End of the Year Progress Report!
Compared to the very beginning of the year or even before I entered high school I didn't realize the importance of physical activity. This year has made me realize how important it actually is. I never knew about stretching your muscles and how to handle weights at the beginning of the year but when I learned I was happy to know something knew. My fitness level was fine, I thought, but I didn't actually know how wrong I was. Before this course, I could only run from 5-6 laps around the park in 30-45 min, but now I can run at least 7-8 in that time.. I think that these improvements have made me and my body healthier and fit.
I also had what you would call a "below-average diet. "I ate only about 5/8 of the actual servings of fruits and veggies every day and I usually had candy but now I eat all servings of the food groups and I make sure to have lots of water every day. I eat less sugary substances and I exercise about 5-6 times a week. There are a lot of improvements that I think I've made over the course of this year with my healthy diets and physical capability.
One of the most important things that I learned this year was pacing. For me, pacing is one of my main priorities now because I realized that in order to keep a steady pace and put all of my effort in, I needed to slow things down a bit first. What I used to do was take off in the beginning of the run or jog and go all out but I realized at the end that I was extremely tired and wasn't able to put in as much effort as the beginning. My legs were feeling like led, my head was throbbing, my heart feeling like it was going to burst out of my chest. Usually this kind of thing would happen during the community run since there were no exact laps to do so I wasn't able to pace myself. With other things like the pond run or the 30 minute run I can easily time and pace myself to my level of fitness. There are a lot of people who just run to get the class over with but I like to look at things from a mathematical angle and calculate how much time it will take me to run this far and how far I will be able to run if I keep this pace for this certain amount of time. This has helped a lot to realize some of my goals: keep the pace steady for a more exact time measurement. I can achieve this by following some advice: check my stopwatch constantly to see what my timing is and see if I need to slow down or speed up.
Another really important thing I learned this year would be about stretching before an exercise or workout. I used to stretch sometimes before I ever did anything and when I learned that you could pull a muscle that way I was astonished and lucky I never did. I found this to be a really important fact and I liked the example/comparison given with the rubber band. A muscle is like a rubber band put in a freezer. If you stretch it after you take it out it will break but if you warm it up a bit then it will stretch. You need to do a little warm-up exercise before stretching so that your muscles can warm up to stretch. I found this really interesting.
A really fun (but painful) workout for me was Insanity. once I learned how to be "comfortable with being uncomfortable" I learned that it was really quite fun and to do a hard core workout like that helped me gain more physical ability. It was great to encourage and push my friends to push themselves harder. At the end we were all exhausted but satisfied with our outcome.
Another really great exercise for me was the obstacle course. This was by far one of my all-time favorite exercises. It was fun to go through various different obstacles like the yellow bars used for jumping over. I would tell my friends as I passed them to hurry up and encourage them to go faster. It was a fun exercise and I really enjoyed it.
Choice was a good exercise but it was never as exciting as fitness days. I always chose volleyball since it was a personal favorite. At times, I noticed some of my friends would stand around so I changed the game a bit and we alternated positions. I encouraged them to keep their heads in the game and always cheered them on even when they served the volleyball out. I never argued with who was on my team because I was fine to work with anyone. My favorite moment was a few months ago when I took an amazing dive and bumped the ball back onto the opponents' side. We won that game!
I have also gotten involved in many outside school activities. I usually go to the YMCA to run on the treadmill for an hour or I do a workout session of Zumba which takes about an hour as well. My greatest achievement was when I received my scuba diving license and that was an amazing experience for me. (and yes scuba diving is considered a sport)
There are so many great achievements and goals that I have made this year and I hope that next year will bring the same learning experience and even greater accomplishments. I know this will happen for sure though if I put in even more time and effort than this year.
If I were to evaluate myself on my progress this year then I would give myself an A because I think I have put a lot of effort into not just the workouts but the learning experience, strategy, leadership, and being socially responsible.
:)
I also had what you would call a "below-average diet. "I ate only about 5/8 of the actual servings of fruits and veggies every day and I usually had candy but now I eat all servings of the food groups and I make sure to have lots of water every day. I eat less sugary substances and I exercise about 5-6 times a week. There are a lot of improvements that I think I've made over the course of this year with my healthy diets and physical capability.
One of the most important things that I learned this year was pacing. For me, pacing is one of my main priorities now because I realized that in order to keep a steady pace and put all of my effort in, I needed to slow things down a bit first. What I used to do was take off in the beginning of the run or jog and go all out but I realized at the end that I was extremely tired and wasn't able to put in as much effort as the beginning. My legs were feeling like led, my head was throbbing, my heart feeling like it was going to burst out of my chest. Usually this kind of thing would happen during the community run since there were no exact laps to do so I wasn't able to pace myself. With other things like the pond run or the 30 minute run I can easily time and pace myself to my level of fitness. There are a lot of people who just run to get the class over with but I like to look at things from a mathematical angle and calculate how much time it will take me to run this far and how far I will be able to run if I keep this pace for this certain amount of time. This has helped a lot to realize some of my goals: keep the pace steady for a more exact time measurement. I can achieve this by following some advice: check my stopwatch constantly to see what my timing is and see if I need to slow down or speed up.
Another really important thing I learned this year would be about stretching before an exercise or workout. I used to stretch sometimes before I ever did anything and when I learned that you could pull a muscle that way I was astonished and lucky I never did. I found this to be a really important fact and I liked the example/comparison given with the rubber band. A muscle is like a rubber band put in a freezer. If you stretch it after you take it out it will break but if you warm it up a bit then it will stretch. You need to do a little warm-up exercise before stretching so that your muscles can warm up to stretch. I found this really interesting.
A really fun (but painful) workout for me was Insanity. once I learned how to be "comfortable with being uncomfortable" I learned that it was really quite fun and to do a hard core workout like that helped me gain more physical ability. It was great to encourage and push my friends to push themselves harder. At the end we were all exhausted but satisfied with our outcome.
Another really great exercise for me was the obstacle course. This was by far one of my all-time favorite exercises. It was fun to go through various different obstacles like the yellow bars used for jumping over. I would tell my friends as I passed them to hurry up and encourage them to go faster. It was a fun exercise and I really enjoyed it.
Choice was a good exercise but it was never as exciting as fitness days. I always chose volleyball since it was a personal favorite. At times, I noticed some of my friends would stand around so I changed the game a bit and we alternated positions. I encouraged them to keep their heads in the game and always cheered them on even when they served the volleyball out. I never argued with who was on my team because I was fine to work with anyone. My favorite moment was a few months ago when I took an amazing dive and bumped the ball back onto the opponents' side. We won that game!
I have also gotten involved in many outside school activities. I usually go to the YMCA to run on the treadmill for an hour or I do a workout session of Zumba which takes about an hour as well. My greatest achievement was when I received my scuba diving license and that was an amazing experience for me. (and yes scuba diving is considered a sport)
There are so many great achievements and goals that I have made this year and I hope that next year will bring the same learning experience and even greater accomplishments. I know this will happen for sure though if I put in even more time and effort than this year.
If I were to evaluate myself on my progress this year then I would give myself an A because I think I have put a lot of effort into not just the workouts but the learning experience, strategy, leadership, and being socially responsible.
:)
