July 6, 2015

From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow.

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July! I love seeing all the posted pics from all over the country of people enjoying a fun filled day of community, friendship, family, and patriotism…and of course, food!

Last week I finished week 2 of my Teen Skills and Conditioning Camps. We had a fabulous group of girls who weathered a couple of hot days with grace. They worked hard each day, hopefully learned a little bit about tissue prep and joint mobility, along with the elements of fitness and also had some fun.

A couple of things stood out for me from this week. The first was that all of the girls claimed that they had not had to do a “bear crawl” since they were in elementary school. That means of the 4 middle schools and 2 high school they have attended since, none of the PE teachers are having our kids bear crawl. Bear crawling is a fundamental movement pattern that helps build structural stability in the anterior and posterior chain for many other movements. I started wondering if our PE programs have an emphasis on structural stability at all. What struck me even more was 2 of the girls mentioned that close to half of their teammates from their respective sports were benched for injuries last season. You see, without a strong base of support for structural stability and mobility, our bodies can only be pushed so far before breaking down. You can build stability and mobility while increasing your intensity, but you have to do the exercises consistently to continue to build on what you already have.

The second thing that stood out for me was that these girls reminded me so much of myself when I was a freshman in high school and running track. I am sure my high school track coach would not have anticipated that I would turn out to be a competitive road racer with a 30+ year long history of running. I loved being on the team, it was fun and social, but I really did not like the practices too much. I am sure I complained and tried to cut corners where I could. But the seed was planted, and when it meant something to me, it sprouted and grew and grew and grew. You see, we cannot control when the seeds will sprout – all we can do is plant seeds at every opportunity and hope they will sprout at the right time.

I have one more week of camp July 20th – 23rd. We still have some spots open if your incoming 8th-10th grader would like to join us. Registration will close on July 15th. You can find more information on my website at www.stellafit.com.

If you are in town, I hope to see you this week. We will have class M and W this week at Stanford Hills at 9:10am and T/TH at 6am at Woodland School. There will be no classes on Friday.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Stella