Ten words, three questions

Ten components is a lot to learn as ten separate definitions, and learned that way they blur into each other under pressure. Speed and power. Strength and muscular endurance. Agility and co-ordination. Students who can recite all ten still lose marks choosing between two of them. ⚠️ THEY BLUR BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT TEN UNRELATED THINGS. Look at six of them and you find the same three questions being asked in different combinations. ⭐ HOW MUCH FORCE. HOW FAST. AND FOR HOW LONG. STRENGTH asks only the first. How much force can you produce, once? Nothing about speed, nothing about repeating it. SPEED asks only the second. How quickly can you move? Nothing about how hard. ⭐ AND POWER IS NOT A THIRD MYSTERY. IT IS THE FIRST TWO AT THE SAME TIME: a large force produced quickly. That is why it needs its own name, and why neither strength nor speed on its own will do. A shot putter with strength but no speed puts badly; a sprinter with speed but nothing behind it does not leave the blocks. Now add the third question and the endurance components fall out of it. MUSCULAR ENDURANCE is the force question with "for how long" attached - not the biggest force, but the same one repeated without fading. CARDIOVASCULAR ENDURANCE is "for how long" asked of the whole body, which is why it is about the heart and lungs rather than about any one muscle. ⚠️ AND EVERY PAIR THAT GETS CONFUSED DIFFERS ON EXACTLY ONE OF THOSE AXES. Strength and muscular endurance differ only on how long. Speed and power differ only on how much force. Once you know which axis separates a pair, you cannot mix them up again. Four of the ten do not fit this at all, and that is worth knowing rather than glossing over. ⭐ THEY ARE ABOUT CONTROL RATHER THAN ABOUT QUANTITY, and they come later.

All ten, sorted by what they ask

Every component on your specification, grouped by the question it is really asking. The third column is the group that does not fit the pattern.

Tap what separates the confusable pairs

Tap the TWO statements that correctly identify what makes a pair of components different.

Strength and muscular endurance ask the same force question, and differ only on how long it has to be sustained
Speed and power ask the same question about how fast, and differ on how much force is behind it
Power is simply another word for strength, used when talking about sport
Cardiovascular and muscular endurance are the same component measured in two different ways

Why power needs its own name

A thrower can produce an enormous force but applies it slowly. A sprinter moves very fast but with little force behind it. Neither is described as powerful. Why not?

Because power requires a large force AND for it to be produced quickly, so having one without the other is not power at all
Because power is really just strength, and the thrower must not be as strong as they appear
Because power only applies to certain sports, and neither of these counts
Because power also requires the effort to be repeated many times

Five of the ten, said exactly

Five components, each defined by what it is. Which axes each one combines is the next step, and is not given here.

Match each component to the questions it asks

Strength
Speed
Power
Muscular endurance
Cardiovascular endurance

How much force, once, with no requirement about time or speed
How quickly, with no requirement about how hard
How much force and how quickly, both at once in a single effort
How much force, repeated, by one muscle group until it tires
For how long, asked of the heart, lungs and whole body rather than one muscle

Two that follow from the axes

Select the TWO statements that follow from thinking about the components as combinations.

To tell two confusable components apart you only need to name the one question that differs between them
Agility, balance, co-ordination and reaction time behave differently from the rest because they are about control rather than about force, speed or time
An athlete who is strong will automatically be powerful
Each sporting action demands exactly one component

Answering "which component does this need"

This is the question every paper asks in some form, and there is a procedure for it that beats recognising the answer. ⭐ RUN THE THREE QUESTIONS OVER THE ACTION, IN ORDER. ⚠️ HOW MUCH FORCE DOES IT NEED? HOW FAST DOES THAT FORCE HAVE TO ARRIVE? AND FOR HOW LONG DOES IT HAVE TO BE KEPT UP? Three answers, and between them they identify almost every component built from quantity. Then, if none of them fits, ask the control question instead. Is the demand about changing direction, staying upright, moving parts together accurately, or starting quickly? ⚠️ THAT SORTS THE REMAINING FOUR. ⚠️ AND WATCH THE WORD "MOST" IN THE QUESTION, BECAUSE IT IS ALMOST ALWAYS THERE. Very few sporting actions need only one component. You are being asked which matters MOST, which means you have to justify a choice rather than list everything you can think of. A list scores badly even when everything in it is true. ⭐ SO NAME THE COMPONENT, THEN SAY WHAT ABOUT THE ACTION DEMANDS IT. "Power, because the movement needs a large force produced in a fraction of a second" is a complete answer. "Power" on its own is a guess that happens to be right. One last habit, and it is where most of the avoidable marks go. ⚠️ IF YOU USE A COMPONENT'S NAME, BE ABLE TO SAY WHICH QUESTION IT ANSWERS. Writing "strength" when the action needed force delivered fast, or "speed" when it needed force at all, is the commonest error on this topic, and it comes from treating the ten as labels rather than as answers to questions.

