The purpose of the work is to define and generalize principles of implementation of personal-activity approach to physical education in higher educational institutions in order to avoid mistakes and shortcomings in modern conditions of development of the system of higher education of Ukraine. Research methods: theoretical analysis and generalization of data of scientific and methodical literature and sources of the Internet information network on the researched problem. It is determined that a necessary condition for optimizing the physical education of students is the organization of a personal-activity approach to physical improvement. It should be based on the idea of pedagogy of cooperation, the implementation of which takes into account the principles of democratization and humanization, optimization and intensification of the training process. In accordance with these principles, it is necessary to reorient the training process from reproductive to creative with the formation of students' conscious need for physical improvement. To this end, the educational process should be primarily saturated with information from personal and social hygiene, physiology, psychology, theory and methods of physical education, forming scientifically sound views on the socio- biological essence, the role and opportunities of physical culture in human development. In this sense, physical education classes should gradually turn into lessons in knowing yourself, your body, your moral and volitional qualities, spiritual and physical capabilities.