Back To School: How To Make It A Great Year

Back to School:  How to make it a Great Year

Whether you are a student or the parent of a student, you likely have one thing on your mind as the new school year begins:  academic performance.  From kindergarteners to graduate level college students, concentration and learning are critical and directly related to how successful the year is and how bright the future looks career wise.

You may be wondering what academic performance has to do with a fitness blog.

The answer?  Everything.  The research is conclusive:  physical exercise directly impacts how well a student does academically.

Consistent, daily exercise results in significantly improved concentration, learning, and test scores.

In his book, Spark, The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, Harvard Psychiatrist Dr. John Ratey cites studies that document dramatic increases in the academic performance of students when they begin adding exercise to their daily schedule.

City Park Collegiate school in Saskatoon Saskatchewan is an inner city school in which many students have both behavioral and academic challenges.  But after bringing treadmills into the class room and letting the students use them, behavioral and academic problems improved.

Students were able to sit still longer, concentrate better and scores began sky rocketing.  In just four months, the students in Allison Cameron’s class began improving academically.  Grade level increases were in the 27%-36% range, and math increases were similar.¹

And all it took was 20 minutes of exercise each morning.

What is it about exercise that causes such significant changes?  Scientists are still trying to understand it, but it appears as though exercise helps to lay down new pathways in the brain, which aids learning.  Neurogenesis also seems to be stimulated by exercise.  Neurogenesis is the process by which the brain grows new brain cells.  These new brain cells help build the new pathways along which learning can take place.²

City Park isn’t the only school that has seen improvements in student’s academic and behavioral performance. At Naperville Central High School west of Chicago, similar results are seen, with students dramatically improving in reading, math³ and science.

The take-away message?  If you are a student, a parent of a student or even a teacher, exercise should be a top priority.  To neglect it is to sabotage potential and open the door for behavioral problems.

There are many ways to get a good workout in.

Resist the urge to neglect exercise in order to spend more time with the books.  Your study time will be much more productive if you feed your brain with exercise!

Sources:

¹ http://impossible2possible.com/modules/baffin/AP%20Word%20Module%202%20-%20Exercising%20your%20Brain.f.pdf

² Ibid.

³ http://abcnews.go.com/WN/exercise-school-leads-learning/story?id=10371315#.UD-6YKMq4uM

 

I heard the Cross Zumba Fit Pump X 90 Spin program is the best and gets results in 5 minutes!!!

Stop right there! Hold the presses! I must start by saying that all of the different fitness programs out there are enough to make your head spin. Zumba, Crossfit, Body Pump, Spin, P90 X , Insanity the list goes on and on. In my almost 15 years of training, every few months a new fitness program emerges and I get a bunch of questions of the effectiveness of it. I wanted to clear the air on all of them and help you choose the best one.

First off, lets debunk the idea that any one fitness program will yield you amazing results in a short period of time. Here is the simple answer why. People don’t “get out of shape over night so they sure as heck can’t get back into shape overnight.” It’s the truth, for most folks the journey to not having the healthy fit lifestyle they want came over the course of many years usually for many different reasons. So get the idea out of your head that getting fit is going to happen fast, once you set a more realistic expectation then you will feel success!!

Second, get ready for this one… ALL exercise programs have some merit! Yes I said all. The fact of the matter is our society in America is very overweight and needs help, so I am all for any program that gets people MOVING and not sitting on their backsides so much. Now with that being said, the programs that are out there need to be carefully chosen by the user. Plain and simple the person doing it needs to enjoy it, needs to know WHY they want to choose it and it needs to yield results.

Third, here is where I firmly believe that a personal trainer can help someone decide and help draw up the blue print for success. Yes, I can design a program designed with a strength, metabolic, flexibility and cardio component for a client but what are they doing when they don’t see me? I want them to try as many things as possible. Vary their exercise routines and ENJOY IT! A trainer can and should help a client decide on the different things out there to help them fit their lifestyle, goals and make sure that it is a SAFE fit for them. Plus they should not be afraid to do so!!

A mentor of mine used a great quote once.
Instead of ready, aim, fire… He said ready, FIRE , aim!!
READY- consult a personal trainer on what might be a good fit for you
FIRE – don’t wait until Monday or the first of the month. Start NOW..RIGHT NOW. Make the change
AIM – fine tune your program. Again, the help of a personal trainer could prove very valuable here. Your fitness program is about you and your journey to a healthier life, now it gets fun to find out just how great you are and that you are capable of amazing things.

Thanks for reading. I hope it was helpful