Year 12 PDHPE excursion
Last Friday, Year 12 PDHPE students traveled to the Sydney Academy of Sport at Narrabeen. The focus of the day was to refine students’ understanding of content undertaken in the PDHPE syllabus for Core 2 ‘Factors Affecting Performance’ and the Option ‘Sports Medicine’. The students gained valuable insights into many facets of exercise science, physiology, training principles as well as experiencing the life of an elite professional athlete.
Students volunteered to undertake VO2max testing and lactate analysis. Surrounded by a team of exercise physiologists, the students undertook a 30-minute incremental test on a treadmill, pausing briefly every two minutes for lactate analysis via a blood sample taken from the ear and an RPE (rating of perceived exertion) score. Both students ran to exhaustion and provided the rest of the group with some excellent data for discussion later in the afternoon.
Over lunch, students were also able to observe a resistance training session undertaken by the Manly Sea Eagles NRL team. Students were put through a number of different forms of ‘Recovery Strategies’ including hydrotherapy, cryotherapy, ice baths and pool rehabilitation.
Special thanks to the exercise scientists at the Sydney Academy of Sport who gave up their time and expertise to provide lectures and conduct a range of tests on Waverley students, as well as Ms Gair for assisting in the organisation of the excursion.
Mr Patrick Darvill
Head of PDHPE
E: pdarvill@waverley.nsw.edu.au
