P.E. class — Fitness gets personal

P.E. in the old days was simple. Either you loved it or hated it. You were either an athlete or not. You were on the top half of those being picked for the team or the bottom, and straggling behind the pack during the mile run meant poor marks.

But thanks to a new state-of-the-art P.E. program that personalizes fitness for students, both jocks and nonjocks can be recognized for doing well in gym class.

"This is enormous, and it's a whole paradigm shift from what P.E. was — winner takes all, a rough dog-eat-dog world," said Cindy Lloyd, Jordan district secondary P.E. specialist. "It's like a springboard for teaching the concepts of fitness, and kids can say, this is where I am, this is where I want to be and this is what I need to do to get there."

Thanks to a $1.1 million grant awarded to Jordan District about four years ago, P.E. teachers in 25 secondary schools were able to purchase the $8,000 TriFIT machine, a computer system that tracks things like biceps strength, flexibility, weight, body composition and heart rate, and marks improvements while being connected to top-of-the-line $200 heart-rate monitors worn by the students.

When students enter a P.E. class, they strap the monitors on and keep track of their own heart rate, making sure it is where it needs to be during physical activity.

"It levels the playing field — it used to be the athletes did the best, they got A's and the rest just struggled," Lloyd said. "Now it only matters that they are working and stay in their heart-rate zone."

So students who are not athletically inclined might actually walk the mile instead of jogging or running, and as long as they are in their individual zone, they will be getting the job done.

"It doesn't matter that they run a mile and a half in 10 minutes or not. It's not based on that," Lloyd said. "The shift has completely become individualized fitness."

Leaders say students who are able to monitor themselves, see improvements and set their own personal goals are much more likely to take ownership of their health. The program also encourages parents to sit down with their children and help them set fitness goals.

"When (students) are able to monitor themselves and have that kind of feedback that says, 'Hey, I am working hard and doing well and improving, even though not the star, I am doing well,' they tend to be more engaged," said Wyatt Bentley, P.E. teacher at Sunset Ridge Middle School, which also has the TriFIT system. "They see that 'I don't have to be that guy in order for fitness to pay off for me.'"