Physical education trends have developed recently to incorporate a greater variety of activities. Introducing students to lifetime activities like bowling, walking/hiking, or Frisbee at an early age can help students develop good activity habits that will carry over into adulthood. Some teachers have even begun to incorporate stress-reduction techniques such as yoga and deep-breathing. Teaching non-traditional sports to students may also provide the necessary motivation for students to increase their activity, and can help students learn about different cultures. For example, while teaching a unit about lacrosse (in, say, Arizona, USA), students can also learn a little bit about the Native American cultures of the Northeast and Eastern Canada, where lacrosse originated. Teaching non-traditional (or non-native) sports provides a great opportunity to integrate academic concepts from other subjects as well (social studies from the example above), which is required of every P.E. teacher these days.

There are also many different models that have been created as of late that change the face of P.E. One example of this is the Health Club Model. Teaching with this model is very different from the "Organized Recess" of 20 or 30 years ago. Spun off the boom in the health club industry, a P.E. class provides many of the same "classes" that are found at a health club. Monday a student could be doing kickboxing, the next day is yoga, Wednesday the student is doing aerobics. This type of program provides a great variety of activity for students, a lot a high intensity exercise, and helps introduce these activities for use later in life. The Sports Education model is another example of a new model were the class is run like a sports league, with students taking the role of coaches, scorers, referees, and reporters as well as players. Using this model, students practice