Mastering Sports, Exercise and Fitness: The Rule of Specificity (Ages 10-14)

This class will go over the principle of specificity and how exercise professionals use it to help average people, athletes, and everyone in between reach their goals of losing weight or getting bigger, faster and stronger. We will start by introducing ourselves and giving some background information about ourselves to break the ice and get excited about learning.

After introductions, we will briefly look at how most people use this principle without realizing it and how the pros use it in everyday workouts and sports practice to become better athletes. Next, we will talk about the history of these ideas and the ideas explain what happens to muscles, nerves, bones, tendons, and ligaments when these structures face the stress of movement. 

Then, students will learn how to apply this principle to the gym, running, and learning in general. Afterward, we will talk about considerations like how do we apply this to people with different levels of experience? What happens if we stop moving or stop exercising? Can we keep improving forever? After the lecture students will be asked how they have seen this principle in the past in their own lives while doing activities like hiking or playing a sport. 

Then, students will be asked a series of questions on how to get better at doing things such as pushups. Finally, students will be given an optional movement-based project outside of class to see if they can notice a difference in the difficulty of a movement over a period of a week after daily practice. 

Throughout the class, the students will be asked to show their understanding by sharing personal examples of the concepts described. This class will be taught through a google slides presentation and dialogue between myself and the students.