Exercise Science students promote healthy lifestyle and changes in Westside School.

Exercise Science students promote health to local school students inside IUPUI’s Human Performance Laboratory.

The IUPUI Fit For Life program sends 45 IUPUI exercise science students to George Washington Community School, where they work with students in daily physical education classes and during an after school program.
The IUPUI students are those whose career goals are to become personal trainers or exercise clinicians. They teach lifetime fitness such as how to set personal fitness goals, how to use weight machines, or how to exercise at home if a gym is not available.

During the after school program, IUPU students act as strength and conditioning coaches and personal trainers for athletes and other students at George Washington. George Washington students are also brought to IUPUI’s Human Performance Laboratory where their muscular strength, muscular endurance, body composition, blood pressure and heart rate are assessed. If needed, they are coached about how to lower their blood pressure through exercise and nutrition.

The intent of the program, said its creator Nicole Keith, an assistant professor in the Department of Physical Education at IUPUI, is to teach lifetime fitness to all kids. “Fit for Life doesn’t require try-outs, which intimidate some kids. It’s for anyone who wants to exercise and receive the same kind of attention as athletes receive.”
While students in grades 6-12 at George Washington are the targeted beneficiaries, Keith is studying how the impact of the program rubs off on others, including staff at the school who are free to participate in the after school program and the parents of the George Washington students.

“They see changes in the kids and think ‘I can do this too’,” Keith said. “I get to research how a program like impacts children, helping them to become more active, and how changes in kids and staff at the school impact the community.”

That impact will grow significantly with the recent arrival of more than $26,000 in new cardio exercise equipment and weight machines that will form the centerpiece of a 6,000 square foot wellness center that will be built at George Washington. The wellness center, expected to open in the fall of 2007, will serve west side residents, who would be able to use the center by paying a one-time $20 fee.

Keith applied for and received an Indianapolis Public Schools physical education grant to pay for the new equipment.

Once the wellness center is established, IUPUI’s physical education students will also work with community residents using the facility, providing the students with needed hands-on experience of planning fitness goals and exercise routines.