Week 1

SITUATION
I am currently on prac at a rehab place and every morning a general exercise class is run by the physio assistants. I was asked to watch a class while the physio assistant was in charge, with the plan being for me to run it one day a week (on Wednesdays) from then on. I have had lots of experience running classes (both from previous prac placements and part time jobs) so I wasn’t too worried about it. I watched the first class which consisted of basic exercises with a warm up and cool down. I thought I would then have a week to prepare for the class I was going to run and was going to come up with a plan of what I would do. The following day however a different physio assistant asked if I could run the class for her as she had something else important to do. I agreed and felt fairly confident I could do a good job of it. I still had clients to see that morning before the class, so I didn’t have much time to plan for it.

TASK
I had to run a general exercise class aimed at an older age group of clients. I had a fair bit of equipment to choose from (such as therabands, dumbbells, noodles and balls). The class was chair-based, so all of my exercises had to be performed sitting down. It was a general exercise class with the aim of overall conditioning and rehab, rather than focusing on specific conditions (as the clients were quite varied). The class was approximately an hour long.

ACTION
I didn’t have much time to plan for the class so I quickly wrote down all the warm-up exercises I could remember from watching the previous class. These included things like marching in the chair, shoulder shrugs and knee extensions. I planned to keep that piece of paper in my lap during the class so I could refer to it in case I forgot what to do next. I then looked through all the available equipment. The physio assistant had used therabands the day before so I needed to find something different. I chose dumbbells as it was fairly easy to come up with exercises for that equipment. I also used two balls with soft spikes (for easy grip) and a set of quoits. I used the balls in an exercise where they are passed around the circle from person to person above their heads and we played a game of quoits at the end where the spoke was set in the middle of the circle.

RESULT
The class started off well as I ran through the exercises I had written down for the warm up. It was going well until I ran out of exercises! The ones I had written down did not take as long as I thought they would, and I had time to spare. I thought of some exercises on the spot but couldn’t think under the pressure and moved on from the warm up to the main exercises with the dumbbells. Again, these exercises did not take as long as I thought they would. I thought about doing a greater amount of repetitions for each exercise but the participants in the class were getting tired and could not handle it. I changed over to the ball-passing game and after passing the two balls around the circle four or five times it was time to move on. We played a few rounds of quoits and the group was having so much fun with it I continued with this, filling in time before the cool down. For the cool down I ran through some basic stretches and breathing exercises and finished the class right in time for lunch.

EVALUATION
I thought the class was successful and ran fairly smoothly. I received positive feedback from the participants who said they loved the new games and ideas. I was glad they had enjoyed it as sometimes it is hard to convince them to come to the class. If they consider it a fun activity rather than an “exercise class” they are more likely to want to come. I found it a little stressful trying to think of ideas of exercises on the spot. My weakness was definitely not working well under the pressure, however I believe my strength was not getting flustered. I continued on with what I had planned and went with what worked (such as running the quoits game longer than I had planned). I was glad I had written things down however I should have thought of more exercises prior to the class. The class did run for the required time and the participants enjoyed it and had a good work-out so overall it was a success.

STRATEGIES
In the future I will have a whole list of exercises written down, and make sure I have more ideas than I think I will need! I have also thought of some games (such as balloon volleyball) to make the classes more enjoyable so the participants can have fun while still exercising. I will continue to seek feedback from the group so I can make the class more appropriate for them and their needs.