2010 Ophea and PHE Canada National Conference

The 2010 OPHEA and PHE Canada National Conference was last week. With over 900 attendees from all over Canada and 100 plus workshops presented, hundreds of ideas were shared and lots of new friendships were made. Thank you to everyone who made this event a tremendous success!

One of my favourite parts of the conference was the Keynote Address from Craig Kielburger, founder and chair of Free The Children and Co-Founder and Director of Me to We Social Enterprises. He gave an inspiring presentation that touched upon the idea of finding a spark or a passion in your students and working with them to match that spark with a social cause:

EMPOWERMENT and EDUCATION

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YOUTH VOLUNTEERISM and SOCIAL ACTIVISM

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LIFELONG GLOBAL CITIZENS

I really liked this concept and wondered how I could integrate this philosophy into my classrooms. One of the programs Craig mentioned was Life in Action. Check out the Life in Action link and click on the link for educators - there is a teacher's handbook that includes lesson plans and activity ideas that are a great starting point!

Interview with Parents Canada

Glen Herbert from Parents Canada interviewed me for an article titled "Fit to be tried." In the article, Glen discusses how to make kids more active by choosing appropriate sports for them and why keeping our kids active matters.

The article provides helpful basic guidelines on how to introduce your students to new sports. Click here to read the full article.

Teach time-strapped students how to Tabata

Tired of listening to your students complain that they don't have enough time to keep active? Well, here is a training solution that might provide a solution - the Tabata. The Globe and Mail published a great article today about it titled "The Four-Minute Workout."

Tabata is a type of high-intensity interval training. It was originally developed by for Japan's Olympic speed-skating team and is named after Izumi Tabata, a former researcher at Japan's National Institute of Fitness and Sports.

Teach Your Students How to Tabata
Here is an adapted Tabata workout that you can use with your students. The entire Tabata workout will take 16 minutes to complete. It consists of 20 seconds of activity for 8 sets per exercise, with 10 seconds of rest per set. You will act as the timer.

You know your students best - determine number of sets according to your students' fitness levels and abilities. The workout below is an example. Start with low sets and increase number of sets as students get more fit.

1. Choose 4 bodyweight exercises, eg. squat, lunge, push up, sit up, burpee, skipping, etc.
2. Create a Tabata workout handout to record number of reps completed per set within 20 seconds.
3. Students complete all 8 sets of each exercise before moving to next exercise.
4. Encourage students to try their hardest and keep moving during the full 20 seconds of each activity.
5. Students record number of reps done for each set in their Tabata chart.
6. Once workout is completed, students record their highest and lowest numbers to determine average score for each exercise - their Tabata number.
7. For future Tabata workouts, students will try to hold their Tabata number for all 8 sets of each exercise.
8. If students can hold their Tabata number, they can increase their number by 1 rep for next session.
9. If students can't hold their Tabata number, repeat number until they can hold for all 8 sets.

As always, it's important to remind students that a varied approach is their best bet for fitness but if you're short on time, the Tabata is a great alternative.

I Challenge YOU to "THE WALL-BALL-TOSS!"

The 2009 International Olympic Committee has done something really cool this year to generate buzz for the Winter 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.

Check out "The Best of Us Challenge" where Olympic athletes challenge you to compete in some truly unique events. Some challenges include a "speed putting" challenge from Michael Phelps, Rafael Nadal's "tennis ball pick-up," and Lolo Jone's "clapping press-ups."

To participate, you must submit your own video response via YouTube. You don't have to be an athlete to participate and submissions are coming in from all over the world. Everyone who submits a video is eligible to win a prize. Click on the link above for more details.

Click on the link below and look for me. I submitted the - The Wall Ball Toss:



If you had difficulty finding my video submission, click here for a direct link. Can you beat me? How about your students?

This is an easy, interactive activity for you and your students. Have them challenge you, me, an olympic athlete or even each other. All you need to get started is:

• Digital Camera with video
  
• Quick Time Player
  
• Internet access
• Gmail account
• You Tube account

The deadline is the end of February...so get moving! If your students want to create their own challenges, check out the Active Living Fitness Charts for some inspiration!

An Olympic Challenge for your Students!

The 2009 International Olympic Committee has created this really neat website that involves an interactive contest called "The Best of Us Challenge." The contest includes unique video challenges from Olympic Winter 2010 athletes showing off their interesting hidden talents.

Do you think your students have what it takes to compete against an Olympian? If so, get them to create a Challenge video response and upload it to the website. Who knows - your students might even win a challenge or two!

Your students can also create their own challenges and compete with other students across Canada and even the world! Click on the link below for more information. Submissions are due less than 2 weeks - so get moving!

A Response to the TIME Magazine Article: "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin"

Photo courtesy of www.time.com

This summer, TIME magazine published a controversial cover story titled "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin" by John Cloud. Within the article, Cloud argues that exercise doesn't actually help you lose weight, but actually makes it harder. He believes that while exercise burns calories, which you need to do to lose weight, it also stimulates hunger and causes us to eat more, which negates the weight-loss benefits of exercise. He goes on to state that "pushing people to exercise more may actually be contributing to our obesity problem."

It might be a good exercise to read this article with your students and see their initial reactions. Some may agree with Cloud and use it as an excuse to stop exercising. Others may disagree with him completely. There have been strong reactions to this article both pro and con in the health and physical fitness community. The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) included a response to the article in the September/October 2009 edition of Fitness Business Canada.

