Bring Heart Rate Training Into A School Near You

Bring Heart Rate Training Into A School Near You

 

heart zones smart hearts school pe monitors

While most of us are focused on adult fitness, Sally Edwards and her Heart Zones company are doing some pretty amazing stuff with middle and high school aged children – using display training technology to motivate kids and get them active 🙂

https://youtu.be/psEPcsR-R3A

 

I love seeing active kids who are enjoying fun activities…  they're our future Instructors and participants!

Use this contact form to request more information.

Thinking many of us would love to know how we could improve the fitness of the children in our neighborhoods, I'm sharing this press release I received earlier this week:

For Immediate Release
Contact: Joe Gooden Heart Zones, Inc.

Award-winning Physical Education teacher and visionary Beth Kirkpatrick joins forces this week with the experienced team of educators and entrepreneurs to accomplish a very large goal – get kids and teachers fit. “We are moving into 21st century education and PE is getting left behind,” says Heart Zones, Inc.'s CEO Sally Edwards, MA, MBA. “And, Beth Kirkpatrick has the spirit and the stamina to lead teachers, administrators, and students by revitalizing curriculum, leading professional development, and implementing technologies that will accomplish getting kids and getting America fit.”

From 1973 to 1993, Beth Kirkpatrick taught middle school PE in the public schools systems in Vinton, Iowa. She was one of the first PE teachers in the nation to pioneer the application of wearable technologies – the heart rate monitor – in schools. For the next 18 years, from 1993-2011 she was the Director of Education for Polar Electro Inc. using her experience, imagination, insight, and boldness to elevate physical education and education overall to new heights. A trailblazer ahead of her time, Beth has been unwavering in her conviction that the integration of technology and assessment through objective measurement best captured through heart rate and now almost any wearable smart device could create real breakthroughs in PE and in the health literacy of children long-term. “We must be able to prescribe personal exercise to individuals in a group setting. Without foot pods for tracking, heart rate monitors for assessing intensity, and hardware/software for collecting and interpreting the data, physical educators are prescribing exercise as one-size-fits all which doesn't work.”

Beth Kirkpatrick has been featured on CNN, NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, Life Magazine, countless magazine and newspaper stories nationwide. Her published work includes one of the first books for using heart rate monitors in physical education titled “Lessons From the Heart.”

It would be difficult to find an individual who has impacted more lives in the PE profession than Beth. She has moved the profession forward and inspired countless teachers, administrators and decision makers to engage and motivate movement using sensors and software like the new Heart Zones “Smart Hearts System”. She has testified before the Congressional Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee in Washington D.C. and was part of the NASPE, National Association of Sport and Physical Education, advocacy group that lobbies Congress yearly to provide federal funding for physical education.

Beth's drive to incorporate fitness technologies into the more than 100,000 schools in the USA spans kindergarten through collegiate levels. She has worked with several NCAA Division I basketball teams introducing heart rate monitor training to universities including Duke University, the University of Kentucky, the University of Tennessee, the University of Connecticut, LSU, NC State, Fresno State, BYU, University of Iowa, Iowa State, Michigan State, and Ball State University to name a few.

Beth's reach extends far beyond the borders of the USA. Beth has keynoted over 1500 conferences in all fifty states as well as international keynotes in Malaysia, South Africa, Germany, Brazil, China, and Canada.

Beth was awarded the Emens Distinguished Professorship at Ball State University, and numerous state and national education awards including the U.S. Department of Education's Christa McAuliffe Fellowship Award, as well as the US West Outstanding Teacher of the Year for Iowa, and National Association of Sport and Physical Education's teacher of the year for the state and district.

According to Joe Gooden, Director of Physical Education for Heart Zones, Inc., “This is the era of Smart PE – integrating digital data and tracking into health clubs, sports teams, and school PE classes in an affordable way that it is in the reach of every PE teacher and every PE department. I know of no better educator than Beth Kirkpatrick to lead school physical education into the 21st century because of her dedication and commitment to kids and to health literacy. We are all excited that Beth has joined the Heart Zones team of like-minded PE advocates.”
____________________________________
About Heart Zones, Inc:
For the past 25 years, the fitness technology, education, and training company, Heart Zones, Inc. has been a leader in the development wearable technologies and their companion education and training solutions. Founded by author, professional athlete, exercise scientist, PE teacher, and app developer Sally Edwards, the company develops and markets wearable solutions for fitness enthusiasts such as the Blink heart rate monitor, the Apple iPad app Heart Zones PE, as well as the Smart Hearts System platform. These sensor based tools are used to track and assess participants activities and performance. The company holds several federal patent on the cardio- training methodologies ZONING and Threshold Training. Heart Zones, Inc. is headquartered in Sacramento, California.

The Weekly Ride – 01/08/18 Speed Work

The Weekly Ride – 12/26/2017 Race Day Ride

 

Welcome to the The Weekly Ride by Cycling Fusion:

No more hunting for new music or counting out cues.  Here is your ready to ride document, that can be displayed from your phone, or printed out onto cue cards.  This ride is timed out, down to the second, to make your life as easy as possible!

(more…)

The Weekly Ride – 01/08/18 Speed Work

Tips on making exercising entertaining for your class

Be entertaining

I feel a bit sad (and confused) whenever I see an Instructor's comment to the effect of; “I'm not interested in entertaining my class.” It's usually followed with something like; “my role in class is to coach people through effective exercise.” or “people should just be content to ride the bike and not need to be entertained.”

So why would anyone be adamantly against entertaining their participants? I'm not sure (which is the confused part), but I do know that my best classes are those where I feel like a polished performer on a stage. It's like a drug to me – that high I feel when I'm really on my game and wanting to experience it over and over again.

Club Business International magazine has a great article this month: The Fun Factor – Valuable tips on how to make exercise entertaining and addictive. I have created a PDF of the article that you can download here and there's a lot of great ideas you can apply to your classes tomorrow.

It begins with this:

2014-12-16_8-40-09

Most people don't enjoy exercising

The brilliant Keeping It Fun concept, from studio owner Karen Casler, is based on the simple (but often ignored) fact that most people don't really enjoy exercising, but nearly everyone enjoys having FUN.

Sure you'll have some self directed athletes that will endure a focused “Real” class, so as not to be stuck riding alone in their basement. But those same folks will also enjoy a FUN class the same as everyone else > and many will adapt to the class in ways that meet their training needs.

My observations are that the most popular Instructors understand this and typically conduct very FUN classes. I'll never forget the advice I was given early in my career, by a MI at Life Time Fitness:

First you need to give them what they want (FUN)… and only then can you give them what they need (specific training)!

The Weekly Ride – 01/08/18 Speed Work

The Weekly Ride – 12/18/2017 Holiday Ride

 

Welcome to the The Weekly Ride by Cycling Fusion:

No more hunting for new music or counting out cues.  Here is your ready to ride document, that can be displayed from your phone, or printed out onto cue cards.  This ride is timed out, down to the second, to make your life as easy as possible!

(more…)