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I. Introduction

“All parts of the body which have a function, if used in moderation and exercise in our labours in which we accustomed, become thereby healthy, well developed and age more slowly, but if unused and left idle they become liable to disease, defective in growth and age quickly.”(Hippocrates)

What is physical fitness? Physical fitness has been defined in several ways and has meant different things to different people. Initially, health care practitioners defined fitness simply as being healthy and absence of disease. Many athletic coaches perceive fitness as the ability to perform certain sport skills. Perhaps, the most accurate definition of physical fitness is that of the American Medical Association, which has defined physical fitness as the general capacity to adopt and respond favourably to physical effort. Individuals are said to be physically fit when they can meet to the ordinary as well as the unusual demands of the daily life, safely and effectively with out being overly fatigued, and still have some energy or juice left in them to do recreation and leisure activities. (Corbin, 1996)

A. Statistics on Physical Fitness

This problem is not just any kind of problem. Even a country like the USA was alarmed because nearly half of the American youths aged 12-21 years are not vigorously active on regular basis. It has been estimated that about 14% of young people report no recent physical activity. Inactivity is more common among females (14%) than males (7%) and among black females (21%) than white females (12%). In addition, only 19% of all high school students are physically active for 20 minutes or more, five days a week, in physical education classes.
Daily enrolment in physical education classes dropped from 42%-25% among high school students between 1991-1995. (Martson, 1996).

But here in the Philippines, the problem concerning physical fitness, seemed to be...