Seymour High School receives funds to upgrade weight room

0

On a normal day, more than 200 students use the weight room at the Seymour High School football stadium.

The equipment is not just for football players but is used by all student-athletes and physical education classes.

That’s a lot of wear and tear on equipment that is almost 20 years old.

Athletics director Kirk Manns and Owls football coach Michael Kelly made a request to the school board in January to spend $125,000 to purchase new student fitness and strength training equipment for the school’s strengthening and conditioning program.

“The equipment that we have is aging,” Manns said. “There’s a lot of concerns … some of them with safety.”

School board trustees approved the request.

The money for the equipment is coming from the district’s capital projects fund. Each year, the school corporation can allocate 5 percent of that money for sports facilities and equipment. The remainder of the 2018 sports facilities money is going to renovate six of the high school’s tennis courts after the spring tennis season. The other four were completed last summer.

After having an analysis completed concerning the size and dimensions of the weight room, the new equipment will maximize the space to make it more efficient for student-athletes, Manns said.

When it comes to the weight room, Kelly said there are two things that are most important — safety and ability to utilize the space to best meet the needs of the program.

Upgrading and updating equipment will improve safety and increase the number of student-athletes engaged in strengthening and conditioning during class and before and after school, Kelly said.

The weight room is used all eight periods of the school day, he said.

“Part of what we are trying to do is make it more user-friendly and also at the same time update the equipment so it’s safer for our student-athletes to use,” he said.

Some of the old bars aren’t as straight as they used to be, which can cause deficiencies in form and technique, he said.

The new equipment includes eight weightlifting racks and eight half-racks, allowing for much greater numbers of athletes to be engaged. With the new equipment, the weight room will be able to accommodate up to 64 athletes at once, Kelly said.

“It will allow for a multitude of different exercises,” he said.

Currently, there are 10 racks, but some are not able to be used with heavier weights, Kelly said.

Along with the racks, the purchase also comes with weight equipment allowing students to do typical lifts such as bench, squat, and power clean and more advanced weightlifting.

“The equipment will also allow us to add equipment as we move forward if needed,” Kelly said.

It will benefit not just football but all Seymour High School athletics programs, he added.

“I’m a firm believer in the weight room for all sports,” he said. “I think it’s the determining factor between success and failure, and it’s going to be that one thing that we can take the next step on in our athletic department and our athletic programs across the board.”

The old equipment will be redistributed to Seymour Middle School and the other high school weight room on the second floor of the gymnasium.

Although he couldn’t guarantee a state championship as a result of the new weight equipment, Kelly said it would put them a whole lot closer to that goal.

No posts to display