GAYLORD ― How do you measure the success of a school’s strength and conditioning program?
Maybe some would ask how much weight the kids can lift vs. how much another school can lift; perhaps you look purely at the results in athletics, seeing how those successes in the weight room translate to success out in the world.
However, for teachers like Gaylord High School‘s David Beyers and his middle school counterpart Casey Stradling, the evidence their revamped strength and conditioning program is working comes from watching a group of students from all different walks of life find ways to better themselves, both physically and mentally, and gain the tools to be healthy members of the community for long after they graduate.
In that sense, GCS’s commitment to the health and well-being of their students through the investment in strength and conditioning programs from middle school up has been a resounding success; successes that are only growing over time.
“It’s open to everyone, so you have some kids who are here that are obviously trying for scholarships. That’s great,” said Beyers. “But some kids are here just trying to feel better about themselves. They get to a point where they’re like ‘I don’t like looking at myself in the mirror. My relationships with friends aren’t so great,’ so they try it after school and go from there.”
Now, as the equipment and technology at the high school continue to improve, the middle school program has been able to grow and improve alongside it and the future looks bright for plenty of future generations of Gaylord students.
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From nothing to brag about to a paradigm for Northern Michigan
When Mr. Beyers took over at the high school six years ago, the physical training program had somewhere around 40 kids participating in the strength and conditioning programs. Today, that number stands at over 900 between the middle school and high school programs and is at a point where schools around Northern Michigan are looking to GCS for advice on how to emulate what they’ve created.
That didn’t come overnight; through years of fundraising to improve the equipment and spread the word to get kids more involved, Gaylord Community Schools’ investment in the program helped increase the number of kids getting involved and helped upgrade the equipment they have to work with.
Now, the technology has improved far beyond what you might think is possible for a high school program in Northern Michigan; each station is equipped with a smart tablet as well as sensors equipped on the bar at each rack that measure the speed and path of the bar, giving teachers and students in-depth feedback about not just how much weight they’re lifting, but how much power they are generating relative their own weight.
“It brings everyone into play, unlike if we just look at ‘Who can lift the most weight?'” said Beyers. “So the kid that is 120 pounds is never going to do great.”
The sensors allow the classes to track any metric they like and, because all the results are fed back into the cloud, it creates a competition between classmates and classes on who can reach and exceed the daily goals. The tablets, meanwhile, allow kids to work independently and at their own pace while feeding an incredible amount of data to their instructors to work with. Using simple measurements like speed and path of the bar allows students to see the difference their efforts are making in real-time and over long periods of time.
“You can change it to track any metric like speed, peak velocity, total power generated. And so you’re getting all these different metrics that you can keep kids interested in and competing in. And man, do they compete,” said Beyers.
Expanding to lower ages
Last year, a pilot program was run to gauge interest at the middle school level. They ended up with over 40 kids signing up, a much larger number than the weight room at GMS could handle. So, nearly half the kids would be bussed over to the high school daily to use the equipment there. White it was a solution for a time, it was clear the middle school needed to see its own upgrades to meet the growing demand.
What followed was a nine-month-long fundraising effort, culminating in what you see today if you head into GMS; 12 new racks, Olympic-style weights and some of the same technology that the high schoolers use, getting kids all the way down to fourth grade up to eighth grade involved in the basic movements and learning the program. That way, once they make it up to the high school, they’re ready to hit the ground running.
“I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like four or five years from now when we’ve gotten wavves of kids that have been going through it and it’s just a habit,” said Beyers.
Focus on athletics, open to all
There is undoubtedly a focus on athletic training for students at the high school level, from the specific exercises that help with explosiveness and injury reduction to the physical layout of the gym an equipment, down to the Blue Devils logos on every weight.
But for Mr. Beyers and Mr. Stradling, the reason for the focus and investment in health and well-being is more about teaching kids in the community how to take care of themselves and better themselves both physically and emotionally. That way, Gaylord has a happy, healthy community for long after these kids graduate.
And be sure, the GCS students know how fortunate they are; the now 900+ kids from fourth grade and up participating in these programs is evidence enough of that, but all you do is ask them how they feel about they weight room and S&C programs today.
“When I came in as a freshman, we had three squat racks and two lifting platforms; one of them was broken, and a bunch of broken machines. When we had team lifts, it would be a crowded weight room” said senior Keaton Abraham. “Now we have 16 (racks) so you can have 32 kids in here at a time, it’s insane.”
“I wanted to take this class because I wanted to improve for sports, and I’ve definitely seen a difference when I play soccer, I feel faster,” said sophomore Piper Drzewiecki.
“Everybody is all so supportive of everybody else. it’s like a family in here,” said senior Blake Davis.
Contact GHT Sports Editor Dylan Jespersen at Djespersen@gaylordheraldtimes.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @dylanjespersen, and Instagram, @dylanjespersen
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: How investments in students health has changed stength and conditioning across Gaylord Community Schools