HOW NOT TO BEHAVE BADLY

This month’s theme is about sportsmanship and character building. There are plenty of coaches, sports psychologists, and physical educators who can give advice and spend the time equal to numerous dissertations talking about both good and poor sportsmanship. As parents, we have the obligation to try to teach our children good sportsmanship. As an educator, I try to instill in my students the seeds of what is right and wrong behavior in the fitness environment without offending personal culture or familial up bringing.

Coming off the heels of the 2006 Winter Olympic games in Turin, stories of character among the athletes surfaced that caught the attention of the media. By the time you read this month’s PELINKS4U, no doubt you will have heard many examples of positive sportsmanship and outstanding athletic character that you would want to share with your students. Therefore the direction I’ve chosen to write about has more to do with fitness behaviors in the gym, the health club, and the locker rooms.

You don’t have to look too far, or too long, to find evidence of poor behavior, including discourteousness, and people who lack social grace in the workout environment. Perhaps their character reflects an "it’s all about me" or "I’ve paid for this membership" attitude. I choose to believe it is not a character flaw but a result of not knowing the unwritten expectations of the gym, health club, or locker room. It’s time to write some of the unwritten etiquette rules so as to know How not to Behave Badly!

Debra D'Acquisto
Health & Fitness Section Editor

Editorial content does not necessarily reflect the opinions and perspectives of PELINKS4U.

Funtastic Field Days

The focus of this month's review is on making a field day that is fun, different, and exciting for the children. In the Project ACES Handbook, Len Saunders presents an activity called "The Funtastic Field Days." This activity can involve all grades, and be a school wide event.

Most schools have a field day, and this can be another activity that can be used to promote health and physical exercise. While there are numerous ways to run a field day, Glen notes that it seems to work best if the students participate at a series of activity stations (for 15-20 minutes) and earn points at each station.

There are many ways that this can be run, however Len has found that if you can enlist the help of volunteers it will make it easier. Have the volunteers assist with the activity station responsibilities. A letter is sent home inviting them to be a volunteer. It is also helpful to meet with your volunteers prior to the event.

The classroom teachers, on the other hand, will be responsible for maintaining discipline, keeping track of the score for their specific group, and traveling with them to new stations. Some examples of stations can be the 50-yard dash, hula-hoop spin, and tug-of-war.

This chapter offers sample letters home to parents, examples of activities and scoring sheets, as well as other materials that can be used in providing some assistance in carrying out a successful implementation of the field day.

FUNCTIONAL FITNESS: Newcomers to health clubs are finding great personal health benefits by participating in "functional fitness" programs. These programs focus more on how the body performs, and less on how it looks. Functional fitness develops the muscles associated with, and increases the heart rate associated with, daily tasks. The acronym, ADL is often understood to mean activities of daily living. Well developed functional fitness programs may include a series of exercises designed to prevent injury, to slow aging, or to strengthen the core muscles.

A series of lunge exercises, for example, mimic stepping forward to shake someone’s hand, stepping up onto a curb, or practices pushing off the supporting lower leg to go up stairs. Another example of a functional fitness exercise is the weighted single arm overhead press. Practice this movement with a free weight, body bar, or resistance band. By flexing at the shoulder and extending at the elbow, daily tasks such as reaching for somewhat heavy items from a high shelf may by mimicked.

Put the lunge and the overhead press together and you have a perfect example of a compound movement needed to do yard work. Pushing a wheelbarrow needs the lower body forward thrust demonstrated by the single leg lunge and needs the shoulder strength exercised in the overhead presses. Pull a garden hose by assuming an astride leg stance and tracking the shoulders through flexion and the elbow into extension. You might question yourself if you need anything more than your own body weight to attain fitness for the activities of daily living.

BACK TO BASICS: Little or no equipment needed, instead relying on your own body weight resistance for strength exercises, is making a come back in the form of Bootcamp programs. Bootcamp incorporates basic calisthenics and functional fitness movements in a military-style atmosphere. Drills and circuit programs are typical formats for indoor and outdoor led bootcamp classes. The 2005 International Dance and Exercise Association (IDEA) fitness and equipment survey reported 35% of facilities offering indoor bootcamp programs, and 16% offering outdoor programs.

