My name is Dell Lovejoy, and I am a guest editor for this issue. I am also a graduate student for Dr. Debby Mitchell in Sports and Fitness at the University of Central Florida, and will be graduating this semester.

For this issue, I'd like to pull your attention to some great websites regarding fitness and various theories about training. So many of us cringe at the idea of sitting in front of a computer to obtain information, but we've all been to the gym today, right?

The World Wide Web is a wonderful place to find countless amounts of information that can be used in the classroom by physical education instructors, as well as by people who are interested in changing the ways in which they train to avoid the doldrums of repeating the same exercises over and over.

The following is a glance at some of the more reputable websites that contains a myriad of information in the world of sports and fitness. The featured links include information on stability & medicine balls, fartlek training, exercise training, coaching, lesson plans, and stress & relaxation.

Editorial content does not necessarily reflect the opinions and perspectives of PELINKS4U.

The following articles are found at Sports Fitness Advisor. This is one of my favorite websites, and the articles are well written and easy to understand.

A Quick Review of Energy Systems - How does your body produce the energy it needs to power you through any activity? What exactly does aerobic and anaerobic exercise mean? Understanding your body's energy systems will help you design a more precise fitness program.

VO2max And Your Endurance Performance - VO2max is the best indicator of your "aerobic potential." Determining your VO2max is the key to designing an effective endurance training program.

Anaerobic Threshold... The Key to Developing Elite Endurance - If VO2max is your aerobic potential, your anaerobic or lactate threshold determines how much of that potential you tap. More importantly you can improve your anaerobic threshold with endurance conditioning.

Acclimatization To Altitude - What happens to our bodies several thousand meters above sea level? Can adaptations to altitude improve our performance at sea level?

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness - We've all suffered it - the stiff, aching muscles that follow the first day of training. But can it be prevented?

Cardiovascular System and Exercise - What are the immediate and long-term changes to the cardiovascular system following an endurance training program?

FITT Principle of Training - The four basic rules of any effective training program.

Anabolism and Catabolism Explained - And how they relate to the formation and breakdown of muscle.

Hyperplasia - The Path to Unlimited Strength Gain? - How do muscles really get bigger and stronger? Hyperplasia is controversial, but intriguing, and there might be some evidence to back it up. Hypertrophy examined: The accepted theory of muscle growth.

Heart Rate Reserve... How to Determine Your Heart Rate Training Zone - How to use the Karvonen formula for a more accurate target heart rate zone.

Muscular System Picture (Anterior View) - Here's all the major muscle groups in the human body - those you can see from the front that is! Muscular System Diagram (Posterior View) - And here are all the major muscle groups in the human body from the back.

Muscle Anatomy & Structure - Take any skeletal muscle in the body, break it down into its smallest parts and what do you get?

The Sliding Filament Theory of Muscle Action - How do our muscles contract? Here's the generally accepted mechanism for all human movement.

Off Season Training: Stability and Medicine Balls

For a great example of how instructors can utilize technology to demonstrate exercises, go to Sports Fitness Advisor. There are ten exercises complete with some amazing animated .gifs that demonstrate each exercise. (Animated .gifs are several digital illustrations put together to create an animation.)

These excercises can be easily performed indoors during colder months. Some of the exercises include: Rear Deltoid Raise on Stability Ball, Push Up with Stability Ball and Medicine Ball, Back Extension on Ball, and Lunge Crossover with Medicine Ball.

Looking to work out your hips, abs, and thighs utilizing stability and medicine balls? Check out www.about.com. A certified trainer will walk you through some instructions to take care of some of those hard areas.

Abdominal bracing vs. hollowing for core stability: This article comes from a recent strength and conditioning conference hosted by the British Olympic Association. This information can be found at Peak Performance.

If you're interested in finding abstracts of research articles for "practicing coaches and others interested in applied sport science," then you've got to check out this webpage from California. According to their website, they promote evidence-based coaching content and practices. Coaching Science Abstracts is a great resource for coaches and students of sport science to do research.

Just about any coach will find a topic or link of interest at Education Index. This webpage includes links to sport associations, information for referees/umpires, and practice ideas for specific sports. Many of the sports include tennis, racquetball, soccer, tae kwon do, and golf.

Is your placekicker a heat seating missile? - Easy-Cut enables you to extract segments of your game and practices tapes from any Digital Video source, including DVD, and then organize the clips and generate a Windows Media movie like this one. There is even a higher quality setting for full digital quality video!

