Gym Class Deal Works Out
At the 24 Hour Fitness club in San Juan Capistrano, Erica Cook was doing a set of leg lifts Tuesday on the Butt Blaster and feeling the burn. She had already flexed her biceps on the Gravitron, and if she felt like it after her workout she could head for the sauna and take a little steam.
It’s not a bad way to spend the afternoon. Especially if you’re a 16-year-old high school sophomore, and this is your physical education class.
Born of necessity, the Capistrano Valley High School program allows a class of 35 students to work out two afternoons a week at the local health club. At one of the most crowded high schools in Orange County, administrators were looking for ways to get some of their 2,780 kids off campus. And P.E. teacher John Peloza was looking for ways to get students more interested in exercise. What he came up with was a unique agreement with 24 Hour Fitness that makes students in his class eligible for corporate membership rates at $90 a semester. They meet twice a week to exercise under his supervision, and they also have the center’s professional trainers to turn to for advice.
“It was a hard program to get started because . . . you are mixing two organizations that are not intrinsically compatible,” Principal Daniel Burch said.
But the class, nearing the end of its first year, draws praise from students--and from the fitness center. It has proved so popular that next year the school will offer it for two periods.
“This is the class for me. I’ve always been a weakling, and my strength in my arms has doubled,” said 17-year-old senior Darby Poole. “They don’t usually teach girls how to lift weights.”
Darby is slight but mighty. “You just added on to your own big muscles,” she said to a classmate, rubbing her biceps as she waited for her turn to do another set of pull-ups. “I’m getting my own little ones.”
Peloza said he hopes that by going off campus for P.E., students will see how exercise can become part of their adult lives. “Here they have more role models than just me. They can see all these adults. They are here to work out on their own. I’m hoping it rubs off on them.”
This is not the first time Peloza’s teaching has drawn attention. A former biology teacher, he made national news when he sued the Capistrano Unified School District in 1991 for prohibiting him from discussing his religious beliefs with students. He said his constitutional right to free speech was violated because he was required to teach evolution and could not teach creationist theory. Peloza was admonished and transferred from the school’s science department to its physical education department in 1992. His four-year legal battle ended when the Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal in 1995.
Now he boasts that his courses are the most popular P.E. classes at the school. “They thought they were going to punish me, but instead I’ve been rewarded,” Peloza said. “Kids don’t take this class because they have to. They want to be here.”
The class is about two-thirds girls, several of whom say the immaculate fitness center is a welcome change from their dank school weight room.
Under Peloza’s supervision, students follow a recommended strength and cardiovascular program that they carry printed on little laminated cards around their necks. The class lasts an hour and a half.
“The weightlifting class at school is almost all boys. I would feel pretty intimidated,” sophomore Julia Coffman said.
Boys and girls alike say the class gives them greater freedom than a regular P.E. class. Blake Smith, 16, said he tailors his workouts to boost his performance as an ice hockey player. Kate Krumme, a senior who is headed to Oberlin College in the fall, said she loves the independence the class offers. She was studying for Thursday’s Advanced Placement Environmental Science test while she worked up a sweat on the stationary bicycle.
The class’ afternoon meeting time coincides with when the various sports teams practice, so it alleviates pressure on the school’s cramped facilities at a critical time. And, said Rob Godwin, the club’s hulking fitness supervisor, it takes advantage of what is otherwise a quiet time at 24 Hour Fitness.
Godwin said the program is a great opportunity to get young people involved in exercise. And if it happens to be a good business strategy, all the better.