Dodgeball and ZUMBA (3 hours)

Wednesday, Ex Sci Club got together to play dodgeball. It was a blast! I always love playing that game. The only thing I don't like is getting hit super hard by the ball, but it's fun enough, I don't mind it.

For Women's Health Fitness Day I made a flyer about ZUMBA that's going to be taking place on front campus at 11:00 am. We are trying to get many women to turn out! Sonya and I also worked on our routines for an hour this week. We got a good bit accomplished but we still have a good ways to go. I am excited about next Thursday!

Men's Basketball Workout (2 hours)

This week the guys started a new phase of their workout. Many of the exercises are similar but some of them are completely different. Monday I was stationed at the one leg box squat. This was very scary because if the athletes weren't focused or did not get enough height, there could be a serious fall. I did have two instances where I had to catch players that tripped. The single leg squat seems very interesting. The person has to generate an explosive force through one leg to be able to get up on the box. This is very difficult looking. Wednesday was another ropes day. This workout seems to be the most difficult for the team as a whole. This is when you can tell who truly pushes themselves versus who just does enough to get by. I was stationed at the outer circles and the plank. The person at the circles has to have enough slack on the ground to where when they produce the circles they make it almost to the pole. They have to stabilize their core and squat. The planks were difficult for them because they were already so fatigued. I really enjoy doing the men's basketball workouts.

PARC (30 mins)

I went to go shadow the PT with the athlete who tore her ACL but she cancelled after I had been there for awhile. So I didn't really learn much on this trip except in life you have to be flexible!

STEPtember (2 hours)

Though one day no walkers showed up, it was still fun to just enjoy people watching on front campus at the Bobcat. The Thursday a lady showed up and we were able to walk the mile. It was so much fun! She was so nice and we were able to tell eachother about our lives. Maybe next time a better turn out will show.

Personal Training 9/21-9/25 (3 hours)

Due to my client's busy schedule, we were only able to meet twice this week. The workouts we did though seemed to be full body engaging. Monday we focused on abs and arms. Since one of my client's goals is to gain more upper body strength, I try to do arms and shoulders as much as possible. She always starts with the Big 3 (planks 12 sec and superman 15 sec). For cardio we did the Kilamanjaro setting on the ellyptical for 25 mins at high RPM. Then at 1/3 of the way through she went for 30 seconds as hard as she could and then did the same thing 2/3s of the way through. Then I wanted to have a baseline of how many push-ups she can do so we can try to increase that number over the semester. So she did 12 solid push-ups. Then ball roll ups on the exercise ball alternating with push-ups on the exercise ball--5,4,3,2,1. 25 crunches on the Exercise ball. Then we ended by using the 6 lb medicine ball and throwing it with our right arm, left arm and then both arms together 15 throws with each. On Wednesday we did the card game. Every time we do this my client loves it! The variety and constant movement is such a fun way to get a full body workout but have fun at the same time! Here is our workout:
Hearts: abs on exercise ball while chest passing the 6 lb med ball (5 and below double number)
Clubs: bicep curls with 10 lb dumb bells
Diamonds: Burpees with pushup
Spades: Exercise ball squats on wall
Ace: With 5 lb dumb bell 5 shoulder raises, 5 lateral raises, and 5 V's
King: 2 mins on stairmaster
Queen: High knees in place for 30 secs
Jack: Throw 6 lb med ball 15 times
Needless to say we were soaked with sweat after this workout!! It was great!

Sinclair Christian Academy PE (3 hours)

This was very interesting, but pretty enjoyable as well. This was my first time helping out with this PE class, and it was also the one day Ms. Everett was out. So the two other exercise science girls and me had to really help control the out of control kids. Overall though the younger ones ended up listening and I was at the kick ball station and we ended up having a great time. It blew my mind, though, how out of shape the majority of these children were. It makes me sad to see this is the way that our society is going in. After running only one lap some of the children acted as if they were about to pass out. Somehow, someway we are going to have to get the children of our country to become more active. The high school students were a lot of fun. We played the basketball game Gotcha or Knock Out with them. They seemed to enjoy it and showed a lot of improvement in their basketball skills from the beginning of the class to the end. I think I will try to do this at least once a week.

Basketball Workouts 9/16 (1 hour)

Since the golf tourney was on Monday and I had to work on Friday from 12-5 I was only able to attend the basketball workouts one time this week. This was a misfortune, because I love helping with their workouts. Wednesday was very intense though. This was their first workout with the ropes that Doc created for the year. It looked to be extremely difficult. There were twenty stations and between each station they had to run a lap. After calculation I figured out that that would be about 2 and 1/2 miles of running along with intense core training. I was manned at the tsunami wave and the alternate arm motion wave. The trouble that I mostly saw with their form was that they were trying to get the burst of force from their arms instead of letting it come from the ground through their legs. So that was the main correction I had to watch out for. They did very well though and at the end of the workout no one passed out or did anything crazy on us, so that was a plus.

