The class bell has rung and now we must all gather up our papers and haphazardly shove them into our backpacks. Since I gave some recommendations for improving science class the other day, we now need to scurry off to the locker room to get changed; it’s time for gym class. However, rather than rolling out the dodgeballs and refereeing a game that nobody will ever play again upon graduation, let’s tweak the curriculum towards something a bit more useful. As always, make sure to sharpen those pitchforks!
Go to your local gym and you’ll see bad lifting form on full display; whether it’s not using full range of motion, elbows flaring out on the bench press, rounding your back during deadlifts, or countless other mistakes. However, our high school gym classes hardly, if ever, focus on weightlifting. The solution is simple; there needs to be a complete one-eighty on the amount of time spent on weightlifting in high school gym classes, relative to other activities. Odds are after high school, most Americans will never play badminton ever again, however the gyms fill up every year on January 1st. Therefore, let’s arm the next generation with the form they’ll need to prevent injury while they spur on new muscle growth. While we’re at it, we should also go over the knowledge aspect of it; basic knowledge of rep ranges, number of sets and circuits is a must, as is muscle confusion and altering your workout regimen every few months.
Lifting, while important, isn’t everything. We need to also drill our nation’s youth on running as well. The sport of running is much more high-impact than most sedentary Americans realize (and hence isn’t a good choice for obese people to start with, but I digress). Thus, proper form while running is vitally important; how your foot strikes the ground is crucial in terms of both injury prevention and efficiency. Our high school gym classes need to instruct proper running technique, over and over again, until the students show true proficiency at it. If we have to drop soccer from the curriculum to accommodate proper injury prevention, then so be it.
While running and other forms of steady-state cardio will need to be taught, we cannot neglect high intensity interval training (HIIT). Admittedly, this will be a more advanced lesson for students that have shown the aptitude and fitness for it (this is definitely not for the beginners). Training for short bursts of ultra-high intensity will translate well into real-life emergency scenarios, as well as having the obvious sports and fitness benefits.
Calisthenics are another realm that our high school gym teachers need to drill much more on; sacrifice volleyball from the curriculum if need be. Injuries from bodyweight exercises tend to be of the high-volume, repetitive use variety. Perfecting the form on a bodyweight squat will save the hips and knees of our youth, ditto for pushups and shoulders pain. Learning how to properly work your core will be invaluable in terms of both improving quality of life (you use your core to do everything from playing sports to getting out of your car) and preventing neck injuries.
Recovery is a topic that is often glossed over, or isn’t gone over at all. The inevitable soreness scares away a lot of newcomers from sticking to their exercise routines, so we need to teach our youth that soreness is going to happen from time to time, and that it’s a good thing. As a society, we love focusing on grinding but we’re often silent on recovery. Therefore, we should teach that post-workout stretching, ice, foam-rolling and some light cardio in the following days are good things. We should also drive home the message that having sore legs doesn’t disqualify you from working your shoulders the next day-sitting on the couch and being completely sedentary is one of the worst things you can do from a recovery standpoint.
“Dan, you just hate sports!” No I don’t, far from it actually. I just don’t think that field hockey is a more practical use of class time than the lessons I prescribed above-the average American is never going to play field hockey again once they receive a high school diploma. Also, if our students are stronger due to lifting, more explosive thanks to HIIT, and have better steady-state cardio, then they’ll inevitably perform better in whatever sport they do want to play. Squats, burpees and cardio will do a world of good for someone on the basketball court.
However, gym class is a subject that changing the curriculum will only go so far. A substantial shift will have to occur in who we hire as gym teachers. Essentially, instead of gym teachers that are generalists in a bunch of sports that few people play, we need to hire strength and conditioning coaches to run our high school gym classes. Conditioning is the foundation that our health and athletic lives are built on; in other words, having the perfect lay-up doesn’t matter if you cant get your rotund body up the court.
Admittedly, this will mean a less fun experience in high school gym classes for the vast majority of students. However, the trade-off is worth it in my eyes if we can get students in better shape, make them less injury-prone, and set them up for a healthier rest of their lives; especially since we’re in the midst of a multi-decade long obesity crisis. It’s time we put down the lacrosse stick and picked up a dumbbell.
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