"Bootcamps try to get out of the conventional type of environment and back to the basic elementary aspects of physical training, emphasizing the psychological and disciplinary aspects of fitness", says American Council on Exercise Chief exercise physiologist Dr. Ceric Bryant. If you are interested in trying bootcamp, be sure you look to see if you are getting into an individual class or a more structured weekly program. Check out www.bootcampfitness.us/ & www.acacamp.org

If the Back to Basics or Functional Fitness movement has you regularly attending a gym or health club, you may have noticed behavior that has been less then courteous to you or others. A time or two in the locker room may have caused you surprise! With the influx of so many newcomers to the health clubs at this time of year, a review of How not to behave Badly may be warranted. For the record, the International Health, Racquet and Sportclub Association report that an estimated 10 million Americans will join health clubs in 2006. And, the first trimester of the year is typically the seasonal high in numbers of newcomers that join.

Social courtesy, and respect for others in public or private gathering areas are usually influenced by unwritten behaviors. You might think of an open-air market or an outdoor concert as places where many people gather. Typically, you wouldn’t go around tasting and sampling all the produce at the market without asking, and then throw your refuse on the ground, because "it’s outside, anyway". Just as at an outdoor concert you wouldn’t intentionally block the view of the person near to you or use a loud annoying voice during the performance.

Luckily, if bad behavior in either of those two settings bothered you, the likelihood of it happening again is low. However, the health club setting poses distinct differences than the open-air market. Your workout schedule may be governed by the hour of your favorite group exercise class, your own work hours, or your trainer’s schedule. And, like you, many people will be working out at the same time, at the same place several times a week, a month, or for years. Therefore, mixing the regular gym goers with the “newbies” may require a few written good etiquette reminders posted around the gym, locker room, or in a newsletter.

Let’s take a closer look at How Not to Behave Badly!

IN THE WORKOUT AREA

	Don’t hog. Limit the time on the cardio machines according to the guidelines that most gyms post, usually 20 - 30 minutes. Acknowledge people who are waiting, and don’t go over the time limit.
	Clean up after yourself. Wipe up your sweat, put your magazines away, stash your towels, dispose of your Kleenex, and pick up the clothes you shed along the way.
	You lift it, you rack it. One of our local gyms in Ellensburg posts a sign that says, "If you’re strong enough to lift it, you’re strong enough to put it away." Weights lying around on the floor can pose a safety hazard for those walking around the area. Avoid the outside chance that a weight rolls away by racking it right after use.
	Don’t be everyone’s friend. Two points are important here. One, don’t let someone abuse you by them asking for your help in spotting. This can be dangerous to you and to the one asking, so be able to say ‘No." There are gym employees and trainers willing to do the spotting. Two, don’t be the chatty socialite. Working out is one’s personal time and socializing to the excess may be very distracting.
	Tone it down. Talking on the cell phone (unless it is an emergency), singing loudly with ear phones on, grunting, screaming, and swearing should be avoided. Excessively breathing heavily while exhaling loudly, then crashing the weights to the floor may be accepted in some gyms designed for the Mr. Universe competitor, but not the family health club.
	Exercise courtesy. Group exercise classes have common unsaid expectations that may include, sharing equipment, arriving on time and staying for the duration of the class, reasonably follow the lead of the instructor or don’t take the class, and don’t stake claim to an area that is open to everyone.
	Tote your gym bag. Schlepping your gym bag around the gym with you may cause a hazard to others. A locker room is the place to store your bags. If securing your valuables is an issue, check with the management.
	Don’t be a bench potato. Sitting around on the incline/decline benches is not advised unless you are planning to use it for what it is intended.
	Mirror, mirror on the wall. Use mirror to check out your posture. Not your neighbors.
	Water rights. The water fountain is a place to take a drink and move on. Unfortunately, some people will monopolize the area like a Monday morning quarterback, fill huge bottles of water or snort, spit, and sneeze in close vicinity.

IN THE LOCKER ROOM

	Clean up after yourself. This sounds all too familiar. Have we heard this at home since we were children? If we are educating children, then reinforcing personal responsibility will carry over to the gym and locker room. Too bad, some adults need the reminder. The locker room is a place where personal items tend to get strewn around. Learn to keep your personal items orderly and leave the area as you found it. Let’s demonstrate appropriate social courtesy.
	Don’t hog. Share the facility and it’s amenities, from the time you use the water in the showers, to the amount of area you use on the locker room benches.
	This is not an exhibition. In our culture, few appreciate excessive nudity on display.
	Beauty and the beast. There are people who are very sensitive to odors from perfumes to perspiration. Enough said.
	No germs please. Wash your hands after using the bathroom, and throw Kleenex away to avoid spreading germs. Keep the locker free from mold by avoiding keeping damp towels, sneakers, or items of clothing around too long.

