The summer program has come to a completion and the kids excelled in every area of their exercise program that they had been challenged with. At the beginning of the program, in order to establish some baseline measurements, I administered a few performance tests that the kids, parents, and viewers could relate to.
We began the summer with a group of 8, shy, unsure children lacking confidence and finished with a TEAM of confident young performers. At the beginning of summer, one of the initial challenges was to see how many of the kids could complete a mile, and if so, in what time frame. At no surprise, half of the group could not perform this task to completion. The best time amongst the finishers was in the 18-minute range. During the retest last week, everyone tested completed the mile and excelled to finish under their previous mark with some trimming over 5 minutes off of their initial time.
Some additional testing involved push-ups and a step-test utilizing a 12-inch plyo-box. Improvements were made in both of these areas for every participant as well, with some more than doubling their previous best.
Although the group experienced some healthy weight-loss throughout the summer, the team of SUNY Upstate Medical University/Hospital, NewsChannel 9 and Training Champions Institute shared the feeling that a continuation beyond this point could really elicit some accelerated results.
Based on this notion, all involved have decided to dedicate an additional 12-weeks to this group of young people and utilize what was learned to produce even more substantial results. The new Phase will begin on September 11th. So stay tuned and follow this group of champions to a higher level of success!
