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Strength training can improve bone health.
Sarah Kennedy’s passion for lifting weights began when she was a 15-year-old squash player, and ultimately motivated her to study exercise science for her undergraduate degree. Two years into her university studies, family circumstances caused her to drop out for a few months. By the time she returned, she was required to do a third-year placement, and the only spot still available was in her university’s research centre for physical activity and nutrition in schools. Though it wasn’t an area she was familiar with, that placement would have a lasting impact on her future career.
"The moment I stepped into a school and saw the little kids, I decided I wanted to be a teacher," she says. She eventually worked as a primary and high school teacher. Now, with two masters' degrees in teaching and exercise science and one PhD later, Kennedy is a lecturer in sport, health and physical education at Western Sydney University. She is also at the centre of what is likely the world’s first large-scale school-based strength training programme.
This 'Resistance Training for Teens' programme builds on two research projects called 'Nutrition and Enjoyable Activity for Teen Girls' (NEAT Girls) and 'Active Teen Leaders Avoiding Screen-time' (ATLAS). Both these projects included elements of resistance training and were led by Professor David Lubans at the University of Newcastle’s Priority Research Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition, in New South Wales.
In 2015, when funding for a larger and more focused research programme on resistance training was awarded, Lubans contacted Kennedy, who had worked with him while doing her master’s degrees. Given the focus of the project, Kennedy was perfectly suited to the PhD, so in 2016 she got started.
Need to know
- Resistance training can help promote healthy minds and bodies.
- There are many misconceptions about resistance training.
- The Resistance Training for Teens programme busted these myths and provided appropriate strength building exercises for youths.
Teachers also had access to a smartphone app, as seen here, that demonstrated how to conduct different workouts and facilitated fitness testing.
SIGNIFICANT BENEFITS
Resistance Training for Teens ran until 2019, reaching around 10,000 secondary school students across New South Wales. PE teachers were trained to deliver the program and given access to an app and detailed exercise cue cards that allowed them to tailor training programmes according to a student’s abilities and the resources already available.
The programme had great success, significantly improving students' muscular fitness, resistance training skill competency, and resistance training self-efficacy.
"One of the best things I saw during an observation at a school was seeing a young man get down and do three push-ups," says Kennedy. "His teacher said she had never seen him so impressed with himself. She said before the programme was implemented at his school, he was reluctant to participate in the physical education classes and was unable to lift his own body weight."
"It’s a way to engage the students who need it the most in schools, as it is a form of activity they may not have been exposed to before, to give them that knowledge that they will hopefully take and apply into adulthood," she explains.
Kennedy wants to see resistance training become a part of all students' skill sets, and says schools should provide opportunities for young people to participate in a wide range of activities to provide what they need to become lifelong movers.
"Some kids will be skilled netball or basketball players, some are going to be dancers and gymnasts, and others are going to be good at resistance training," she explains. "Resistance training is an additional thing that needs to be provided at schools to show kids there is something they might be good at." Kennedy adds that resistance training has "profound" injury-prevention benefits, as it helps students strengthen their muscles, ligaments, bones and later helps prevent osteoporosis.
PUMMELLING MISCPERCEPTIONS
Kennedy is proud of the impact the programme has had in changing the perceptions of young girls about the importance of moving their bodies for staying strong and healthy. "One of the greatest things is going into schools and having girls ask, 'Oh, Miss, do you lift weights?'" They are often surprised when she explains she has been doing it since being a teenager, as the belief often is that girls don’t engage in that kind of exercise. "I’ll tell them, 'It’s good for our bones, which is important as women are more at-risk of osteoporosis than men. Do you want to be frail when you’re older? Or do you still want to be moving around and living your best life?' And they’re like, 'Yes!'"
Many misconceptions and myths surround the idea of resistance training, especially for young people. Kennedy explains that people sometimes think resistance training stunts growth, because they see that weightlifters are sometimes short. But the reality is that shorter people are often better at lifting weights because they have relatively greater muscle mass, and don’t have to lift the weights as far. We don’t look at basketball players and think that it was what made them tall, she says.
"Resistance training is also a lot safer for young people than many other popular sports," Kennedy adds.
She thinks social media has a lot to answer for, with many posted images creating a perception of the sport that can intimidate people, discouraging them from going to the gym.
But childhood and adolescence are the ages at which we are best placed to learn physical movements, she says. We learn to walk and run at an early age, so these movements are natural. Giving young people the knowledge and skills to engage with resistance training when they are young will help them incorporate those movement patterns that will benefit the rest of their lives.
Resistance training skills that were taught included upper and lower body exercises that could be performed using only a student’s body weight, resistance bands, free weights, or barbells, depending on an individual’s abilities and school resources.
SCALING UP
The researchers are now planning to expand the Resistance Training for Teens Programme. Partnering with the NSW Department of Education and NSW Health, Kennedy will again be working with Lubans to scale the project up to include a further 90 schools.
The international team of about 15 researchers involved in the programme have already provided training to NSW Health project officers, who will support the schools. During this next phase, teachers will receive training and resources to deliver the programme, and a selection of schools will receive additional support from project officers and equipment packs. Researchers will then investigate the impacts of these varying levels of support.
The findings from the programme’s initial phase are now being incorporated into updated activity guidelines for resistance training in Australian schools.
"I’m hoping that as we continue to educate teachers and students, we will move away from that focus on weightlifting, powerlifting and bodybuilding that everyone thinks resistance training is," says Kennedy. "It is so much more than that. It’s the thing that is going to help your grandma not fall later in life. It’s what is going to help you feel stronger. It is going to help your mind."
Meet the Academic | Dr Sarah Kennedy
Dr Sarah Kennedy is a Lecturer of Sport, Health and Physical Education in the School of Health Sciences. She is also a member of the Translational Health Research Institute. Sarah is an exercise and sports scientist with a Master’s in strength and conditioning, and a trained school teacher. Her PhD combined these areas of expertise and interest, focusing on the evaluation of the Resistance Training for Teens (RT for Teens) program from effectiveness to state-wide dissemination. This was the first school-based strength training program to be delivered at such a scale, in partnership with the NSW Department of Education. Sarah’s research is focused on the design, delivery, scale-up, and evaluation of school-based physical activity interventions, spanning from primary to senior high school students, with particular interest in youth resistance training and physical activity promotion. She has published numerous journal articles and penned a chapter within the Routledge Handbook for Youth Physical Activity titled, "Implementation and scale-up of school-based physical activity interventions".
Sarah is a Chief Investigator on a National Health and Medical Research Council partnership grant, working with the NSW Department of Education and NSW Health. This project involves the large-scale implementation and evaluation of the next phase of the RT for Teens program. Sarah is also leading a project to determine the ways in which coaches implement evidence-based muscle-strengthening activities and practices into youth sport.
In her teaching at Western Sydney University, Sarah has developed and teaches research-enhanced learning centred upon quality teaching. Her research and teaching alignment contribute to evidence-based and industry-aligned curriculum in health, physical education, and exercise performance subjects within the School of Health Sciences.
Credit
Future-Makers is published for Western Sydney University by Nature Research Custom Media, part of Springer Nature.
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