Intern encourages students to become active with new program

Jonathan Rivera has taken his love of physical activity that began when he was a little boy watching his grandmother rise each day at 5 a.m. to work out and introduced Life in Motion to students and members of the faculty and staff at LSMSA.

“My vision is to jumpstart a health promotion program that will increase the value and importance of physical activity on academic success for the student body prior to transitioning to college and beyond,” said Rivera, a residence life intern at LSMSA and a graduate assistant in fitness and wellness at Northwestern State University. “This extends beyond that holistically to other dimensions of wellness.

“I focus more on intellectual wellness because, of course, there has been a number of activities the school has hosted talking about mental health, considering how students may experience depression, anxiety and stress. I feel that using physical activity is a positive platform for them to release that stress and really find a way to feel better.”

Rivera was inspired to create the Life in Motion at LSMSA health promotion program by the findings featured in “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain” written by Dr. John J. Ratey, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

According to Rivera, Ratey heard about a revolutionary physical education program at Naperville Central High School in Illinois. The school had two physical education programs: Zero Hour PE and Learning Readiness PE.

“They shaped the physical education program away from interscholastic and intramural sports and toward fitness and wellness,” said Rivera.

In the Learning Readiness program, students having difficulty in their reading classes would participate in a physical activity for an hour before going to class. As a result of the program, those students improved dramatically.

“I was really amazed at the impact that physical activity has on academic performance,” said Rivera. “The program inspired other schools within the Naperville community and neighboring states to do something like this. There have been studies in California and at other universities that look at the relationship between aerobic exercise and academic performance.”

Rivera is currently working on a research paper highlighting the benefits between resistance-based training and improved learning and cognitive memory scores in college students.

“One thing the book highlights at the very end, which inspired me to do this paper, is that there is not much science on the relationship between resistance-based, or non-aerobic exercise, and learning,” he said.

Students at LSMSA have had a positive response to the program and have genuine interest in the activities.

“I am really enjoying Life in Motion at LSMSA,” said Kaitlynn Randall, a senior from Vidalia. “The start of this program has given me the encouragement I needed to get active and create my own health lifestyle regiment.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed this program, and I hope it will continue to grow in popularity, participation and as a part of life at LSMSA.”

Another reason Rivera began the program was to help introduce students to campus recreation.

“I know that campus recreation is one of the pulls that universities have on students when they come for a campus tour,” said Rivera. “It is a way to really showcase their facilities and programs and services that they have to offer students, faculty, staff and the surrounding communities in terms of how their services can benefit campus life, but also student success.

“It is something that I benefited greatly from during my time at the University of Florida, especially as a first generation college student.”

The program will continue through the end of November.

“These two months are kind of a trial run to see how such a program would fare for the students,” said Rivera. “Faculty and staff can really benefit from this program, too. I have some great feedback coming from them, as well.”