**1. Introduction**

Sports-recreational activity plays a large role in the life of modern humans. It is directly related to leisure time, the rational use and management of which demands an appropriate level of not only required skills but also awareness. Nowadays, the dynamically growing popularity of passive leisure behaviors can be observed, especially among the young generation of highly developed countries, which in excessive numbers, may cause various psychophysical development dysfunctions in children and adolescents. In connection with such tendencies, it is necessary to permanently emphasize the importance of educational activities, thanks to which it is possible to encourage young individuals to take up active forms of free time activity. Sports-recreational activity, due to the wide range of its forms, is an important component of well-organized leisure time spent by young people, while sports and recreational behavior can be analyzed in the context of psychophysical development, personality, regeneration of vitality, contact with nature, active rest, relaxation, etc. The most important entities that can have significant impact on the

level of physical activity of children and adolescents include, first of all, family, school, peer groups, as well as educational organizations, sports-recreational associations, clubs and the media. A special role in the area of physical activity encouragement falls on the family, where a pro rational development of free time activity in children who are not yet subject to the obligation of school education first occurs. A different but equally important place related to education of physical activity among students is school and especially physical education, which in its assumption, in addition to physical education classes, prepares young people for independent and systematic physical activity in their free time. This process consists primarily in shaping appropriate attitudes, habits and physical and fitness skills conditioning participation in physical culture, awareness of the broad health benefits of systematic physical activity, as well as equipping the youth with the ability to use sport and recreational opportunities offered at their place of residence. Recognition of these aspects can be very helpful not only in determining the general level of physical activity of adolescents but it can also be a guide to better plan and organize physical recreation of young people.

In the German-language literature, the term sports-recreational activity is associated with practicing sports in one's free time (the German: *Freizeitsport*). Unlike competitive and professional sports, low-level sports are targeted at people representing different age groups, who see the possibility of achieving primarily health-related goals in this activity [1]. Friedrich Ludwig Jahn was a pioneer of the free time sports movement called *Turnerism*. In 1811, at Turner square in Hasenheide near Berlin, he set about promoting gymnastics and motor games initially among schoolchildren and later representatives of the working class. In the course of further history, the typically gymnastic nature of motor activity ("the German model") was influenced by the so-called "English model" of sport based on the rules of sports competition and the pursuit of records. According to Dieckert [2] at the turn of the 19th and 20th century, two separate systems were in operation: gymnastics (*Turnerism*) for everyone, and sport - for those who preferred to obtain top sports results via ruthless rivalry. At present, the boundary between these systems is blurred and leisure sport in Germany includes both gymnastics and games as well as other forms of mild-mannered sports competition. This confirms the choice of these forms of sport activity undertaken by German recreational and amateur athletes belonging to different age groups. Prohl and Scheid [3] define leisure sport as a form of activity not related to competitive sport, characterized by volunteering and satisfaction, having its own rules and being for all age groups. Within free time sports, they identify such forms as:


*Selected Aspects of Sports: Recreational Activity of German School Students DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97741*


Participation in sports-recreational activities is dependent on numerous factors that Nahas et al. [4] call the determinants of this activity. They include:


The most important elements of physical recreation include various content which in practice reflect the actual activity of human sport and recreation [5–7]. These include:


This work focuses on empirical research regarding the sports-recreational activities of school students living in the Alpine region of Germany. The main objective

of the work is to examine the conditions of participation in sports activities depending on such criteria as: forms, intensity, motives, manners, places and possibilities for practicing sports, including the gender of the participants and their environmental conditions (large city, small town). The 18-year-old youth (387 people in total) were deliberately selected for the study, characterized by a relatively stable level of sports and sport-motor habits.

The following research questions were posed:


The following research tools were used in the study:

