My practicum this quarter was EXSC 495A, which meant I was to work in a Fitness Center/Club, so I chose to work with Shayne Wittkopp in the CWU Recreation Center. When first thinking about what I wanted to accomplish I asked myself; what are my goals of this experience and what do I personally want to get out of it? I wrote down some objectives to help guide myself throughout the quarter and to make sure I was getting the most out of this practicum. A few I wrote down were: to gain a better understanding of how the fitness industry works and operates, to see how a group fitness class should be taught, and to get an understanding of what it takes to be a successful personal trainer in the fitness industry. Sitting here, at the end of my practicum I can gladly say that I achieved all of these objectives and then some.
I had such a great experience working with Shayne Wittkopp because he really did a great job of explaining how things worked and how they should be in terms of teaching a class or instructing clients. In the beginning I was pretty nervous to go out there and help him teach his classes because I had just never really done something like that. As the quarter progressed I became more and more comfortable with reaching out and helping the people who were taking the classes by instructing them on their form and what they could improve on. By the end of the practicum I had even taught my own class and had my own one on one client and I can thank Shayne for that. Shayne made it a fun environment which helped me get involved with the clients by giving them advice and teaching them how to perform certain exercises, his positive attitude and outgoing personality made it really easy to do that.
Looking back on the quarter as a whole, I can say that my favorite part of the practicum was seeing the people I was working with make improvements