Those who have good social courtesy may look at these written reminders and smile. For some, good etiquette comes naturally, and for others it must be taught. Let’s take home the "How not to behave badly" message to our gym-goer adult friends and to the students we come in contact with so as to create a more enjoyable and safe workout environment.

20 Little Known Facts About The Human Body

	A human being loses an average of 40 to 100 strands of hair a day.
	A cough releases an explosive charge of air that moves at speeds up to 60 mph.
	Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
	A fetus acquires fingerprints at the age of three months.
	A sneeze can exceed the speed of 100 mph.
	Every person has a unique tongue print. By age sixty, most people have lost half of their taste buds.
	According to German researchers, the risk of heart attack is higher on Monday than any other day of the week.
	After spending hours working at a computer display, look at a blank piece of white paper. It will probably appear pink.
	An average human drinks about 16,000 gallons of water in a lifetime.
	A fingernail or toenail takes about 6 months to grow from base to tip.
	An average human scalp has 100,000 hairs.
	It takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 to frown.
	Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood we have only 206 in our bodies.
	Beards are the fastest growing hairs on the human body. If the average man never trimmed his beard, it would grow to nearly 30 feet long in his lifetime.
	By the time you turn 70, your heart will have beat some two-and-a-half billion times (figuring on an average of 70 beats per minute.)
	Each square inch of human skin consists of twenty feet of blood vessels.
	Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.
	Every square inch of the human body has an average of 32 million bacteria on it.
	Fingernails grow faster than toenails.
	Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour - about 1.5 pounds a year. By 70 years of age, an average person will have lost 105 pounds of skin.

Human Body Systems - Each of our body systems are interconnected and dependent on each other. Our heart, which is part of our circulatory system, does not beat unless our brain, which is part of our nervous system, tells it to. Our skeletal system is dependent on our digestive system for increase in size and strength. Our muscular system needs our respiratory and circulatory systems to supply energy in the form of oxygen and nutrients. It takes all the systems for human growth and development. Sample some of the following activities to learn more about human body systems. - source: Themepark

Did you know the food you eat has to travel 20-30 feet through your body? Take a virtual tour of the Digestive System.

Virtually explore the heart. When you were born, your heart weighed less than an ounce. A human adult's heart weighs about 12 ounces. An elephant's heart weighs about 44 pounds. A blue whale's heart is about the size of a small car and weighs about 1500-1600 pounds!

Body Quest: Want to take a slice out of a virtual human body? This informative site does just that: it allows you to take a tour of the human body and learn about its different systems. The site contains many graphics, such as a body map, as well as alphabetical and categorical indexes for easy navigation. Experiments and a quiz for each body system are also included.

Your Gross and Cool Body: This site poses the question “What makes the human body work?” Follow Wendell Worm and his friend Dora as they explore gross body sounds and yucky body parts to answer that question.

Can Teach: Body Systems Links Check out this site that indexes a plethora of links about each of the various body systems.

The Human Body: Take a look inside your body and find out about the nervous, circulatory, skeletal, and digestive systems. Click on parts of the body you want more information on and learn all about them.

The Real Deal on the Digestive System: Trace your lunch all through your digestive system with information from this site.

The Hosford Muscle Tables: Skeletal Muscles of the Human Body Check out this site that contains detailed information about the muscles of the human body. It even has a clickable body muscle map that enables you to click on a part of the body to learn more about the muscles of that area.

Inner Body: The Skeletal System Check out this cool skeletal diagram that features all kinds of facts about bones, ligaments, and tendons.

All Systems are Go! - In this online activity, a fictional character, Arnold is missing a number of body parts. Students are presented with a body system and a variety of organs. Students drag and drop all the organs that belong in that particular body system to Arnold's body. Once all four systems are complete, a clothed Arnold will appear.

Note: if students drag in an organ that doesn't belong, all the organs pop out and students have to start that system over.

This tool can be used to complement instruction on body systems and function, as well as systems in general. This activity focuses on four systems: digestive, circulatory/respiratory, skeletal, and nervous. Keep in mind, the focus of this activity shouldn't be so much on the names of the organs, but more on the fact that organs in one system work together to make that system function.

The "Learn More" section provides information about each of the systems used in this activity. - source: Science NetLinks