Auburn's TigerFit Program, sponsored by the School of Kinesiology, is free for students and members of the community this semester.
The program is designed to have students going through the physical activity and health program learn to do exercise assessments, following the guidelines from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). The ACSM is "widely recognized" as one of the best sources that is known for exercise training and exercise program, according to James McDonald, the director of TigerFit.
Each session takes about 90 minutes to complete as undergraduate students in the School of Kinesiology run exercise tests on clients. They assess the five components of health-related physical fitness which are cardio-respiratory health, which most people say is aerobic health, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility and body composition, according to McDonald.
"After we finish doing the testing, we take all the results and we compare them to other people," McDonald said. "[We use the] same age, same sex and we put them into a report, and then we help each individual with a starter exercise program."
This program is a good "starting point" or a way "to check your progress" if you are currently in an exercise program, according to McDonald.
"If they're already exercising, we try and prove whatever exercise program they're on," McDonald said. "If they haven't been exercising, we try and get them started doing the basic things [like] walking and doing some body weight exercises."
McDonald said the program is booked for this semester.
"In years past, we've had trouble getting people in," McDonald said. "This year, we're teaming with the folks in pharmacy who work with the healthcare program here."
"We're running at about 32 clients a week," McDonald said. "So over the course of nine weeks that we will be doing this, we're going to have nearly 250 people come through."
McDonald said he hopes to maintain the same number of clients for next semester, but the "limiting factor is how many students I have and how many lab hours I have."
The program serves two groups: the undergraduate students who run the sessions and the community.
"It's part of the undergraduate curriculum," McDonald said. "They've taken all the basic courses in kinesiology, the study of biomechanics [and] the study of exercise physiology, and now they're learning to apply those principles they learned to testing individuals."
The other role of the program is to reach out to the greater Auburn Family and Lee County overall, according to McDonald. The program occurs every semester and has a shortened run in the summer.
If you are interested in participating in the Tigerfit Program, sign up on the kinesiology website or email tigrfit@auburn.edu.
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