This is a controversial post, but as athletic director I feel compelled to express what I think is a vital viewpoint for Sabers athletics.
I am confident that the priority of the SOIS athletic department and all SOIS teachers and administrators and coaches is student safety. Student safety forms the basis of all decisions made about student activities.
Student safety and wellbeing can take many forms: physical, social, emotional, academic. For this blog entry, I am thinking of the physical safety and wellbeing of our Sabers student athletes, mainly from an injury-prevention standpoint.
All SOIS teachers, coaches, and administrators fully agree that student physical safety is paramount. Some of us have different points of view on how to promote or protect physical safety. These differences can lead to unintended consequences.
One specific example of different viewpoints is related to strength training and the role it can play in promoting physical safety. Some at school view strength training, particularly with barbells and dumbbells, or what we call “free weights”, to be a danger to physical safety. Others (only me?) view strength training to be essential in promoting physical safety.
What follows is a long roundabout route to my main point, which is this: at SOIS, strength training - with machines, free weights, and body weight - should be promoted and encouraged, not limited or prevented, as a key component to our shared goal of enhancing student physical safety.
Terms and facilities, as background:
OK, with the facilities situation now explained - my unbiased view of it, anyway! - I’ll move on toward making my main point.
When the Sabers Fitness Floor was first opened, after approval and understanding from administrators, the PE office, the elementary PE teacher, and the table tennis coach, some last-minute opposition to the Fitness Floor was expressed. The main objection was that lifting free weights is dangerous; you can hurt your back. Other objections were that using the weights after school would be too noisy for volleyball and basketball practice, that boys would create a distraction by taking off their shirts, and that lifting weights makes you short.
It is easy to counter these objections. Nonetheless, use of the Sabers Fitness Floor has been limited and restricted and sometimes stopped.
Despite modern prevailing thought, at SOIS there seems to be some underlying opposition to strength training with free weights. I can’t say for sure where this opposition comes from. I suspect it stems from a lack of understanding and experience, perhaps a fear of trying something new - which in almost every other situation at SOIS is NOT the case, which makes the situation all the more baffling.
Anyway, my main point: Studies and research have shown that strength training can help strengthen muscles, bones, joints, tendons, and ligaments. It can help develop balance, coordination, speed, power, and explosiveness.
It can help build confidence and self-esteem. It is a key component to weight loss and weight control. It can help prevent injuries on the gym floor and on the field. It is not inherently dangerous.
I think restricting the use of the Sabers Fitness Floor - and the related lack of off-season strength and conditioning - based on the belief that strength training is dangerous has the unintended, ironic consequence of allowing a truly dangerous situation to continue with Sabers athletics.
Allowing Sabers athletes to compete in WJAA and AISA varsity level competitions without proper training and conditioning is inherently dangerous. Allowing inexperienced 6th and 7th graders to compete with very little practice or training is dangerous. This danger is predictable. Injuries happen virtually every season. We know a young Sabers athlete will get hurt. Fortunately, over the years at SOIS, we’ve been relatively lucky in that most athlete injuries have been minor: sprains and bruises and scrapes. But we have had damaged ACLs, torn ligaments, dislocated shoulders, broken bones, concussions.
I know, I know: There is no way to prove that past injuries would not have happened if only our students had been strength training. And athletes around the world who do lift weights also get injured. I know this. It’s just that our athletes, at the start of a season, many of whom are beginners and some of whom have been largely inactive since the previous year, practice only 2 or 3 times before their first full-speed competition. This is not an ideal, safe situation. In fact, at many schools it is not allowed.
There are no easy fixes, I know. But wouldn’t some off-season strength and conditioning help at least a little bit? Yes, it would. Couldn’t we encourage use of the Sabers Fitness Floor rather than restrict it? Yes, we could. I think the benefits could last a lifetime. (You could ask OIS graduate Evan Shore.)
I am confident that the priority of the SOIS athletic department and all SOIS teachers and administrators and coaches is student safety. Student safety forms the basis of all decisions made about student activities.
Student safety and wellbeing can take many forms: physical, social, emotional, academic. For this blog entry, I am thinking of the physical safety and wellbeing of our Sabers student athletes, mainly from an injury-prevention standpoint.
All SOIS teachers, coaches, and administrators fully agree that student physical safety is paramount. Some of us have different points of view on how to promote or protect physical safety. These differences can lead to unintended consequences.
One specific example of different viewpoints is related to strength training and the role it can play in promoting physical safety. Some at school view strength training, particularly with barbells and dumbbells, or what we call “free weights”, to be a danger to physical safety. Others (only me?) view strength training to be essential in promoting physical safety.
What follows is a long roundabout route to my main point, which is this: at SOIS, strength training - with machines, free weights, and body weight - should be promoted and encouraged, not limited or prevented, as a key component to our shared goal of enhancing student physical safety.
