Enforced Cross Training

Dance In The Mix welcomes Jessica Collier as our student guest blogger sharing the thoughts she has been developing during her undergraduate work at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, OK. ​​

Working with a Mandatory School Fitness Program

One of the many reasons I have found over the years to love my school is its focus on “Whole Person Education, Spirit, Mind, and Body.” Every student is held to high standards as a matter of policy: ORU actually has an attendance policy requiring students to physically attend class lectures, holds chapel twice a week (mandatory for all students, faculty, and staff), and requires all undergraduates to enroll in a physical education course each semester. Not everyone at school appreciates these requirements, but as a fairly motivated collegiate with any measure of school pride and the desire to succeed, I find very little to criticize in these policies.

If anything causes a stir among ORU students, however, it’s certainly the aerobics points/Fitbit/field test system that currently constitutes our physical education program. Many students find the performance standards (rumored on the university grapevine to be as tough as some military qualification scores) to be, at the least, daunting, if not downright impossible. Here’s a short breakdown of what every ORU student is expected to achieve each semester:

• In the past, students have been expected to earn 50 “aerobics points” per week, incorporated into the grade of every PE class. Aerobics points are calculated via a complicated system involving a “target heart rate training zone” based on age and the number of 10-minute segments your heart rate stays in that zone. As a twenty-something, my heart rate training zone ranges from 120-180 beats per minute, meaning that 6 hours and 20 minutes at 120 bpm would get me 50 aerobics points, or 2 hours and 5 minutes at 180 bpm.
  
  
• Currently, the old aerobics point system is being grandfathered out, replaced with a computer program connected to the Fitbits that every incoming freshman is now required to buy. On the Fitbit program, students are required to take 10,000 steps a day, and earn a specified number of “active minutes” per week at a certain heart rate. Both of these factors are incorporated into every student’s grade.
  
  
• Every semester each student is required to run or walk a two mile (1.5 mile for first-semester freshmen) field test. For the first half of each semester, most PE classes focus exclusively on training for the field test, requiring students to run at least twice a week. According to the current standards, any time above an 8 or 9-minute mile constitutes a failing grade on the field test, and that number is factored prominently into the student’s grade for the entire class.
  
  

This is all fine and good – if you love running. As a dance student, I am still attempting to sift through the vast body of opinions on whether or not running is good cross training: Will this destroy my knee joints? Strengthen all the wrong muscles for ballet? What about the cardiovascular benefits, though? Of course, at this point I have no choice – I can run, or I can watch my beautiful college GPA go down in flames because I’m not fast enough on the track. I’ve tried walking the field test as well, which has given me little more for my trouble than more time spent in getting a bad grade and some ferocious shin splints.

​Over the years, the dance students at ORU have gotten to discover the best way to adapt to this enforced training, and learn more about movement and our bodies as we engage in non-dance physical education classes. We learn, often through trial and error, how much we ought to push ourselves in relation to our rehearsal load, when an upcoming performance is more important than one or two extra time points, and the wondrous miracle of ice packs. Personally, I’ve come to appreciate the extra gym time since it has, in a sense, forced me to take ownership of actually cross training – and the running has definitely increased my stamina. So until our program gains enough credibility to get some slack on the track when we really need it, I look on the bright side, sprinting across the gym like I’m headed for a quick change.

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PC: Angelyn Maura

Jessica Collier is an undergraduate student at Oral Roberts University and a member of the ORU Dance Program. She has studied ballet and modern dance with Rachel Bruce Johnson, Amy McIntosh, Robbee Stafford, Christina Woodrow, Allison Pringle, and Roman Jasinski. Jessica is currently in her fifth year of study at ORU, pursuing degrees in Nursing and Dance Performance.