TO THE EDITOR:
What is the lumbo-pelvic hip complex? The multifidus? The prone iso-ab exercise? The “drawing-in” maneuver? Which category of exercise is a “single leg hop down with stabilization”?
Even if you couldn’t answer these questions, you still may well be a person who is active, eats well, gets enough sleep and generally lives a healthy life. Nevertheless, you also do not know enough about fitness, at least according to the Department of Exercise and Sport Science, which has included these concepts in Lifetime Fitness, a course taken by all students.
On the whole, LFIT isn’t a bad program. My TA was dedicated. I became a better swimmer, and I stayed in shape. Even the curriculum improved my life: LFIT convinced me to start taking a multivitamin and made me think more about those trips to the waffle-maker in Rams Head. I am glad I had a class dedicated to making me healthier. However, much of the curriculum was unnecessary and ridiculous.
Even more absurd than the curriculum, however, is the method of teaching it. In most classes, students read about concepts or have professors explain concepts to them in lectures. Not so in LFIT. In LFIT, students sit in front of a computer for thirty minutes while a computerized voice slowly reads them a script. Strangely, these videos mention ways in which students can design “programs” for their “clients.”
I do not need to design “programs” for my “clients” because I do not have any “clients.” I do not need to know that a “single leg squat touchdown” is a “balance strength exercise.” All I need to know is how to eat nutritiously, exercise prudently and live a normal life. I wish the Department of Exercise and Sport Science would recognize that.
Wilson Parker
Freshman
Economics
