An Exercise in Exercise

_{Pictured: School of Health Professions Administrative Specialist Jill Byrne trains on the elliptical machine with student personal trainer Tasheima Johnson.}

Exercise science students in this fall’s Exercise Programs for Older Adults class, taught by Professor Gordon Schmidt, Ph.D., traded their School of Health Professions classroom for the fitness center on the Long Island campus as they personally trained New York Tech faculty and staff. The three-week-long program gave students the opportunity to have hands-on learning experience working with clients to create healthier habits, build muscular strength, and increase cardiorespiratory endurance.

The class’s 16 students were each paired with an adult faculty or staff volunteer, who they met with for six sessions under Schmidt’s guidance. Kicking off the program with an orientation meeting, students introduced themselves and the nature of the program, oriented their clients to the fitness center and its resources, and identified their clients’ goals. Throughout each of the remaining 45-minute sessions, clients and their student personal trainers worked on various elements of fitness, beginning with low-intensity walking and moderate-intensity aerobic machine conditioning and evolving into formal strength training using variable resistance machines and free weights.

Patricia Duran, senior director of student accounts in the Office of the Bursar, says her personal trainer, Kaela Walker, opened her eyes to new forms of exercise. “Kaela surprised me with what I was able to do with her guidance.”

Each student maintained a logbook where they recorded their client’s exercises, repetitions, and how many sets were performed. Assessments of flexibility, body composition, blood pressure, upper and lower body strength, and cardiorespiratory fitness established benchmarks for each client and trainer to create an individualized program to maintain or improve upon.

Some of the adult participants dove into the nutrition side of things as well. Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Lorraine Mongiello, DrPh, RDN, led Health Education and Promotion. Separate from Schmidt’s exercise programs class, Mongiello’s students implemented a “food challenge” as a class project to promote health. After a presentation to School of Health Professions faculty and staff, five teams were created; each team chose to take on four of the seven presented challenges.

_{Participants received certificates of achievement to celebrate all they had learned and accomplished during the week-three program.}

Tasks like “no ultra-processed food for seven days,” “choose five servings of fruit or vegetables daily,” and “30 different plants in seven days” created attainable goals and encouraged participants to think differently about what they put on their plates each day.

“The goal was to promote incremental changes that collectively lead to a substantial impact on participants’ health and well-being,” Mongiello says. “People generally have more success when they set goals, create a plan of action, and share their progress with friends and colleagues.”

By the end of the sixth exercise session, not only did students have a completed business model and a client profile of the individual they worked with, but clients noted feeling motivated and comfortable enough to visit the fitness center on their own and follow their trainer-recommended exercise regimen—exactly what Schmidt had in mind when establishing the program.

“This was a great opportunity for me to not only get back into an exercise program but also to support our exercise science students’ practical learning, and it’s been a fantastic experience,” says School of Health Professions Administrative Specialist Jill Byrne, who worked one-on-one with aspiring occupational therapist Tasheima Johnson.

Working with her client in this program was a learning moment for Johnson, who says she’s gained skills in building strong relationships with clients. Most people, she says, don’t know their own strength until they are pushed beyond their comfort zone—but that requires a large amount of trust between client and trainer. 

Student veteran Bernie Acevedo, who worked with Assistant Professor of Nursing Linda Schneider, Ph.D., hopes to become a physical therapist running his own clinic. He says this experience enabled him to apply his classroom learning and adapt it to “real people with diverse health backgrounds and fitness levels.”

“Using our available resources at New York Tech, we put together a program that can be a model of fitness training,” Schmidt says. “I am confident that these students will be strong contributors to the healthcare and exercise industry.”