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In the early 1980's I raced bicycles on the velodrome in Redmond, Washington. It was a wonderful time in my life and I gained an incredible level of fitness. I also gained several valuable life lessons.
As most sports fans know, bike racers use one another as windbreaks to overcome air resistance. This is called "drafting." By sharing the windblocking duty, a pack of riders can move along at a far faster pace than an individual rider who must overcome wind resistance, as well as rolling resistance all alone. If you are unable to keep the pace of the pack, or if you lapse in your efforts for a moment, you drop outside of the protective effect of the mass of the pack and are left to battle wind resistance alone.
Unlike foot racing, there is no pride in just finishing a bike race. If you are not in the pack, not in contention, you are pressured by the other riders, the crowd, and at times even the officials to drop out and head for the infield.
In contrast, to "break away" - to ride out ahead of the pack in bike racing - is truly a phenomenal feat that requires extraordinary fitness and superior motivation. Riders who form a breakaway are cheered, admired, and often rewarded with medals for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place for their efforts. What is unknown to most sports fans is that it takes just as much fitness and motivation to break away off the front of the pack as it does to catch back up to the back of the pack if one is dropped.
I often reflect back to the times when I dangled off the back of the pack unable to summon the strength or motivation to ride harder and suffer any more, just to regain my position in the midst of the pack. On the other hand, I can also vividly recall the glory of the times when I broke away - sometimes for just a few laps - and how willing I was to ride until my lungs and legs burned like fire, and my pulse pounded at 200 bpm in response to the positive motivation of the cheering crowd and the announcer's voice proclaiming my name and number.
How different motivation can be when we are succeeding and trying for the "big win," as opposed to when we are losing and trying merely for mediocrity, although the effort required for either may actually be exactly the same.
Andy Jenkins
Section Editor
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| Health & Nutrition Resources |
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The Soy Information Page
The soy food finder provides information on a variety of soy foods, explanations of each soy food component, information on foods that are made with the components, and recipe ideas. Also, the health benefits of soy products is discussed.
Osteoporosis and other Related Bone Diseases
This site offers health information about the bone disease Osteoporosis. The facts and figures are American, but the information provided is universal.
Osteoporosis
This well organized site covers the causes, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of osteoporosis. Some of the topics covered are calcium, menopause, bone fractures, and estrogen. From the Osteoporosis Society of Canada, available in English and French.
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If you have ideas, comments, letters to share, or questions about particular topics, please email one of the following Section Editors:
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Help to support quality physical education and health education by contributing to this site.
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Fitness and Nutrition Software On-Line
Another powerful fitness/nutrition on-line software package. Health Reply Fitness Computer 2000 is software for maximizing your health and for losing weight. It includes a cardiovascular risk calculator, calculates body mass index, determines the exact exercise heart rate to maximally reduce your risk of heart attack, and calculates body fat without using calipers.
Adaptive PE Equipment
Having trouble finding exercise equipment for your adaptive PE students? Check out Saratoga Access and Fitness - wheelchair aerobic exercise equipment. Perhaps several pieces of this type of equipment could be purchased for an entire school district and moved around from school to school.
Coaches' College
The National Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association now offers a Coaches' College intended to teach trainers, therapists, teachers, and coaches how to properly and scientifically plan, design, and implement sound and effective strength training programs.
Tips for Avoiding Tennis Traumas
One of our favorite summertime activities is tennis. It offers sunshine, competition, hand/eye coordination, finesse, and a fast pace. Unfortunately, tennis can also produce injuries such as muscle and tendon soreness. Christie Matheson offers her list of tips for avoiding tennis traumas.
Swim between the flags with Freddo Frog
This is a a terrific water safety site for kids. Learn about how to keep safe while swimming between the flags, and have fun with games and puzzles at the same time.
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Feeding the Soul
We eat 'right,' we work out, our minds are finely tuned, but how many of us consider the nourishment of our souls?
We are body/mind/spirit. They cannot exist separately.
If we do not nurture our complete self, we die at some level. We begin to wither, with a feeling of emptiness.
There's a vague, persistent feeling that "something is missing," a feeling of being dead inside.
We go about our daily lives, we smile, we manage....and inside, where no one can hear, we wail. Very little in our culture is deeply meaningful, feeding our soul, taking us deeper than our shallow, homogenized living.
Indeed, living in any other way but the narrowly prescribed cultural mode is considered strange and suspect, even if pain and suffering are a dominant part of that mode.
Yet we are meant to be joyful creatures, feeling our innate aliveness and our connectedness to the Holy, Universe and Spirit.
Of the Earth dwellers, we alone have been gifted with consciousness and free will. But how tragically we waste our precious moments.
Sent in by Darrylynn Griffin; Maryland
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| Health & Wellness Resources |
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Food Safety Quiz
The FDA offers an interactive learning exercise for grade school children to learn about food safety and handwashing.
Teen Suicide Continues to Rise
Between 1952 and 1995, the incidence of suicide among adolescents and young adults nearly tripled. More teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia and influenza, and chronic lung disease combined. There are now twice as many deaths due to suicide than due to HIV/AIDS. Every 17 minutes another life is lost to suicide.
Facts on suicide, and suicide prevention, can be had at the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention website.
Where Do Kids Learn About Sex?
As health educators, we are often asked to teach sex education in our schools. Most of us do a great job at sex education, but research shows that teens wish their parents would help them more in finding answers regarding sexuality. A cooperative effort between parents, teachers, and teens and is clearly the best situation. Advice for parents when talking to their teens about sex is offered at Web MD.
When Love Hurts
"When Love Hurts" is a guide for girls on love, respect, and abuse in relationships. This site offers answers to questions such as:
- What is abuse in relationships?
- Why does abuse happen?
- How common is it ?
- Feelings: how can abuse affect you?
There are stories and advice from other girls, ideas that may help, a relationship warning signs quiz, and so much more. This is a site well worth checking out.
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Herbs Index Page
Herbal remedies are prolific these days with nearly a third of all Americans using them at one time or another. Investigating the web for good information may be difficult. Here's a website that offers good, solid information on herbal remedies and supplements. It might make for a good assignment in your drug education section!
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Overcome Aging Thru Diet and Exercise
HealthandAge.com offers an excellent site for late-breaking scientific news about diet, exercise, and other tips to help you achieve a healthy lifestyle. Topics include: Nutrition, fitness, cardiovascular disorders, exercise and aging, etc.
Double H
This site offers healthy meal planning for busy moms and dads. Having trouble planning healthy, low-fat meals for your family? Who doesn't! Check out Double H, a site about healthy foods, including recipes for teens and the whole family. This site also provides links for fitness and nutrition, and healthy weight loss.
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TeachCircus.com
Has your PE class gone stale? Are your kids tired of the same old games, sports, and exercises? Do you need new lesson plans and activites that enhance motor learning, skill development, and involve even the shyest of kids?
Visit the TeachCircus.com website to learn how to incorporate juggling, manipulative skills, balancing, and various types of apparatus such as unicycles, stilts, and rolling globes into your current PE program.
At this site you will also find photos of teachers and students practicing circus skills, links to circus education on the net, and information on workshops and teacher training.
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