Friday, March 29, 2024

All about teamwork

CrossFit paves way for Community Health in and outside the classroom

Posted

MANSON - What do you think about when P.E comes to mind, just an easy ‘A’ class where you get to run around for an hour.

Do mental images of the endless games of dodgeball, softball, badminton, flag football and capture the flag come to mind?

What about Cross-Fit?

For the past three years, Manson High School has been holding a Cross-Fit gym class, taught by Spanish and language arts teacher Heather Teague, and it has become one of the most sought after electives.

Teague attributes the popularity of the class to an upgrade in equipment, the teamwork atmosphere and a structure that holds everyone accountable during workouts.

“For a long time (the gym) was just metals and one pull up bar. Just the boys used it because it was too high, so the girls in my P.E class couldn’t even do a hang or pull up,” Teague said. “The gym hadn’t been updated since the 80’s and the rest of the equipment was made by the shop teacher, which was great, but it was nice to get new stuff.”

New equipment is one thing, the structure is what Teague believes as the main selling point for the course.

“I am strict in the sense that this is what we are doing, and if you are not apart of the team then you will have consequences or a burpee penalty, so no one gets away with it,” Teague said. “Everyday is teamwork and I think that is why people like it so much, got get up there and are expected to be a participating member of the team and if you don’t hold up your end, then everyone notices, so it’s difference from other classes. You can’t just slide away and hide.”

If the grades of her students were slipping, Teague would post them up on the wall where everyone could see to hold them accountable.

“Some kids don’t have the family that I grew up with, so they need someone to care for them like that. Even if their family or they think they are losers, they will be pushed to their very limit (in my class),” Teague stated.

This past spring the Manson Cross-Fit gym class (52 kids) and 53 teachers, parents and community members took a 78-day community health challenge partnered with the Lake Chelan Community Hospital Foundation and Colville Tribes Diabetes Program. On March 29, all 105 participants took a pre weigh-in on a InBody scale - courtesy of Colville Tribes - which measures the weight of bones, water, fat and muscle in addition to the normal gross body weight on a regular scale.

The LCCH Foundation also bought 52 journals for the students to record their goals, log results from each workout and serve as a reference for future workouts. The Foundation also brought in Registered Dietician Abby Pattinson to give a couple nutrition presentations to the students, advocating for things like water with fruit in it instead of juice, soda or drinks with sugar.

“These are things that I see adult women and men doing and they are simple things you learn along the way, but kids are having a lot of decisions made for them so paying attention to nutrition isn’t big,” Teague said. “We (also) had InBody come and that was cool to see where they are. You want to lose weight, but you’re also lifting so it’s transforming fat into muscle. And at some things, girls are better than boys, for instance with overhead squats the girls were lifting more and the boys were amazed.”

After the 78-day’s, just about everyone saw positive improvement, lost weight and gained muscle mass. One female student gained 24 percent muscle tone.

Now, almost three weeks after the final weigh-in, some of the students are continuing to use the weight room in the high school and a few have even signed up for one of Teague’s CrossFit classes at her gym Chelan Valley CrossFit.

“Students love having the workout already planned for them and someone making sure they are doing it correctly,” Teague said. “It is all about technique, it has to be perfect on a PvC pipe before you earn your bar. It doesn’t matter if you do olympic lifting or are a beginner, you have to hit the positions along the way which is humbling for a lot of people.”

LCCH Foundation Executive Director Arlene Abbott is planning on writing a grant to acquire a InBody scale, which can be transfered between the hospital and schools.

Zach Johnson can be reached at lcmeditor@gmail.com or (509) 682-2213

Manson High School, CrossFit, Chelan Valley CrossFit, Manson CrossFit, Lake Chelan Community Hospital Foundation

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