Teacher’s Guide / Introduction
Youth obesity rates are staggering, and the long term impact on the Canadian society and healthcare system is difficult to measure. All of the health experts agree that we need to get Canadian children and youth more active and “active for life”. Whether it is developing a passion for sport or a love for an active healthy lifestyle, the early years set the patterns that become lifelong habits.
As a teacher or coach, you are in a great place of influence. You can literally turn a student on to a lifelong active lifestyle or discourage them from participating in future activity. The Canadian Olympic Committee, through its Olympic School Program is providing you with a resource to help guide and motivate your students and athletes. It is hoped that this will enable you to encourage Canadian youth to adopt a sport for life approach, where being active is not just for when they are young, but also carried out throughout their entire lives.
The content of this resource is provided by Canadian athletes and medical support staff of the Canadian Olympic Team. It is hoped that this content will be both informative and inspiring for both the educators and students.
Guiding Youth in a Safe Way
Dr. Bob McCormack, Canadian Olympic Team, Medical Director
Dr. Julia Alleyne, Canadian Olympic Team, Chief Medical Officer
Your students will have varying levels of motivation towards sport and physical activity. For some, your role will be to encourage them to be more active and to live a less sedentary life. Others might be very motivated, and you may be able to help steer them towards proper physical activity or training decisions. This complex role means that you will need to have a good understanding of what is medically safe for your students.
When a student becomes physically active or starts to exercise, it is normal that they feel some discomfort. As a teacher, you are likely very accustomed to hearing a multitude of excuses, but some of these could be the expressions of very legitimate issues that cannot simply be shrugged off with a “tough it out” response. “We need to pay attention to what our students are saying,” explains Dr. Alleyne. “For example, if a child says that they can’t do an activity because they have asthma, then the school should be encouraging their parent or guardian to take them to a physician. We should not try to diagnose the problem or discount what the student is saying.”
Some more motivated youth can be unsafe in their approach to physical activity or training. “The key for youth is to gradually build up their training,” says Dr. McCormack. “When planning an exercise or training program I use the acronym F.I.T.T. which stands for Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type. Whenever you change one of these, you have to allow your body enough time to adjust.”
Exercising During Teenage Years
Dr. Bob McCormack, Canadian Olympic Team, Medical Director
When students are going through puberty, it is important to take a moderate approach to training. “Strength and endurance are key parts of an overall fitness program, but puberty is not a time to go to the extremes in either of these areas,” explains Dr. McCormack. “Power lifting or body building doesn’t make sense for this age group, nor does marathon running. But both strength and aerobic work are part of overall fitness. Even play should be aerobic in that you should be breathing hard.”
Weight Loss and Body Image
Dr. Julia Alleyne, Canadian Olympic Team, Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Bob McCormack, Canadian Olympic Team, Medical Director
Some students may become preoccupied on losing weight. According to Dr. Alleyne, “while it is normal to have weight changes after periods of training, students need to know that muscle is heavier than fat and that a strong athlete may weigh more than their unfit peers.” Your role as a teacher is to provide sound advice, and link these students with the resources that they require to make smart physical activity decisions.
As active female youth become overly conscious about their weight, there is a real risk of the Female Triad. The Triad is three separate but linked conditions: disordered eating, Amenorrhea, and Osteoporosis. The active female youth may cut out certain foods or excessively restrict caloric intake. In extreme cases, the athlete might suffer from anorexia or bulimia. Exercising intensely while not getting sufficient calories or nutrients can cause a drop in estrogen levels. Since this hormone is imperative in the control of the menstrual cycle, periods may become irregular or stop. Although periods are often infrequent during the first year of puberty, they are an important part of healthy development.
“Regular periods are important for a young female athlete in order to have the proper levels of for bone health,” explains Dr. McCormack. “Peak bone mass happens by age 20-24, and it declines thereafter. If the athlete has not taken sufficient calcium or other nutrients during their teen years then it will not only lower sport performance, but could also have long term health problems like osteoporosis.”
Coaches, officials and teachers need to know that their comments can lead to the Female Triad in susceptible individuals. “In sport, especially aesthetic sports like gymnastics or figure skating, a comment by a coach that the athlete won’t be successful because they don’t have the right body type can trigger disordered eating and lead to the Triad,” says Dr. McCormack.
Avoiding Injuries
Marc Rizzardo, Canadian Olympic Team, Chief Therapist
Since we are aiming to encourage students to be active for life, it is important to teach them physical activity and sport habits that will keep them from getting injured. “I see a lot of youth who have sports injuries,” says Rizzardo. “In most cases it is due to inflexible hamstrings and calves.” The solution is to show youth how to stretch and warm up in a way that will help prevent injuries and get them to the workout or competition ready for action. “Coaches and teachers generally don’t put enough time into stretching and warming up because they are limited in their facility usage time. They want to skip the warm up to get into the practice.”
But this can lead to injuries and poor results. A proper warm up should start with a short run or other aerobic activity that will increase the blood flow to the muscles. It should avoid static stretching, and focusing instead focus on dynamic stretching. A 12-15 minutes warm up should strengthen and stretch the whole body. Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7ghNKOH9To for some good dynamic stretches. Sports specific dynamic warm ups are available on You Tube like this one for basketball (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5voGAKghnM&feature=related ). One of the best overall warm ups is the FIFA 11+, developed for soccer (http://www.f-marc.com/11plus/exercises/).
