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<\/a>\n16 Stations<\/p>\n
When I went in the doors, I was struck by the space and the organization of equipment. There are 16 stations where three students are each assigned to each station. They do not ever have to rotate, they can do everything in their individual program at their assigned station.<\/p>\n
The class that I attended had 40 students. There was no sense that the room was crowded. Each station is equipped to allow them to do traditional weight training exercises such as bench press, incline press, squats, and more. Each station has a set of barbells, a set of dumbbells, elastic bands, and an iPad.<\/p>\n
I asked Coach Noonan how many different exercises can they do at their station. When he hesitated, I suggested 20-25 exercises per station. He laughed and said, \u201cProbably more like 100-150 different exercises.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coach Noonan\u2019s Thoughts: \u201cOne of the periods, Andrea Sampson and I each have a class in there at the same time. With the setup of this weight room, even though there\u2019s 48 kids, it\u2019s really not that crowded. It doesn\u2019t feel crowded because we are able to spread them out into three students per station. We have students who have never played a sport in there, and all-conference athletes. It actually works out extremely well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The weight room is not just for athletes. During the day, they have 5 classes of Sports Training classes designed for athletes, and 3 classes of Weight Training for students who want to work to develop their strength and fitness.<\/p>\n On the day that I observed, there were over 300 GHS students working out in the weight room. They ranged from 220 pound male football players to 100 pound female tennis players to 130 pound non-athletes who had never lifted before this year.<\/p>\n Coach Noonan\u2019s Thoughts: \u201cWith the Weight Training class, Coach Sampson has a workout for them. They\u2019re in weight 3 days a week, and then they spend the other 2 days doing other fitness exercises. But every kid has a program that\u2019s in the iPad and everything\u2019s being tracked.\u201d<\/p>\n Coach Noonan is in charge of the program. He has a BA in Exercise Science, Masters in Sports Management, and is a NHSCCA Certified Strength Coach. As part of his training, Noonan did a strength and conditioning internship with the New York Yankees.<\/p>\n He has designed the programs that are used by the students. It is impressive that he seeks out feedback from other coaches and from the athletes themselves.<\/p>\n Several times in our conversation, Noonan mentioned an idea that Coach Jacob Carl from the football program had given to improve the strength program.<\/p>\n There are a set of track hurdles at one end of the room in an open space. When I asked about the hurdles, Noonan said, \u201cBrad Gross (track coach) felt a lot of the runners were not doing enough to improve their hip mobility.\u201d The result, Noonan put together a series of simple exercises the students use to improve their hip mobility.<\/p>\n \u00a0\n<\/p>\n Any adult who has tried to maintain their weight knows that a one month diet doesn\u2019t do the trick. To be successful, you have to continue managing your diet.<\/p>\n The same is true with strength training, you can\u2019t just lift for a short time and expect to retain your strength. To become fit and strong both athletes and non-athletes need to continue lifting year round.<\/p>\n It used to be at GHS in athletics, many athletes and some coaches felt they did not want to lift when they were \u201cin-season athletes.\u201d They wanted to stay fresh for their contests. The problem with this philosophy is that many GHS athletes are multi-sport athletes. So if athletes either didn\u2019t lift or lifted light \u201cin-season\u201d and they were out for 2-3 sports, they were really never lifting and getting stronger.<\/p>\n The program of the PE Department has encouraged both coaches and athletes not to view an athlete as a \u201cfootball player,\u201d \u201cvolleyball player,\u201d or a \u201cbaseball player.\u201d Instead they have created a culture where they view themselves as simply an \u201cathlete.\u201d<\/p>\n It is obvious that the students have bought into the idea of using the weight room to become more athletic. This approach is true for the students who play sports and for the students who do not play sports.<\/p>\n On the day of contests, the students lift. Their lifting may be adjusted to have fewer reps but to be explosive and actually activate their system.<\/p>\n Coach Noonan\u2019s Thoughts: \u201cMy question has always been, if a 3 sport athlete is just maintaining during a season, when is that 3 sport athlete actually trying to improve their strength and improve their ability to produce power. Just lifting for a couple months in the summer is not enough. Our approach now allows us to have the kids continue to try to work, continue to try to make small gains during the season. As we get towards the end of the season, we go into a little bit of a taper, get them ready to be at their peak performance.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLast year if I would have told kids, \u2018It\u2019s game day, but you need to lift today.\u2019 Last year I would have got a lot more pushback on that than I would get this year. Being an assistant coach for girls basketball, I was able to use them as an example of continuing to lift in-season and to lift the day of a game. Everyone was able to go out and compete and do well. So the mentality has changed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re pretty smart about what we do on game day. We do lower the volume. The last thing we try to do is fatigue anybody. If at all possible on a game day, what we\u2019re trying to do is to stimulate the central nervous system a little bit and get them doing some explosive things. We just make sure that they\u2019re doing extremely low volume and that they\u2019re really just trying to wake up the nervous system.