Now that the school year is in full swing, and the full time students’ first tournament is coming up, their fitness is more important than ever. At the beginning of every academic year, Fitness and Nutrition Instructor, Kelly Shobe, does fitness assessments with the students in order to determine their personal fitness level and what areas they may need to make progress in. Shobe does cardiovascular, muscular strength, muscular endurance, and flexibility assessments.
“At their age it is important to do measurable fitness tests,” said Shobe. “It’s difficult for them to see that they’re making progress because their muscles don’t appear to be growing and they don’t have visible abs after a few weeks, but if you can show them through fitness assessments that they’re physically able to do five more pushups or crunches then it’s easy for them to see themselves improving”.
Once the individual assessments are complete, the full time students set short and long term fitness goals and get monthly physical reports to see whether they’re achieving their short term goals and are on the right path to achieve their long term goals.
With the sport of golf specifically, it is highly important that the students have a good balance of the four assessment areas.
“If their muscular strength overpowers their flexibility then it limits their range of motion when swinging, however if their flexibility outweighs their strength then it limits the power that they have to drive the ball the necessary distance,” said Shobe.
Shobe bases a lot of her workout plans to help create a strong mind to body relationship and ensure mental control of the body when the students are playing. Exercising the mind daily to ensure full control over things like heart rate, breathing, and muscle tension, play a big factor in golf performance.
“I make them do at least ten minutes of cardio every day to teach their minds how to control heart rate, which is important when teeing off and putting. Being able to control their heart rate when their nervous at a tournament and teeing off, or being able to slow their heart rate down to increase focusing while putting are skills that require practice and strong mind to body control,” said Shobe. “Yoga is also a really useful way to help teach them how to control their breathing and make them aware of the control that they have over basic body function, and how those affect their performance”.
As the students compete in their first tournament this weekend it will be a great indicator on physical and mental aspects that need to be improved moving forward, and where they need to set their physical goals moving into the month of October. With Shobe’s help, our kids will continue to improve and be in the best physical shape possible, to stay on top of their game.