A.A. Gorelov, professor, Dr.Hab.
Institute of socialization and education of the Russian Academy of Education, St. Petersburg
A.A. Obvintsev, professor, Dr.Hab.
Military Institute of Physical Culture, St. Petersburg
V.L. Kondakov, associate professor, Ph.D.
Belgorod State National Research University, Belgorod

Keywords: health and fitness technologies, cadets and students of military universities, educational space of military educational institution, physical culture, physical training.

A new research area was added in a new specialty certificate (13.00.04) edition, conditioning the necessity of scientific justification of the system design mechanisms of health and fitness technologies. It was caused, on the one hand, by a number of contradictions in the use of such technologies in professional activities and everyday life of a modern man, and, on the other hand, by the weak scientific argumentation of the content, orientation and methods of health and fitness technologies (HFT), so many of which are seen in media.

Despite the fact that health is among the criteria of selection of young people entering Russian military educational institutions, the need to maintain the cadets’ body functional systems at a high level is determined by the specifics of professional military education [3].

Thus, the urgency of the problem is determined by an urgent need of development and introduction in the military institution educational space such health and fitness technologies, which, on the one hand, would help solve general problems of physical culture and, on the other, ensure optimal conditions for the operation of the body functional systems involved in the maintenance of the high level of mental and physical performance. However, we consider the implementation of these assumptions in three steps. Firstly, any health and fitness technology is a deterministic functional system, where the structural elements are interconnected, interactive and interfacilitating and provide a high level of capacity of the body that helps an individual master educational programs of any educational institution purposefully and successfully. Secondly, each health and fitness technology should be subjected, on the one hand, to the development of basic physical qualities, the formation of major motor skills, health improvement and tempering of the body, and, on the other hand, ensure selectively a health component for cadets and students, temporarily classified as an exercise therapy group after illnesses, etc. And finally, thirdly, a modern military educational institution educational space, as a deterministic educational system, must contain a trainees’ rehabilitation subsystem, which could maintain a stable mental and physical performance for a long time through the interaction of its components with those, ensuring the success of educational training.

In order to confirm the above assumptions and to conduct the analytical and experimental studies the aim was to find a scientific base for the system mechanisms of health and fitness technologies design and operation in a modern military educational institution.

Basic approaches and research algorithm

The procedural issues of the HFT development were realized with the use of the basic approaches and in the sequence that defines the following logical orientation of our own research:

• analytical studies, which give proof to the problem situation, formulation of general hypothesis, setting goals and objectives of the study;
• exploratory studies aimed at selection of the most popular HFT among people, but without any scientific justification, and their experimental verification;
• analytical researches, providing theoretical analysis and synthesis of the system mechanisms of the effect of HFT on different functional indicators and activity parameters of students;
• laboratory research aimed at studying of the effect of selected HFT on physical development, motor activity, functional and psychological state, progress in studies;
• synthetic studies that define the system structural design and system mechanisms operation of innovative HFT;
• experimental verification of effectiveness of developed HFT and their place in the institution educational space and everyday activities of students;
• creation of the program-methodical documentation, providing HFT implementation and their scientific follow-up.

The study had been carried out from 2009 to 2013, with the involvement of secondary schoolchildren, Russian non-sport university students, cadets and students of military educational institutions.

Results and discussion

The research algorithm presented above contributed to the development of a series of new health and fitness technologies. Their purpose, on the one hand, was to increase the university students’ resistance to various unfavourable factors of the educational activities and natural environment, and, on the other hand, – to prevent overweight, cardiorespiratory and musculoskeletal disorders.

As it has been mentioned above, the structure and content of each technology was formed with the help of long-term theoretical and experimental research, which was adopted by the unified scheme of their description. The specialists, engaged in this problem, were proved to have not yet come to the consensus regarding both the structural aspect and purposes of the technologies. At the same time, innovative processes, associated with the introduction of new technologies in education, are large-scale. They are being introduced in almost all educational institutions in Russia. The criteria for the selection of new technologies, generally, are such situations as new subjects and curricula, introduction of alternative teaching methods, new educational-methodical complexes, new organization of teaching process, introduction of innovative teaching technologies and some other [6]. However, we did not find any studies on health and fitness technologies, despite the psychological, medical and socio-educational technologies included in the classification of educational technologies developed by G.K. Selevko [6, P. 79]. They are related to socio- educational work and are somehow related with health, but they lack the motor component of health as their basis, so we cannot borrow their architectonics. Nevertheless, we used the basic points in the description of the developed health and fitness technologies.

