University of Otago

An introduction to the principles and practice of exercise science, including common and relevant myths or misconceptions. It introduces exercise science and its disciplines (e.g., biomechanics) partly by considering common myths, misconceptions, and students' understanding of these. For example, what actually is exercise or fitness? Is exercise training necessary for fitness, and is fitness necessarily improved from training? What constitutes resistance or endurance exercise, and why do they improve fitness for health, work, or sport? Do training aids such as sports drinks really aid fitness or performance? Does practice improve skill? How much practice, and what type? How would you know such things or test them yourself? Cultural and environmental contexts are also addressed. 

This course looks at problems that are associated with discrete rather than continuous situations. So the nature of the problems is quite distinct from those that are considered in a calculus paper because the important underlying set is the integers rather than the sets of real or complex numbers. The curriculum includes a selection from the following topics: combinatorics, counting techniques, logic, graph theory, set theory, relations, number theory. There will be an emphasis on both proof techniques and practical algorithms.