Our February Challenge!

Coach Kirsti’s February Challenge: Jump Into February

February is recognized by several health organizations as heart health month. It is a time of raising awareness and fundraising for cardiovascular disease which is one of the leading causes of death in Canadians. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, healthy behaviours such as being physically active, eating a variety of healthy foods, limiting highly processed foods, not smoking, getting proper sleep and managing stress can help reduce your risk of developing heart disease.

The theme for this month is jumping as this is one way we can work on improving cardiovascular function. Jumping can challenge many aspects of your fitness including endurance, coordination, and power. Improving your jumping skills can both help you in and outside of the gym. During workouts this can translate to being more efficient on days with jumping and skipping in the programming. Over a long term this can have carryover to better heart and bone health which are beneficial for healthy aging.

The Challenge: Pick at least one aspect of jumping to focus on and improve. This will vary depending on where your current strengths and weaknesses lie. Some examples would be:

• Improving your height (for example box jumping to a higher surface)

• Learning a new skill like double unders or crossovers

• Increasing your jumping distance (example being able to perform a length of broad jumps in the fewest reps possible)

• Increasing your consecutive reps of a skill (example being able to perform more reps of single or double unders without tripping)

Take some time before or after class, or in open gym to work towards your goal 1-2 times per week and you should notice some progress by the end of the month. As always, the coaches are happy to help out with progression tips.