After the experimental work, when the basic health and fitness technologies had been identified and their effectiveness had been proved in the context of ensuring progress in studies, their description scheme was adopted. It was revealed that the construction of any HFT should be based on the image of the functional system (according to P.K. Anokhin) and in the dynamics should represent a serial representation of the interconnected elements, which, interacting and facilitating, provide a focused positive result – in other words, an achievement of such a level of cadets health to effectively master the university educational plans and programs. These elements (components) are the following: conceptual component that contains the goal, objectives and principles of HFT; procedural component, revealing the system mechanisms of an educational process carried out in the framework of the ultimate goal achievement; managing component that provides management of the HFT teaching process; coordinating component that determines the correspondence of the purpose to its final result and differentiating the HFT focus of means and methods on the next stage of its functioning. The basic design algorithm of any health and fitness technology pattern should contain a single sequential submission of its elements such as: name, target orientation, conceptual framework, substantial part, procedural component, managing subsystem, coordinating orientation, material-technical and medico-biological principles.

The study of the efficiency of HFT designed that way, so to say, in its pure form [2, 4], proved its high urgency. However, it is equally important, how each of them functions in the military educational institution educational space.

An organized series of synthetic experiments showed that for the effective functioning of health and fitness technologies in the cadets’ educational space physical education lessons should not be strictly planned, but arranged in the educational space in such a way in order to provide students with daily physical activity to the extent necessary to replenish its deficit.

The system interpretation of the findings resulted in the following conclusions:

1. Laboratory experimental research of the efficiency of the health and fitness technologies widely known both in our country and abroad showed that most of them, according to their content, can be considered as a low-intensity motor functional training of a narrow health orientation for the correction of certain functional systems of the body of the involved. Most of the presented in the thesis health technologies (except for those that contain aerobic movements) improve students’ health and temper their bodies, but, however, do not solve the problem of harmonious physical development of an individual due to lacking physical activity adequate in intensity. Moreover, all investigated technologies, on the one hand, are difficult to fit into the educational space of a modern university, and, on the other hand, do not meet new science-based requirements to the design of system mechanisms of modern health and fitness technologies.

2. The structure, content and focus of the planned physical education lessons must meet the general requirements with only factor changed in their content: at the first lesson of the week instead of the complex training, which is supposed to be 10 minutes long, cadets learn simple exercises that are used in future during independent physical training. At the second lesson the students are subject to an express testing of the level of development of particular physical qualities and general physical health.

3. The content of independent physical training of each cadet should be determined taking into account an individual choice of exercises from the list of specially designed physical exercises. The frequency of independent classes for any HFT must be at least four times a week. The duration of each independent training session should be at least 15, but no more than 40 minutes.
4. Before starting the actions, related to the organization and implementation of health and fitness technologies, cadets should master the basic theoretical knowledge and practical skills of independent exercises from the range of HFT, physical activity balancing methods, abilities to control one’s physical condition. Self-training, implemented within the framework of any HFT, should be managed via individual homework, differentiated according to the level of functional fitness of the cadets, occasionally estimated during planned physical education lessons.

5. Mass sports work management during weekends and holidays should be organized by creating motivational aims and stimuli, activating the needs of cadets to participate in mass events. The duration of the health and fitness events on Sundays and during public holidays shall not exceed 2 hours. Widespread and regular Sunday mass health and fitness events, including competitions in various exercises should be highly emotional and facilitate psychological stress relief.

References

1. Anokhin, P.K. Selected Works. Philosophical aspects of the theory of functional systems / G.K. Anokhin. – Moscow: Nauka, 1978. – 400 P. (In Russian)
2. Gorelov, A.A. On health and fitness technologies and their structuring for the university educational process / A.A. Gorelov, O.G. Rumba, V.L. Kondakov // Kul'tura fizicheskaya i zdorov'e. – 2012. – № 5 (41). – P. 14–19 (In Russian)
3. Obvintsev, A.A. Acceleration of adaptation of female cadets to studies in military educational institution by means of physical training: monograph / A.A. Obvintsev, Yu.V. Abapolov, A.A. Gorelov, V.P. Sorokin. – St. Petersburg: MIPC, 2013. – 172 P. (In Russian)
4. Obvintsev, A.A. Designing health and fitness technologies in the educational space of military educational institution / A.A. Obvintsev, A.A. Gorelov, V.L. Kondakov // Aktual’nye problemy fizicheskoy i spetsial’noy podgotovki silovykh struktur (Part 1). – St. Petersburg: MIPC, 2013. –№ 2. – P. 86–93. (In Russian)
5. Selevko, G.K. Encyclopedia of Educational Technologies: In 2 V. V 1. / G.K. Selevko. – Moscow: RI of school technologies, 2006. – 816 P. (In Russian)
6. Strelets, V.G. The content and direction of physical training for military women with hypodynamic work / V.G. Strelets, A.A. Gorelov, I.V. Rusakova, G.A. Gordeeva. – St. Petersburg: MIPC. – 1998. – 189 P. (In Russian)