Sports Psychology
Dr. Kimberly Amirault-Ryan, Canadian Olympic Team, Mental Performance Lead
As a teacher, you are a big influence in the lives of your students. “A child’s belief in their self is largely a reflection of the extent to which they see significant others believing in them,” explains Dr. Amirault-Ryan. “Competent adult guidance helps develop character, leadership, sportsmanship, and self-esteem.”
The way that you interact with students around their physical activity and sports participation will affect their motivation and whether they feel empowered to enjoy physical activity and sport. Help your students find activities that they find fun and where they can experience some success. Emphasize skill development and learning over winning and losing. “Instead of asking if they won the game, ask them what went well and what they could improve next time,” suggests Dr. Amirault-Ryan.
The highest dropout time for sport participation is between ages 12-17 (higher drop-out rates for females). According to Dr. Amirault-Ryan, there are a number of reasons why teens leave sports during this period. “It has stopped being fun. They feel too much pressure and a general sense of failure in sport.” As a teacher and coach, you can help prevent this by keeping the focus on the student’s personal improvement and team philosophy. Encourage students to find a sport or activity that they really enjoy. Teenagers who stay with sport have discovered how to enjoy and find satisfaction in deliberate practice. They are constantly learning and are focused on the process and enjoyment of self and team improvement.
Using the Canadian Olympic School Program Training Log
Most of your students will not be “training” for anything in particular. However they may have sport goals or fitness goals. Encourage them to be regular and methodical in their physical activity and training over an 8 week period. Use the Training Log as a motivator for those who are not active and need a little push to get off the couch and away from the screen that includes computer games and social media tools.
Introduce the Training Log by brainstorming some fitness or sport goals that could be achieved in 8 weeks. This might follow fitness testing or precede a fitness or weight training unit. Encourage the students to set realistic S.M.A.R.T. goals. The Training Log can be given to the students as a complete booklet or one page per week for 8 weeks.
While this resource is intended for students from grades 7 to 12, it could be used for younger students. However, many of the articles will not relate well to younger students. Further, the Canadian Sports for Life’s Long Term Athlete Development Model discourages structured training for children. The emphasis at these ages should be having fun, experiencing success through learning skills. For fun physical activity and sport challenges for younger students check out the Canadian Olympic School Program Summer Sports Day.
Using the Canadian Olympic School Program Training Log
All Olympians use a training log to record their training and to note their improvement. It is a critical tool that helps them set weekly goals and track their progress. The Canadian Olympic School Program Training Log will let you track your training towards your sport and fitness goals over the next 8 weeks. Here are some simple instructions to help you get the most out of the Log.
The Four Key Training Types
A balanced fitness program has the Four Key Training Types:
- Endurance Training: Endurance is the ability to remain physically active for a long period of time. This is achieved through aerobic training where you work at an effort that is less than your maximum for a relatively long period of time. Examples of endurance training are swimming, running, cycling, hiking, power walking, stair master, etc that make your heart race and you often sweat
- Strength Training: This type of training uses resistance to make muscles stronger. It can include the use of gravity, or elastic/ hydraulic training. Specific examples include weight training, hill sprints, pushups, rock climbing, exercises using elastic bands, Pilates, or resistance work in a pool.
- Flexibility Training: Increasing your range of motion can improve your overall health, help prevent injuries, and improve sport performance. Examples of flexibility training include static and dynamic stretching, or yoga.
- Agility Training: Agility is the ability to change your body position efficiently and requires a combination of balance, coordination, quick reflexes and speed. It is an important ingredient for success in sports that use balls, pucks, hurdles, skis, skates or boards and require complex movement patterns like diving and gymnastics. Training includes games, drills, exercises requiring balance, trail running/cycling, skate or snowboarding, dance classes, etc.
When planning your training, you should include training for endurance, strength, flexibility or agility every week. A physical activity program that only focuses on one or two of these key elements is simply not complete. The Log will help you become aware of these elements in your physical activity program.
Recording Your Training: If you said that: “you had a great workout” it would mean very little without the specific details, including volume, intensity, and type of workout when measuring the impact.
- Volume: represents the amount of work that you do. It can be measured in time spent doing an activity, distance covered, weight lifted, etc.
- Intensity: represents how close your effort was to your maximum. For instance, if you ran 2 kilometers it would not provide the specific details. Were you jogging with your little brother or sister or going full out in a race? Most athletes will rate their effort using a simple scale. You might use a numbered scale where 1 is very easy and 10 reflects your maximum effort.
- Type of physical activity (both the activity and which of the Four Key Training Types): reflects the variety and types of physical activities that encompass a balanced fitness program and encourages you to mix things up. Try new and different activities that achieve the same training goals. Run one day, swim or bike another. Mix in some road hockey or aerobic classes.
- Frequency of your training: Allows you to record how often you do the same type, volume or intensity of physical activity. It is important to vary these factors. If you train at an intensity of 8-10 every day, then you will soon become sick and injured. Your body needs easy days to recover. Similarly, if you do the same workout every day, then you will become bored and your body will not improve.
Take the time to describe your workout. Note what you did, how it felt, whether you learned anything for the future, or how you are progressing towards your goal. The description column is one of the most meaningful parts of your log.
If Things go Wrong
Sometimes you will miss a few days of training, and it will feel discouraging to leave the spaces blank. That is all part of the log as it helps you learn why you lost motivation, or what sort of training you were doing when you got injured or sick. Olympians will use their training logs to discover their weaknesses and then plan with their coaches how these can be turned into successes or strengths. Discipline yourself to write in your log every day, regardless if you weren’t physically active.