SAIT’s recreation guide book is filled with modern fitness trends that offer students a diverse and healthy way to stay fit and boost energy throughout the semester.
Rachel Koot finds serenity and energy through yoga.
As the work begins to pile up, students look for ways to gain energy and relieve stress. Quick and easy fixes commonly involve consuming a vast amount of caffeine and occasionally going for a couple of drinks after a long day. This binging can lead to poor time management and fatigue.
According to Kim Sweeney, SAIT’s certified athletic therapist, fitness has many benefits, including increased energy and stress relief.
“Including exercise in your daily routine creates better time management over all, which alleviates stress,” Sweeney said.
Incorporating fitness into a schedule will create structure and discipline in time management during a busy school year.
Sweeney teaches a fitness boot camp at SAIT that runs throughout the fall, winter, and summer semesters. This gives students a way to continue a fitness routine once school is out.
According to students who have taken the class, it is a relaxed environment for all fitness abilities. The name – boot camp – can discourage students, but participants say it is a great way to meet new people with similar interests.
For students seeking an activity focusing on relaxation with high impact results, yoga is beneficial. SAIT offers several different levels and disciplines of yoga.
The beginner classes give students a chance to explore core conditioning, strength, and flexibility with low impact on joints and muscles. These classes offer students with little to no background in fitness a chance to learn body and mind discipline.
According to yoga instructors, practising yoga is a well rounded workout. The body and mind are challenged and strengthened.
Yoga is a relaxing way for students to learn self-discipline, which can be carried out in all aspects of life.
Second-year student Rachel Koot has recently started to practise yoga while finishing her business diploma.
“Sometimes it’s hard to just go work out,” she said. “Yoga feels relaxing but afterwards I feel like I have worked hard and I have more energy.”
Amy Karmininsky, a long time fitness trainer who has taught yoga for five years, says the poses of yoga have something different to offer to the body, which directly affects the mind.
Yoga is a widely accepted discipline in many communities. Many athletes incorporate yoga into their training to increase their overall performance
“Headstand and shoulderstand (poses) both aid to the flow of blood to the brain, which results in better thinking and improved memory,” Karmininsky says.
Although beginners do not start with difficult headstand and shoulderstand poses, other poses help increase flexibility, stretch ligaments, lubricate joints and tone muscles.
Combining all the different poses and practising regularly boosts and strengthens the immune system, which is important for students as they study and attend classes throughout the semester.
Dr. Steve Leyland, a general practitioner in Edmonton, says any fitness is beneficial.
“Yoga just happens to be a non abrasive way to achieve a healthy focused lifestyle,” he says.
Yoga sessions always end with a regular quiet meditation, which helps calm the mind and decrease anxiety and depression.
SAIT recreation offers a wide variety of yoga classes to suit every student’s individual needs and schedules.