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStudies show doing that kind of stuff at some point during the day that you compete, is proven to kind of help you go out and compete a little bit better, jump a little higher, a little faster. So this year the kids have been buying into it and they\u2019ve been going out and they\u2019ve been feeling good when they compete.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\n<\/p>\n Coach Noonan uses a weight training app for the classes. To start, he sets up a core program for all the athletes. Then he is able to go into the program and adjust it for a variety of factors: whether they are in-season, out-of-season, or not involved with sports; what sports they are trying to prepare to play; what their competitive schedule looks like; and whether they are battling a nagging injury.<\/p>\n Each morning each of the students receives an email informing them what their workout plan for the day will be. It spells out each exercise, the number of reps of each, and the suggested amount of weight they will use.<\/p>\n Coach Noonan Thoughts: \u201cThe iPads are just incredible. I\u2019ve got to thank every administrator, both at the Board Office and the Galesburg High School, who played a role in that because it\u2019s really been a life-changing switch for us in the weight room.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s say you\u2019re having some soreness in your knee when you\u2019re squatting. I could go in right now and make an adjustment on the iPad to that student\u2019s workout plan.\u201d<\/p>\n I was totally impressed how quickly the students got to work when they arrived to the weight room. At no point did Coach Noonan have to say to any of the students, \u201cTime to get to work,\u201d or later to say, \u201cQuit messing around and get to work.\u201d<\/p>\n The students arrived and immediately went to their assigned stations, and because they had received the morning email they didn\u2019t have to spend time figuring out what to do.<\/p>\n The first student at each station picked up their station\u2019s iPad and got their information organized, and then started lifting. Usually at each station, one student was recording their results on the iPad, one student was lifting, and another student was spotting them for safety. To say they were a well oiled machine would be an understatement.<\/p>\n Getting even the most motivated athlete to be excited about lifting is not always easy. The reward for the hard work is off in the distance. The workout itself can be repetitious, hard work, and boring. Students are not going to get positive reinforcement for months.<\/p>\n While they all do basic, core lifting exercises, boredom is alleviated by the ability to assign literally hundreds of additional exercises. The day I visited, students were doing old fashioned chin ups with weights hanging from their waist, working with a weighted ball, doing flexibility exercises, and using an elastic band to bound up and down. Later a couple students went through the garage door out onto the patio and did exercises with large tractor tires.<\/p>\n On the iPad, the students record their results. On the core exercises, the program calculates, based on that day\u2019s performance, what the student\u2019s max amount for one rep on that exercise would be. The student can quickly tap on the screen and it will show the student a chart of their history on this particular exercise. They don\u2019t have to wait for several months to see their progress.<\/p>\n When the student records their workout, if they set a personal record for that exercise, the program will immediately indicate that to the student and send a message to Coach Noonan. The student goes to the front of the weight room and picks up an air horn and sounds it for all to hear. Those who are not lifting at the time, immediately applaud and usually give a cheer to that student.<\/p>\n Noonan is exploring replacing the air horn with a train whistle.\n<\/p>\n On the wide screen TV, it was constantly rotating charts. The charts would show rankings for different exercises in the class and for the school.<\/p>\n It also flashed up a ranking of strength based on the individual\u2019s body weight. So the 100 pound tennis player might find on certain exercises that they were actually performing better than the 220 pound football player.<\/p>\n Coach Noonan\u2019s Thoughts: \u201cI have had kids tell me, \u2018I feel better when I lift.’\u201d<\/p>\n As part of the program, Coach Noonan has a series of sports psychology lessons the students work on certain days. These lessons look at handling stress, setting goals, visualization, leadership, and peak performance.<\/p>\n Andrea Sampson, who teaches the Weight Training portion of the class, has brought concepts of relaxation training and meditation to the classes.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nNot just for athletes<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nTrained professional in charge<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nBuy in from students and coaches<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\u2018Good morning, here is today\u2019s workout plan\u2019<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nStudents on a mission<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nMotivation<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nMore than weights<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n<\/a>
\n<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Evan Massey is a regular contributor to WGIL. He is the former girls basketball coach at Galesburg High…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[202306,589,202303,202304,163,85,46,202305,202308,1160,202307],"class_list":["post-431398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-evan-massey","tag-fitness","tag-galesburg-high-school","tag-ghs-weight-room","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-jim-noonan","tag-silver-streaks","tag-strength-training","tag-wgil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}