This article analyses older adults’ trajectories leading to membership in a gym, and the ways in which they negotiate their self-understanding, aging, and health in this context. Emanating from an ethnographic study, the arguments are based on a constructionist approach. The results show that older adults’ decision to start going to a gym should be understood in relation to an individualized health care system in Swedish society and as a means of negotiating deteriorating health, retirement, lost body capacity, and the meaning of becoming old. The physical activities carried out and the social relationships developed in these contexts are used to construct an empowered self-understanding prepared to challenge the “stiffness” of the dying body.

BACKGROUND: While overall physical activity is clearly associated with a better short-term and long-term health, prolonged strenuous physical activity may result in a rise in acute levels of blood-biomarkers used in clinical practice for diagnosis of various conditions or diseases. In this study, we explored the acute effects of a full Ironman-distance triathlon on biomarkers related to heart-, liver-, kidney- and skeletal muscle damage immediately post-race and after one week's rest. We also examined if sex, age, finishing time and body composition influenced the post-race values of the biomarkers.

METHODS: A sample of 30 subjects was recruited (50% women) to the study. The subjects were evaluated for body composition and blood samples were taken at three occasions, before the race (T1), immediately after (T2) and one week after the race (T3). Linear regression models were fitted to analyse the independent contribution of sex and finishing time controlled for weight, body fat percentage and age, on the biomarkers at the termination of the race (T2). Linear mixed models were fitted to examine if the biomarkers differed between the sexes over time (T1-T3).

RESULTS: Being male was a significant predictor of higher post-race (T2) levels of myoglobin, CK, and creatinine levels and body weight was negatively associated with myoglobin. In general, the models were unable to explain the variation of the dependent variables. In the linear mixed models, an interaction between time (T1-T3) and sex was seen for myoglobin and creatinine, in which women had a less pronounced response to the race.

CONCLUSION: Overall women appear to tolerate the effects of prolonged strenuous physical activity better than men as illustrated by their lower values of the biomarkers both post-race as well as during recovery.

Studies on learning in school friluftsliv education have primarily focused on teachers’ and other adults’ perspectives. The overall purpose of this thesis is to investigate, from the student perspective, the learning processes that take shape in school programmes in friluftsliv education. The thesis looks at how students’ sensemaking in friluftsliv takes shape and how this occurs in interaction with other students and with teachers. The thesis applies a sociocultural perspective to learning, which centres on the students’ narratives about how they do friluftsliv learning. Learning and learning processes are placed in an analytical context that involves individual students’ view of themselves, their relationship to the group of which they are a part, and the place in which they find themselves. The study is based on an ethnographic approach in which data has been gathered by means of interviews, observations, videos taken with GoPro cameras, and logs that students have written. Two secondary school classes were followed over time in a friluft education programme that consisted of both theoretical and practical components and culminated with a week-long stay in the Scandinavian mountains. The students were also interviewed six months after their week of friluftsliv, with the intention of investigating how acquired knowledge had been transformed or applied in practice over time. 

The study clearly shows three learning processes that were brought to light by the data collected: contextual, relational and identity-developing learning processes. Contextual learning is manifested when the students’ sensemaking of friluftsliv is placed in relation to regular classroom instruction and that they find themselves in what is for them an unfamiliar environment, from which they cannot “check out”. This learning process must be understood as a type of transaction or relationship between individual students and their environment. For the students, the contextual mobility – that is, the students’ movement between different contexts – and the place responsiveness they expressed – in the mountain environment, for example – were seen as significant for the creation of new experiences and insights into the practical aspects of previously acquired theoretical knowledge, not only in the subject of physical education and health but also in history, geography, etc. Relational learning concerns partly the students’ ways of looking at the relationships they have within the group and with teachers, and partly how it develops/changes and how different forms of knowledge capital can be used in the context of outdoor education. Identity-developing learning concerns how friluftsliv education leads students to develop new knowledge about their own mental and physical capacity, which leads them to view themselves, their role in their family and in society, in a partially new way. Regarding the implications for teaching and for students’ learning, the study stresses the importance of a processual perspective that focuses on students’ evolving sensemaking, rather than the short-term goals and objectives of individual blocks of instruction. 

Background: Students, at a secondary upper school, attending a practical programme have a lower physical capacity than students from theoretical programs. Our physical self-esteem has a great significance for our motivation in being physically active and thereby also for our health. The purpose: of this study is to find out if there is a difference between perceived physical self-esteem and objectively measured physical activity between students attending a practical programme and a theoretical programme. Method: Four classes, in a medium-sized town in the southeast of Sweden, participated in the study, two classes from practical programmes and two classes from theoretical programmes. All the students were in their final year at the upper secondary school, when they were part of the study during the autumn of 2011. The students had a sealed pedometer during four days, every morning the amount of steps was checked and then sealed by the leader of this study. The questionnaire Children and Youth-Physical Self Perception Profile (CY-PSPP) was used and the students answered the questions during one lesson one week. Result: The students attending a theoretical programme were more physically active, steps/day, than the students attending a practical programme. Regarding the perceived physical self-esteem there was no significant difference between the students from the theoretical programmes versus the students from the practical programmes. On the other hand there was a difference between the male students and the female students. The female students had a lower self-esteem. Conclusion: To reach groups at risk there are grounds for looking at the contents of the curriculum of the practical programmes. The subject physical education ought to be given more lessons as an important factor in achieving better public health.

Keywords: physical exercise, health, secondary upper school, pedometer

Fysisk aktivitet på recept istället för läkemedel blir allt vanligare. Äldre personer hänvisas ofta till träning på kommersiella gym. Träningen ger dem både bättre hälsa och nya sociala kontakter. Men mötet med gymkulturen är inte helt friktionsfri.