Trends in Digital Video - Bringing it all together
In the Trends in Digital Video series, which appeared first during Summer of 2003, you've heard about the imminent arrival of affordable video editing software. Since that time, we have seen huge price drops from "the big boys" on their products and the entry of new products with price points for moving under $1000. Read the rest...

If you reduce the amount of stress in your life, you will no doubt make your whole body feel better and achieve a better quality of life. Sometimes, however, we just don't know where to start. Below, you'll find some informative links covering different ideas in stress management and relaxation.

Having good friends as a way of support is one way of reducing stress in your life. The article 'How to Create Truly Supportive Friendships' is about how to create better friendships, and how to make the best of your social circle.

To join an online forum/discussion about stress management, you can register at about.com and read what others are saying about how they cope with stress in their lives.

Adding just a little more to your work-out routines can help alleviate stress and make you look and feel better! Read The Many Benefits of Using Exercise as a Stress Management Tool.

Managing parental stress is something all of us who are parents need to do on a daily basis. This resource list has articles about ways parents can manage stress.

The old adage that laughter is a cure-all is not just an old wives' tale! Read "How Laughter Can Reduce Stress and Increase Health," which is about the positive affects that good ole laughter can have on reducing stress in our lives.

For a great, step-by-step technique to relax your muscles; read 'Muscle Relaxation Technique.'

So maybe you've heard about Fartlek training, but aren't too sure what it is, or if it's right for you or your students? There are plenty of resources out there on the World Wide Web with information about Fartlek training, but I've narrowed it down to several very good websites. Let's first start out by defining Fartlek training and where it comes from.

The word Fartlek is a Swedish word meaning 'speed play.' Fartlek training combines continuous and interval training. When an athlete uses this type of training, they occasionally run at high intensity levels, but what's most important is that fartlek training allows the athlete to vary the intensity, speed, and distance. A great site that thoroughly explains/defines fartlek training can be found here at 'A Time to Run.' Another one is Swags Sports Shoes.

For great examples of different types/sessions of fartlek training like Watson, Astrand, and Saltin, go to Sports Coach. Whether you're looking to train for an 800m, 1500m, 3k, 5k, 10k, or cross-country race, this website has different types of sessions specific for each race. The website also has a lot of information for coaching, sports science, fitness training, and articles. I highly recommend this site.

How could a heart-rate monitor be beneficial to an athlete during fartlek training? Read this article.

Here you will find some links to running information and tips . Included are links for beginning runners to marathon training. For an explanation of how fartlek training can be beneficial to both advanced and average runners, check out COOLRUNNING - Australia.

Looking for a wonderful source with lessons plans that cover physical education and health games galore? Check out LessonPlansPage. You will find six different categories by grade level. When you click on each grade level, it will open to another page full of links to lesson plans and games to have fun with while learning about health.

This next link is a lesson plan that comes out of a book entitled, "How to Teach Nutrition to Kids" by Dr. Connie Liakos Evers . Although the lesson plan is designed for children aged 6-12, it can be used at almost any level with a modification or two. This lesson plan utilizes the food pyramid, and asks the students to record what they have eaten. Check it out at teachnet.

You can find lesson plans from classroom games, outdoor activities, and gym activities at a webpage that very neatly has them categorized in drop-down menus. Go to Pittschools to get a bunch of ideas submitted by physical educators like you!

Another good page is teachervision.com. You will find a great collection of lesson plans that are categorized by "All Health Lessons," "Featured Health lessons," and "All P.E. Lessons." Each category is broken down into grade levels.

Providing a great deal of curriculum help for teaching about healthy lifestyles, The Healthy Choices for Kids nutrition education program was created by the growers of Washington state apples, and is funded in part by the Washington Apple Education Foundation, Tree Top, Inc., and other industry sponsors. You can get there by going to HealthyChoices.org.

At The key areas of learning from Health and Physical Education in the New Zealand Curriculum, you'll find the following list of subjects with great resources: Mental Health, Sexuality Education, Food and Nutrition, Body Care and Physical Safety, Physical Activity, Sport Studies, and Outdoor Education.

Just add water and stir - Web sites "for the rest of us" - This is a pretty helpful article about getting your coaching page online easily without a lot of experience. Contains a good example link.

Trends in Digital Video - This site describes trends current for 2006, but at the bottom of the page you'll find previous articles on digital video going back to 2003. Read all for thorough information.

Coaches struggle with "emerging technology" decisions and Technology Trends in Coaching - Digital Video

Choosing a Digital Video Camera (Camcorder) - Through information in this article, and a link at the bottom of this page, you will find good information on how to select a camcorder.

Coaches Library : this is a site you really need to check out! A great information resource on technology products.