In the Fall of 2018, Skyview Elementary was looking for official ‘Partners in Education’ when they decided on an untraditional approach; they called in strongmen. More specifically, Principal Jennifer Cox reached out to StrongKids, a strongman-inspired kids’ fitness class out of local gym Viking Performance Training with Jerry Handley and Micki Pauley. The result was Recess Takeovers, Class Read-Alouds about hard work, and stations combining strength exercises with Engineering and Math at after-school functions like STEM Night. For the 2019-2020 school year the goals are being set higher, and other schools are beginning to pay attention.
It’s no secret younger kids these days are living more sedentary lives than the previous generations, creating more health problems in children than had ever been seen or expected during the modern era. The challenge for many schools has been how they can help while still fulfilling their educational requirements and goals. The partnership between Skyview and Viking Performance Training’s StrongKids has been successful because it’s integrating into the school calendar at different angles, and – most importantly for the kids – it’s fun.
Kids are still kids, and love to play. Not only play, but they love to see what they can do. Many adults forget to realize that one of children’s natural tendencies is to experiment and try things until they succeed, and that’s where the strongman-inspired approach of StrongKids shines. It’s a professionally organized program based on fundamental physical movements – running, jumping, throwing, squatting, lifting things overhead, carries, and more – but without the redundant or repetitive structure found in most exercise programs and sports. It looks like fun to kids, so kids don’t process it as being just another exercise or gym class. By its very nature, strongman is appealing to kids due to a combination of variety, challenge, and spectacle. Done professionally and safely, it’s a winning combination because it’s not about the weight or a score – it’s about overcoming challenges.
Aside from the physical, the Skyview Elementary-StrongKids partnership also involves read alouds. Many schools use read alouds with great success as a way to get the community involved and possible role models in front of children. To stay true to its mission of helping kids gain confidence through strength, the StrongKids read alouds have focused on children’s books highlighting the fun and virtues of hard work and big goals, such as the Andy Frisella series “Hardworking Tails”.
The third cog in the partnership has been presence at after-school activities. Strength and speed are all about physics, a relationship which isn’t highlighted enough to children as they learn between subjects; indeed, most children and adolescents would passionately defend that mathematics and athletics performance are as separate as can be. But paradoxically, math and physics explain everything about strength and sports performance, and understanding them can help anyone perform better. This relationship is highlighted during events like “STEM Night”, where teachers can help children learn about math and science while StrongKids coaches have kids measure distances in throwing different size medicine balls or speed while pulling sleds of different weights. To top it off, research supports that learning combined with imagery and experiences lasts much longer than rote learning from a book.
The goal is simple and straight forward – to do anything possible to improve the schoolchildren’s development, and that is why Skyview Elementary and StrongKids are so excited about the progress thus far, the positive reaction from the kids and teachers, and what the future will bring. Who knows – with upcoming data collection, the benefits will hopefully be so observable that the Skyview-StrongKids model can be recognized as a program to replicate. For more information on StrongKids email them at vikingperformancetraining@gmail.com or visit “StrongKids” on Facebook.
