Hello, welcome to my first in-depth blog post this year!
What is my chosen in-depth skill this year?
For my in-depth this year, I have decided to focus on health and fitness. More specifically how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the way people implement fitness into their lives. Over the next five months I hope to gain a diverse insight into the world of health and fitness through research, experience, self-reflection, and discussions with people who are well versed in this field. I have divided the areas that I want to explore into three main concepts. Mental health, physical fitness and how the pandemic has impacted both of them. I envision myself going into depth on each of these topics and answering many questions along the way. Ideally both research and experience will be the foundation of my in-depth this year. Making parts of this project experience based, will give me insight specific to my in-depth skill that I would not have gotten through research.
The knowledge that I gain over the course of this project will be used to create a personalized and sustainable health and fitness regimen near the end of the project as well as smaller ones throughout. These personalized regimens will be put together with the hopes of implementing it into my life for one to two weeks. Prioritizing mental and physical health is more important now than ever. Unfortunately, the pandemic has made it challenging for people to adapt their ways of incorporating health and fitness into their lives. Through this project I want to learn to adapt health and fitness norms to the conditions of the pandemic. I also want to use my knowledge that I gain over the course of this project to help others in the same position that I am in right now. My goal for the end of this in-depth project is to be able to educate others. I hope to teach others how to incorporate health and fitness into their lives in a responsible manner and how to make time for both, especially when life gets busy.
Why did I choose this as my in-depth skill?
Our world has changed so much since the pandemic hit. One of the many ways that COVID-19 has impacted our society is in the athletic department. Not only have major sports leagues been affected but so have athletes on a smaller scale as well as everyday people. Over the past two years, I have noticed that in one way or another COVID-19 has impacted the way that each individual interacts with health and fitness. I chose to focus on the impact COVID-19 has had on people’s health and fitness for in-depth this year because I have witnessed the impacts firsthand. I enjoy playing sports and the way that my sport teams play and practice has been drastically changed as a result of the pandemic. Due to the pandemic, the way my family members implement health and fitness into their lives has also changed.
There was a long period of time where I thought the pandemic only had negative impacts on the sport world. However, as I begun flushing out the details and ideas for this project, I have come to the realization that the pandemic has also changed the way I interact with health and fitness in a positive way. During my in-depth this year, I want to take time to learn about the positive and negative ways the pandemic has impacted people. Their mental and physical health as well as what they have done to adapt under the circumstances.
Health and fitness have always been an interest of mine and I have wanted to learn more about them both. I have just never known where to start. Learning about the changes the pandemic has made to the way people interact with health and fitness is important for my in-depth to thrive. I will then use that knowledge to adapt fitness norms and find ways to personalize and implement them into my life. Focusing on this as my in-depth this year will give me a great starting a point to pursue this interest of mine and provide a different approach.
How am I going to learn my chosen in-depth skill?
As mentioned above, this project will be both research and experience based. Most of the experience that I get from this project will double as research. With the help of my mentor, I will work on developing ways where I can actively implement the knowledge that I gain through my research. As of right now, I am thinking of creating small and manageable implementation plans to help me try different health and fitness practices. Eventually I would like to find other ways to actively practice my research to diversify my experiences as well as the knowledge that I gain from them. Either way, I will use these experiences to help me create a more personalized and maintainable regimen near the end of my project.
There are many resources I can draw on that will help me develop my knowledge specific to my in-depth skill. I will definitely make use of YouTube, Pinterest, and other online platforms. However, I would also like to draw from a variety of real-life experiences. I am going to draw from my own experiences, but also my mentor’s, family members’, friends’, and hopefully some athletes’ as well. Through discussions with people I will be able to pull from real experiences. Not only will I gain a more diverse insight that will give this project depth, but I will also be enriching the experience that I get from in-depth this year. Talking to people has never been a strong suit of mine. This project is a fantastic opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone and continue to develop my communication skills and confidence.
Teaching others is an important part of this year’s in-depth for me. It is also a fantastic way to hold myself accountable and reinforce the knowledge that I gain over the next five months. I am extremely lucky to have an opportunity to learn more about a passion of mine, especially with the amount of freedom that I have. I have the power to decide what is important for me to know and learn. This also gives me the responsibility at the end of in-depth this year to decide what is important for me to share. I am going into this project with an idea of what I want the end presentation to look like which does not happen very often to me. I want to share as much knowledge as I can and help people who may feel stuck. For many people, what is keeping them from prioritizing health and fitness in their lives is not knowing where to start. Through this project I want to give people all the information they may need to start their pursuit of incorporating health and fitness into their lives.