Terms and facilities, as background:
- The phrase “promoting physical safety” means the physical conditioning of Sabers athletes so that they are less prone to bodily injury, such as sprained ankles, twisted knees, pulled muscles, and heat exhaustion.
- The school has two strength training areas.
- One area is the original school weight room, located on the lower level of the school near the PE office and the boys locker room. The weight room is equipped with 8 large training machines, which were considered state-of-the-art when they were installed in the school prior to its opening in 1991, and some treadmills and stationary bicycles. There is a narrow closet attached to the weight room where some dumbbells and barbells and a power rack are located for students who want to use free weights.
- The other strength training area is called the Sabers Fitness Floor and is located on the upper level of the gym. This area contains mainly only free weights: two power racks, dumbbells, barbells, plates, medicine balls, battle ropes, along with a stationary bicycle and a rowing machine. This area was set up in June 2017 after a long fundraising campaign.
- The machines in the downstairs weight room are, in my opinion, outdated and dangerous. Their technology is over 40 years old. They are designed for a US commercial fitness club clientele of American-sized adults. The movement patterns of the machines do not mimic the full range of body motion required by athletes. Indeed, the machines restrict young and small students’ movements in a way that can pull tendons and ligaments in jerky, dangerous ways. I’ve witnessed this many times and have helped young students “escape” from a machine.
- The narrow closet adjacent to the weight room has free weights. The space in the closet is dangerously small, less than 1.5 meters wide. There is not enough room for more than 3-4 athletes to exercise safely, taking turns. There is no outside visibility to the closet and it is not directly supervised. It presents a dangerous and unattractive training situation; therefore, it is often locked and unavailable to student use outside of class.
- The Sabers Fitness Floor in the gym does not have machines. It is equipped with age- and ability level-appropriate free weights in an open, visible area that, in the past at least, has often been directly supervised by a teacher on the floor with the students or at least indirectly supervised by coaches on the gym floor. Students who wanted to use the Fitness Floor, at least in the past, had to go through an orientation session that emphasized safety. Training with barbells and dumbbells and body weight is the style of training promoted on the Sabers Fitness Floor.
OK, with the facilities situation now explained - my unbiased view of it, anyway! - I’ll move on toward making my main point.
When the Sabers Fitness Floor was first opened, after approval and understanding from administrators, the PE office, the elementary PE teacher, and the table tennis coach, some last-minute opposition to the Fitness Floor was expressed. The main objection was that lifting free weights is dangerous; you can hurt your back. Other objections were that using the weights after school would be too noisy for volleyball and basketball practice, that boys would create a distraction by taking off their shirts, and that lifting weights makes you short.
It is easy to counter these objections. Nonetheless, use of the Sabers Fitness Floor has been limited and restricted and sometimes stopped.
Despite modern prevailing thought, at SOIS there seems to be some underlying opposition to strength training with free weights. I can’t say for sure where this opposition comes from. I suspect it stems from a lack of understanding and experience, perhaps a fear of trying something new - which in almost every other situation at SOIS is NOT the case, which makes the situation all the more baffling.
Anyway, my main point: Studies and research have shown that strength training can help strengthen muscles, bones, joints, tendons, and ligaments. It can help develop balance, coordination, speed, power, and explosiveness.
It can help build confidence and self-esteem. It is a key component to weight loss and weight control. It can help prevent injuries on the gym floor and on the field. It is not inherently dangerous.
I think restricting the use of the Sabers Fitness Floor - and the related lack of off-season strength and conditioning - based on the belief that strength training is dangerous has the unintended, ironic consequence of allowing a truly dangerous situation to continue with Sabers athletics.
Allowing Sabers athletes to compete in WJAA and AISA varsity level competitions without proper training and conditioning is inherently dangerous. Allowing inexperienced 6th and 7th graders to compete with very little practice or training is dangerous. This danger is predictable. Injuries happen virtually every season. We know a young Sabers athlete will get hurt. Fortunately, over the years at SOIS, we’ve been relatively lucky in that most athlete injuries have been minor: sprains and bruises and scrapes. But we have had damaged ACLs, torn ligaments, dislocated shoulders, broken bones, concussions.
I know, I know: There is no way to prove that past injuries would not have happened if only our students had been strength training. And athletes around the world who do lift weights also get injured. I know this. It’s just that our athletes, at the start of a season, many of whom are beginners and some of whom have been largely inactive since the previous year, practice only 2 or 3 times before their first full-speed competition. This is not an ideal, safe situation. In fact, at many schools it is not allowed.
There are no easy fixes, I know. But wouldn’t some off-season strength and conditioning help at least a little bit? Yes, it would. Couldn’t we encourage use of the Sabers Fitness Floor rather than restrict it? Yes, we could. I think the benefits could last a lifetime. (You could ask OIS graduate Evan Shore.)