to improve health, prevent disease, or reduce symptoms by changing behavior, physical activity is often the way to go. Different types of physical activity and physical exercise training each have their own impact on our physical fitness. So, each desired goal requires a specific training program.

In this minor you will apply knowledge about the impact of physical activity to design an intervention to improve the health of a specific target group. The challenge is to discover which physical activity and training leads to the desired effect in your chosen target group, as well as which characteristics you should take into account, like age, baseline physical fitness, motivation, and context. Taken together, you will design a research plan for a feasible evidence-based intervention, by combining knowledge from literature and checklists like iCONTENT and process evaluation.

Throughout the minor, student collaborate as a project group. Each project group designs a research plan based on the knowledge and experience they gain from lectures, tutorials, and self study. Experts in the field will illustrate the important aspects in interactive lectures, which also includes time for Q&A about the project. Project groups pitch their intervention plans and can ask questions to the expert for the further development of their intervention. In addition to the lectures and tutorials, students will learn how to measure sedentary behavior and cardiorespiratory fitness during practicals about cardiopulmonary exercise testing and activity monitoring. 

The course ends with an individual written exam and a symposium with group presentations of the project. The assignments related to the practicals have to be sufficient, and attendance should be sufficient.

In this minor you will have a close look into the relationship of physical activity and health, applied to feasible and effective interventions to promote health. To this end, you will learn how physical activity affects the health outcomes in your project, and which factors to consider when putting this into practice. Students will:

•          Describes the physical activity dimensions: frequency, intensity, time, and type; ranging from inactivity to exercise
•          Identify causes of inter-individual variation in human performance
•          Designs a physical activity/sedentary behavior/physical exercise training program adequate for the goal chosen (in patients with a chronic disease).
•          Selects and reports adequate assessment methods of physical fitness for a given population and research question
•          Selects an adequate physical activity monitoring method using the strengths and weaknesses of the main types of physical activity monitoring
•          Accounts for and explains factors that can influence the effectiveness of a PA program, specifically personal characteristics, applying process evaluation measures
•           Describes and evaluates PA programs using a standardized and complete checklist.