At 6:00 AM Tuesday, 10 February, 13 Newington staff members committed to a six week cross-training challenge. This was the second of its kind and involved two mornings a week, and an additional third morning for those were keen for a bigger challenge.

After I finalised the ‘class roll’ in the first week, I realised that we had a mixed bag of participants and that this term would be an interesting one. Apart from the usual suspects from Edmund Webb Boarding House such as Mr Tom Lever and Mr Troy Stanley, this time we also had a fearless group of Music teachers led by Head of Music, Mr Mark Scott.

Initial testing at the start of the program showed some impressive results as well as areas for improvement across all participants. Then, participants were placed in two teams based on their testing results and from here on, we had some group sessions that involved team challenges which led inevitably to some individual battles.

On Thursday, 19 March testing was repeated and each participant was up for the challenge wanting to better their initial efforts. Results were outstanding with some participants improving certain fitness measures by a whopping 50 per cent.

Special mention goes out to all those involved who grit their teeth and really played the cards they were dealt – literally!

Mr Nathan Parnham
Strength and Conditioning Manager