With your busy schedule and all the cold weather, are you continuing your fitness routine, just starting one, or not motivated at all?  Whether it’s a new routine, off-season training, on-season training, or just for fun – all of us should incorporate a smart and balanced workout. Coach Perry has a deep knowledge of fitness, and he has shared some useful tips for a simple, full-body, and short exercise routine.

As the Fitness and Health Coach along with the Strength and Conditional Coach at Our Lady of Good Counsel High School, Coach Perry “14 contributes to the school community by sharing his knowledge about kinesiology and exercise science to promote a healthy environment. 

Kinesiology, in short, focuses on the ways that physical activity impacts the body, health, and well-being of a person. Coach Perry says,

“ Fitness is non-negotiable. To keep the human body functioning optimally, it needs intense physical stress to the cardiovascular, muscular, and other systems. I wish I could eat whatever I like and never do hard training, but I would not achieve healthy outcomes or feel proud of myself. I would like all students to understand that even if they choose not to follow the evidence,” 

All individuals should strive to exercise intensely 3-4 times a week. Depending on the person’s level and time availability, the intensity varies from person to person. According to Coach Perry, 

“The individual person should be able to perform basic movements on any given day such as: squatting, hinging, push, pulling, walking, and running. Athletes should be able to do this as well while also enhancing their ability to perform in their sport or filling the gaps of the training they do not receive in sport (mobility, mass gain, strength gain, functional movement, and cardiovascular endurance).”

Sometimes people compare themselves to their past or peers, but nevertheless, all these factors can influence the amount of exercise done by a person. Students should consider doing their own research, speaking to others regarding their personal fitness program, and even reaching out to a trainer. However, students should choose a workout that has a low probability of getting injured and also helps to get them to their desired fitness outcome. 

Listed are Coach Perry’s simple, full-body exercises, or short routines that don’t require special equipment (or minimal equipment), can be done in 10–20 minutes, and appropriate for winter / indoor training:

1. Exercises: 

2. Time: Anything under 20 minutes will need intervals or a circuit. With no equipment, a person can set a baseline with 3-4 sets of 10 reps. 
3. No equipment: allows a person to grow in body weight strength and eventually endurance if they continue to up the rep count. However, strength and power gain will never reach optimal levels without having equipment that can exceed bodyweight.
4. Purpose of Exercise: with these exercises, a person can target their entire body. A person wants to stress their ability to squat down, have unilateral control, tax the hamstrings, shove opponents or self-off the floor, and posterior muscles of the upper body should be counterbalanced with pulling ability. Some of the exercises will also help with ankle strength and stiffness, as well as hip mobility.

Consistency and intensity are both important. Coach Perry stresses that,

“No one continues to improve from 1 bout of training regardless of how intense the session is. If a person stops training after 2 months, the body will begin to lose the qualities it trained so hard to acquire. They will not lose everything, but if their practice or competition does not provide the same stress, those parameters will be lost.”

Remember that fitness can be balanced with consistency, intensity, researching your routine, getting help from a trainer, having fun, and just feeling good. 

A special thank you to Coach Perry for sharing his valuable expertise. We deeply appreciate his contributions to the health and well-being of staff, students, and our community at Our Lady of Good Counsel High School.