When am I going to complete each part of my project by?
I have broken down this project into four main sections. The first three are the research and practice implementation phases and the fourth is putting all of the information that I have gained over the course of the project to use. The first phase of the project is where I will begin my journey. This phase will run from now until around February 11th. During this time I will research the impact COVID-19 has had on people’s relationship with health and fitness as well as how they implement both into their day to day lives. During this phase I will do my best to stray away from digital resources and look for input from real people.
The next phase of my research will be learning more about physical fitness. This phase will likely last from February 11th until March 11th. Not all of the questions that I will answer during this phase have been written out, but I do have a baseline of questions that I brainstormed. Throughout the first phase of my research I will formulate more questions to look into based on the input that I get from other people and information I gathered from their experiences. Some focus points for this month of research will be learning about the applications of fitness, how to implement physical activity safely and responsibly while following all COVID protocols. As my research builds, I am going to look for ways to actively implement my research rather than waiting to apply it at the end for my longer personalized regimen. I do not know exactly what this will look like, but I am hoping that I will be able to do it in a fun way that keeps me motivated to continue this project.
The next phase of my research will run from March 11th to April 8th and will have the focus on mental health. This phase will be similar to the previous stage where I do not know all of the questions that I am going to answer or all of the aspects that I will be covering. When it comes time for this phase of research, I know that I will have a better idea of the direction that I want to take. Exploring the importance prioritizing mental health and different ways to do so are a huge focus for this phase. I also wish to cover the impact that COVID-19- has had on individual’s mental health. We all know that the pandemic has not been the nicest to everyone’s mental health, but I want to take a deeper dive into what this means. I want to learn about the specific changes or obstacles. To make sure that I do fall into the spiral of thinking that the pandemic has only done bad, I will make a conscious effort to look for positive impacts of COVID-19. A positive impact the pandemic has had in my life is bringing me closer to some people. Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have started talking to my grandparents and aunt over the phone more often than I used to. I really enjoy the moments that we share over the phone and because of the pandemic we get to speak to each other more often.
The fourth and final stage of this project is to summarize all of my research and share it with people. I currently envision my final project to be summary of the research that I did over the course of this project with a vital interactive component. I want to include the research that I did as well as the wisdom that gained during the five months. The interactive portion of the final product will be a survey that people can take to personalize a health and fitness regimen. I am not entirely sure how this will work digitally, but I do hope that I can put it together. It is really important to me that I include the survey as a part of my in-depth presentation because not only am I challenging myself to apply my in-depth skill, but I am also doing it in a way that will help other people.
Last year during in-depth, I learned that it is difficult to effectively structure a project that is as long as this one. Especially when you have barely scratched the surface. I have also learned that learning does not happen linear. You cannot create a step-by-step plan that illustrates exactly what you do and when you do it. It is definitely a good idea to create a rough outline of what you want to complete and when you hope to complete it by, but it is never a good idea to force yourself to stick to that plan perfectly. You may get halfway into one aspect of the skill you are learning and realize that it has led you in an entirely different direction. A huge takeaway from experiencing this last year, is that you need to be flexible.
This year I am will be learning about health and fitness. These concepts alone are quite large but when adding on the ever-changing pandemic as an extra layer, I need to recognize that I will not be able to learn absolutely everything. I can try my best and go in-depth learning plenty about this field, but there will always be more that I can learn and I need to come to accept that.
Who is my mentor this year?
This year I am lucky enough to have Coach Quinto as my in-depth mentor. He has been extremely helpful with the process of starting this project. Having plenty of experience in the health and fitness industry from playing and coaching sports for many years makes him the perfect mentor. He is also a great person to go to while seeking input on the impacts of COVID-19 on health and fitness. He has witnessed many skilled athletes continue their development through the pandemic and he has done a fantastic job at supporting them. Despite COVID-19 restrictions I have learned so much from him over the past year and a half. My knowledge about physical fitness and mental health has grown while playing for him. I have learned to take care of my mind and body so I can show up ready to practice and play. What I have learned on his team is not information that can be found online. Real people sharing real experiences is what has helped me learn and grow not only as a person, but as a player as well. In the two short meetings that I have had with him so far, he has been extremely supportive. Coach Quinto is always there to support and accommodate his players. He is a fantastic coach and I cannot wait to continue working with him on this project!
Thank you for coming and reading my first in-depth post this year! I am excited to keep you updated on the process of this new venture!