One action, run through the questions

Take a single action and work it properly: a netball player receiving a pass, turning, and driving into space. Most answers name a component straight away and hope. Run the questions instead. HOW MUCH FORCE? A fair amount, to push off hard and get moving. Not a maximum effort of the kind a heavy lift needs, but not trivial either. HOW FAST DOES IT HAVE TO ARRIVE? ⚠️ VERY FAST INDEED. THE WHOLE VALUE OF THE MOVE IS THAT IT HAPPENS BEFORE THE DEFENDER CAN RESPOND. A push that is strong but slow achieves nothing here. ⭐ THOSE TWO ANSWERS TOGETHER ARE POWER, and you have reached it by reasoning rather than recall. FOR HOW LONG? Barely at all. It is one effort, not a repeated one, so neither of the endurance components is what this action is testing. But the action is not finished, because there was a turn in it. So ask the control question. The player has to change direction sharply and stay balanced while doing it, which is agility. ⚠️ AND NOTICE THAT THE TURN AND THE DRIVE DEMAND DIFFERENT THINGS, which is why a good answer can name two components for one passage of play. ⭐ NOW THE PART THAT DECIDES THE MARK. THE QUESTION WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY ASK WHICH MATTERS MOST. If the emphasis is on beating the defender off the mark, say power, and say why: a large force produced in a fraction of a second. If the emphasis is on the turn itself, say agility, and say why: a rapid change of direction under control. ⚠️ WHAT LOSES MARKS IS LISTING BOTH WITH NO CHOICE BETWEEN THEM, because the question asked you to judge and the answer only described.

Order the way to identify a component

Put the steps in order, from reading the question to writing an answer that scores.

Read the action carefully and picture what the body actually has to do
Ask how much force it needs, and how quickly that force has to arrive
Ask how long the effort has to be kept up for
If none of those fits, ask instead whether the demand is about control
Choose the component that matters most, rather than listing every one that applies
Name it and state what about the action demands it

Assemble an answer that justifies itself

A rugby player drives forward from a standing start to break a tackle. Build the answer an examiner is looking for.

The components run

Five questions on telling the components apart and choosing between them. Three lives.

Complete the components facts

The ability to produce a large force in a very short time is _____. The ability of a muscle group to keep contracting without tiring is _____. The ability to change direction quickly while remaining in control is _____. The range of movement available at a joint is _____.

power muscular endurance agility flexibility reaction time balance strength co-ordination

Three answers to sharpen

Three pieces of student writing. In each case the mark is in the reasoning, not the component named.

Asked which component matters most for a high jumper at take-off, a student writes "strength". The take-off is a single explosive effort. What is wrong?
An answer lists six components a footballer needs during a match, all of them genuinely involved, and stops there. Why does it score poorly?
A student says they can never remember whether a long rally in tennis is testing muscular endurance or cardiovascular endurance. What would you tell them?

Explain how to tell the components apart

A classmate has learned all ten components as separate definitions and keeps mixing them up in the exam. Write them an explanation of a better way to hold them.

Explain the three questions that most of the components are built from
Explain why power needs a name of its own, using the two questions it combines
Explain what single question separates strength from muscular endurance
Explain why four of the ten do not fit the pattern, and what they have in common instead
Finish by explaining how to answer a question asking which component a sporting action needs most, and why a list does not answer it

The 10 Components of Fitness

Justify the choices, the way you are assessed

What you'll cover