Making Fitness Fun and Convenient
By: Jason Weir, Ogle Elementary, Frisco ISD
As a new Healthy Zone School-In Training, it was important for us to help provide our teachers with opportunities to live a healthy lifestyle. We found one consistent factor was holding our teachers back from exercising on a regular basis. Our teachers had the will and the desire to exercise but often struggled to find a time in their schedules to consistently exercise due to the strenuous demands of work and outside life activities. Knowing this information, our wellness team collaborated on how we could address this issue and provide our staff with a convenient way to stay physically active. This is how the Ogle Workout club was born!
The goal of the Ogle Workout Club was to provide teachers multiple days during the week to exercise on campus in a convenient and motivating environment. By helping our teachers reach their fitness goals, we were confident it would help reduce teacher sick days and give them increased stamina to perform their demanding jobs. Ogle reached out to fitness professional Lonnell Clark of One Goal Fitness who created and led the Ogle Workout Club. Workouts were held in the gym or outside immediately after school every Tuesday and Thursday. The bootcamp style workouts were fantastic for increasing cardiovascular fitness and strength but also incorporated team building aspects that brought the staff closer together. The Ogle Workout Club had over 25 staff members participate. Workout Club members also received e-mails providing nutritional information and motivational tips to help our staff strive towards living a healthy lifestyle.
We feel that the Ogle Workout Club has had a positive impact on our campus. Having a knowledgeable and motivational trainer like Mr. Clark and the convenience of the program were two key factors in making this program successful. Teachers consistently attended classes and made a decision to continue the exercise club when our program was over. One of the barriers we faced during this program was teachers not always being able to attend as often as they wanted due to after school meetings. Whenever teachers were available, they consistently came to the Workout Club and did a great job of trying to recruit new teachers to join the program.
Ogle Elementary is very proud of our Ogle Workout Club and would highly encourage your school to look into a similar program! We are very thankful to be a part of the Healthy Zone Family and are committed to increasing health awareness of our students, staff, and community.