Warrior Wellness: An inside look at Willowbrook’s Individualized Fitness and Weight Training courses

Willowbrook students are working hard every day to become more educated with their health and wellness, and we are thrilled to feature those accomplishments through this monthly column.

In this edition of Warrior Wellness, the Physical Education Department is proud to highlight the Individualized Fitness and Weight Training courses, as well as the department’s continued effort to create a lifetime-of-fitness mindset in each and every student as we finish the second half of the school year. 

Our focus this semester, and truthfully this entire year, has been built on the foundation of improving individual fitness performance by using a variety of training methods designed to meet the needs of our students. The population at Willowbrook is diverse, which allows us to naturally develop the individual abilities of each child in our classroom. Students are provided with personal fitness cues and exercises based on formative and summative assessments throughout the semester.  

This format allows pupils to receive constructive feedback in a manner that guides them to safely and respectfully work through failures in the classroom. Over time, this helps cultivate individual successes, while also helping students increase their level of perseverance. The majority of our students also are involved in multiple athletic and extracurricular activities, and we work to help them perform optimally in their respective areas.

This semester, we have engaged in a variety of fitness principles to effectively teach our students how to properly develop and maintain a healthy lifestyle. They have participated in:

• Resistance training
• TUT (Time Under Tension) training
• Interval training
• Group fitness training
• Mobility training
• Progression and regression training, based on ability level
• Dietary guidelines
• Water’s significance
• Protein variety

We look forward to continuing to develop each and every student’s idea of what a healthy, balanced lifestyle consists of and, more importantly, what it should look like for each person. As we end the school year, we would like to thank our students, staff and parents/guardians for your support and commitment. Enjoy your summer break, and we will see you next year!

With Warrior Pride,
Tim Ortiz, Clyde Ware and Anthony Gebhart
Willowbrook physical education teachers

• The Warrior Wellness column provides an inside look into the physical education, health and driver education classes at Willowbrook. This feature highlights what students are working on in class, as well as student successes in those departments.