Personal Training 9/14 - 9/18 (4.5 hours)

Every session we start out doing the Big 3 to strengthen the core. My client is getting much stronger in this area. We are up to 12 secs, two times all sides on the plank. Monday was an intense arm day. We did bicep curls, tridep pull backs, shoulder raises, and free weight bench press. We did ten reps and went through the cycle three times. She used the 10 lb weights for everything except the bicep curls where she used 12.5 lb weights. Then using the Exercise ball she did 2 x 25 sit-ups and 10 x 2 knee roll-ups. For cardio, we did 25 mins on the ellyptical and 4 mins on the stairmaster. This was her first experience with the stairmaster and she thought it was killer. We will try to work our time up on that. On Wednesday, we did the ellyptical for 10 mins doing the interval training workout. On the more resistance periods I had her keep the RPM above 6 and on the lower resistance above 7. Then on the treadmill she started out with a speed of 4 and an incline of 3. For three minutes. Then we increased the incline to 4 and the speed to 5. She did this for ten minutes. Then with the Exercise Ball she did the Martino ball workout placed on the wall in the depot. She did each with ten reps. Then with the 6 lb medicine ball we threw with each arm back and forth ten times. She did wall squats on the exercise ball 15 x 2 and ab crunches while throwing the med ball 10 x 2. Then on Thursday we mixed it up a bit and did the card workout. This was a challenge for my client; but she really enjoyed it! Here are what each of the cards stood for:
Aces: Run on the curves and on the straight ways first ace do grapevines, second ace do butt kicks, third ace do high knees, and fourth ace do lunges (these almost did us in :)
Kings: run the stairs (half of the gyms worth)
Queens: Leg bicycles keeping the abdominals contracted
Jacks: Mountain climbers
Spades: Squats with the 12 pound body bar on our shoulders
Diamonds: Flutter kicks with our legs
Hearts: X-factors to strengthen the back
Clubs: Down with your arms to the ground and then push the feet back and then jump up
This was my favorite workout of the week. It was very challenging, but also very fun! Also, I enjoyed that a junior Ex Sci major came and did the workout with us.

Research Lab

I spent about four hours this week in the Lab helping with VO2 max tests performed on the Baseball team's pitchers. I mostly just cleaned the equipment, monitored heartrate, and gave the RPE of the players. This is an interesting study that one of the GAs is performing. He is seeing how the regular cardio running pre-season workouts compare to a pre-season workout of ropes. I'm sure there is more to the research, but I gathered that this is the basis of it. The GA directly measured the VO2 max using arms and legs on the stationary bike.

Basketball and Cheerleading Workouts 9/8-9/11

This week in the Basketball workout was pretty much the usual. The players' form at each of the stations is getting way better. I didn't have to correct near as many as I have the last couple of weeks. They seem to be working harder as well. I really enjoy working with this team. Some of them ask, "Am I doing this correctly, or Do I have good form?" I just like how they care about doing it right and seeing effects.

This was the first time that I have gone to the cheerleading workouts. This was interesting seeing as it was 5 a.m. But it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. The cheerleaders were not as weight savvy as the basketball team. One could tell that many of the girls had never lifted much before in their life. This was good for me though because I was pretty constant in correcting form or helping that I didn't get sleepy. Then we helped them with their form for an ab workout.

Personal Training 9/8-9/11

This week was a great week with my client! We were able to meet three times this week and have three solid workouts. Since we were out of school on Monday, we ended up meeting on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. On Tuesday we ran for about 15 mins and then ended up at Centennial and did four rounds of stairs for cardio. Then we came back to the depot for resistance training. We focused on arms and went light on the legs. Then we ended with some Big Ball workout. We did something different where she would do five sit-ups on the ball while throwing the Medicine ball at me and then would do five push-ups and then 4, 3, 2, etc. She really liked it and felt like it would great. Wednesday we did the card workout in Centennial. She had never done it before and really enjoyed the variety it entailed. For hearts we did squats with weights, for clubs we bicycled abs, for diamonds we lifted weights with our arms, for spades we did mountain climbers, for aces we ran steps and then for the face cards we would run one lap around the top. She had to leave a little early so we couldn't quite do the entire deck, which was unfortunate; but we got a good 45 mins in. Then Friday was a fun day at the pit. She started by running one lap around the pit while I set up the circuit. We went through the circuit three times, five stations (abs, bicep curls, shoulder raises, pushups, box jumps). Then we ended by running four hills on the big hill on the side of the pit. Needless to say we got a total body work out. My client said that she really enjoyed it because she had to push herself but it wasn't to where it hurt. She just liked the challenge of an unusual but harder workout.

Men's Basketball Weight Training

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday I have the opportunity to help the guys basketball team in the weight room. Working with the team has made me realize how much I miss the TEAM atmosphere. I enjoy being around the team so much. The workout they are performing right now is a circuit with different weightlifting exercises at each station. Our job as helpers is to stand at a station and be sure that the players have the correct technique in the exercises. They are all very nice and enjoy the constructive criticism. I also enjoy getting to know the players slightly so when I go to the games I will have a better understanding of who each person is. I'm excited about this portion of hours.

First Training Session

This week was the beginning of my Personal Training experience. To begin with I was very nervous. The person that I am training has a few specific goals that she desires to accomplish during our training sessions, but her main goal is to just forming a routine and feeling more comfortable in her workout routine. She desires to learn enough to when I am no longer with her she can still enjoy working out and not getting bored with it. Our first consultation went really well. She was very receptive and very excited about beginning our journey. After the consultation we did a fitness test and that concluded our first session. We decided that our meeting times are going to be Mon, Wed, Fri at 11:00. Our first real session was Monday. We began by doing the Big 3 and I decided that we are going to do this to start every session. The importance of a solid core has been drilled into our heads since we have begun the program. Next, we went into the weight room and I showed her the correct technique to multiple arm exercises that we will be using throughout the semester. We ended with some Exercise Ball work. The first session was very successful. My client seemed to really enjoy it and I think that this semester is going to be really fun training her.