Within the article, it states that Dr. Timothy Church, M.D., Ph. D., and ACSM member, who was one of the experts consulted for Cloud's story, believes that his research and opinions were selectively reported by Cloud. According to Church, the article should have mentioned the key concept that "weight management is most successful when careful attention is given to both physical activity and proper nutrition. Exercise and diet go together."

Discussing the article with your students is a good way to ensure they are making informed decisions about their health and physical fitness routines. It also illustrates the mixed messages our culture sends us in regards to our health and how important it is to take the information we hear and read about in the media with a "grain of salt."

How Healthy is Your Neighbourhood??

Leslie Beck from the globe and mail wrote a great article today titled "Where you live affects your chance of obesity." Within the article, she provided a formula to determine the "Retail Food Environment Index" (RFEI), a good measurement to determine whether or not the area you live in promotes healthy living. This would be a great exercise for Health and Physical Education students wanting to measure the health of their own neighborhoods. Here's the formula:

How to Calculate Retail Food Environment Index (RFEI):

1. Add up the number of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores within 800 metres (half a mile) in any direction from your home.
2. Divide that number by the number of grocery stores and produce vendors in your neighbourhood.

RFEI lower than 3 = chance of becoming unhealthy is high. If your students determine that the area they live in does not promote healthy living, have them work on some solutions to make it healthier and get them thinking about what makes a successful health promoting neighbourhood.

RFEI 5 or higher = chance of becoming unhealthy is low. If your students determine that the area they live in does promote healthy living, by supporting physical activity and easy access to healthful foods, have them explain to others how it works in their area.

The Upgraded Wii Fit Plus is Here!

Photo courtesy of Nintendo.com




The Wii Fit from Nintendo has just been upgraded to the new Wii Fit Plus. The newer version allows users to fully customize and personalize a Wii Fit Plus workout to suit their own individualized needs.

In addition, they've included a comprehensive calorie counter where users can input the food they've eaten and determine exactly how many calories were burned in the total Wii Fit Plus activity. How cool is that?

If you've got students that are reluctant to get active, try suggesting some Wii Fit for homework as an alternate activity. Click here to read an article review in the Globe and Mail.

That's Exertainment!

I receive a monthly "Wellness Letter" from the University of California, Berkeley and I find that it always contains great articles and information. In the September issue, there was an interesting piece about the Wii, an interactive computer technology that allows players to be physically active in a virtual world, all the while burning a couple of calories. If you have some students in your class that are reluctant to get active, recommend some "Wii fit" for homework!

Article taken from UC Berkeley Wellness Letter, September 2009
"Exergaming" or "exertainment" is the latest video game craze, which allows you to play sports "virtually" and perform other activities using new interactive computer technology. You can, for example, box, bowl, play tennis, shoot hoops, snow-board, hula-hoop, do yoga, even walk a tightrope, all from the comfort of your living room. Several companies make these active gaming systems, but the most popular is Nintendo Wii. Using a hand-held controller with digital motion sensors, you simulate the movements needed to perform the activity, as an onscreen character depicts your movement in real time. The Wii Fit program includes a pressure-sensitive balance board that you work out on. It sounds invigorating, but is it real exercise or just fun and games?

Wii and similar video games promote physical activity - at least more so than traditional video games and other sedentary pastimes. In a recent Mayo Clinic study, both children and adults playing Wii boxing burned 190 more calories an hour, on average, compared to resting; adults burned an extra 150 calories.

But people playing Wii rarely achieve the same intensity level or burn as many calories as during the actual sports - even if they're coached to use more than minimal effort. For example, researchers from the University of Wisconsin found that only Wii boxing was intense enough to maintain or improve endurance in players, compared to Wii tennis, golf, bowling, and baseball. Other studies question whether any of these games can be considered even "moderate-intensity" exercise. To get the most from a virtual workout you have to mimic the actual body movements of the sport as closely as possible and make a conscious effort to move your whole body - something that may be hard to do in a confined indoor setting. And some games are not too demanding to begin with.

On the other hand, there are reports of people playing Wii so hard that they actually injure themselves. As with real sports that involve repetitive movements, you can overdo it with virtual video games. You can get tendinitis of the elbow or shoulder ("wi'itis") or sprain an ankle or knee.

Exergaming is not a substitute for regular exercise. But it's better than doing nothing, and it can be an enjoyable way for sedentary people to ease into activity. You may, as you build skill and confidence, want somebody to take the sport on the road, so to speak. Or if you're already active, you may want to take your favorite outdoor sport inside on a rainy day. These games may also by good for people who have physical limitations due to sports injury, a stroke, or other illness (such as Parkinson's disease); some physical therapists use them in their practices.

Body Worlds Exhibit Opening Soon in Toronto!

The Ontario Science Centre is bringing back the blockbuster exhibition BODY WORLDS. BODY WORLDS & The Story of the Heart could be an exciting and educational class trip for students taking Exercise Science. The exhibit will open on October 9th. Tickets are on sale now. Click here to learn more!

Cool Website to Track Pedometer Miles

There is a fun, free online fitness program that challenges all participants to either run, walk, swim, bike, row, ski, roller-blade or wheelchair their way across the world without leaving home. Create a team for your students and track your miles together across Canada or even the world! Click on the link to get started!