Imagine one day you look in the mirror, and you look like a professional bodybuilder?  You would want to keep the muscle right?, Anyone can agree that muscle looks good, but it also feels great to have; any improvement is good improvement. Weightlifting has developed a culture of its own over the decades.  It’s been around and it’s not hard to imagine why people enjoy pushing themselves to the absolute limit by breaking down and building themselves up again repeatedly. The push and pull of it draws you in and the results of it are what keep you going. Idols like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dwayne, The Rock, Johnson and Eddie Hall are what people strive to be like.

 

Building muscle is really a journey that isn’t for everyone.  It takes a certain kind of person to be committed day in and day out. Huntingtown has its own weight lifting class, Weight Lifting 1 and 2 which you can take anytime.  Coach Friel is in charge of the class and teaches all you need to know about lifting. As someone who took the class my freshman year and sophomore year, I highly recommend it. It teaches you exercises you can do at home or a gym outside of school and the gym in school is usually open after school. Looking at it from the perspective of a student, it has a positive impact on you, it makes you feel good about yourself and gives you some self-confidence. On the student body as a whole, it makes you healthy and lets you find more out about fitness.

 

The days are separated into either upper or lower body, but the exercises will target different muscle groups throughout the body; each muscle group will have different exercises that challenge you. For upper body, one set of muscles you would be working on are Pectorals which is the chest.  A common exercise would be bench pressing. There are several different muscles in the upper body Including Deltoids (Shoulders) Biceps and Triceps (Top and Bottom of Arm), Lattimus Dorc( (These are below the arm). For lower body there are fewer, but they impact larger areas: Quads (Front of thighs), Hamstrings (Back of thighs) and Calves. You set what weight is comfortable for you and have someone around your weight class spot you. For those who don’t know what spotting is, it is where someone watches and helps you if you fail a repetition and get it back on the rack. Coach Friel tells the class when to switch exercises someone is always spotting unless there are no exercises where you need spotting.

 

When I spoke with Tristan Johnson, Elijah Christo and Spencer Moreland, all three had differing opinions on the exercises they had to do but they agreed that it is a fun class overall. Tristan loves leg day while Elijah hates it. Spencer Morland is not in the class and currently works out after school and has a strict regimen with each day following a different muscle group. Compared to what is done in school it sounds like it’s a lot more than just arms and legs, but this routine is like what is in the class. Arms and legs are a vital part of those days but it’s more upper body and lower body, where you work several different muscles related to the day.

 

Overall weightlifting has a positive impact on the students and Coach Friel for it is great at their job. The class can improve your health and even your mind by letting you become more positive from getting bigger and stronger. Being in the class introduces you to the culture and teaches you what is widely accepted around it.