Antioch Community High School offers a gym class, Fit For Life that is offered primarily to girls in grades 10-12, but is also available for boys to take. In place of this year’s traditional final project, Fit For Life students are instead doing a ‘Bring Your Own Workout’ project, designing their own workouts that are personalized just for them. Templates of different types of workouts, such as a “21-15-9-15-21,” Tabata, Chipper and EMOM (Every Minute On the Minute), were handed out to students in a packet that they bring to class on the day of their customized workouts to record their times, results and feedback in that they will turn in as the final project.

ACHS sophomore and first year Fit For Life student Hannah Cook said, “You get to set your own goals and go at your own pace. You feel better when you finish the workout. Personally, I think that I push harder but I could always try harder. I think that it encourages us to push our limits and it helps our self esteem.”

Students participated in each of the workouts at least one time in class before they got to choose their own exercises to use for their B.Y.O.W. and were challenged to complete the entirety of the workout as fast and efficiently as possible.

Second year Fit For Life student and junior Bella Gigliotti said, “I like that I get to pick exercises that I can complete or challenge myself with based on my fitness level. I think students figuring out what works for them is the goal of this project because when we all graduate our P.E. teachers are not going to be there to tell us to workout and do certain exercises. If we learn how to design our own workouts now and understand how the process works, we can continue using it when our teachers are not there anymore.”

The B.O.Y.W. project will be completed over the span of the next couple weeks and students are free to edit their workouts as much as they please. Students are being trusted to challenge themselves and figure out what pace works best for them and truly teaches them how to be fit for life.