PLAY STRONG
forms, needn’t be boring or strenuous.
Curling is just one example of the diverse activities that students are introduced to through Play Strong to get them thinking about fresh ways to be active.
This is the second time Polk has participated in the three-month group program aimed at increasing children’s activity levels, fostering healthy exercise habits and building strength as well as confidence.
Patients ages 11 to 18 arrive at Play Strong with a variety of conditions ranging from obesity and diabetes to cancer, said Travis Gallagher, an athletic trainer who runs the program. They are referred by a physician, whether it be the child’s oncologist, rheumatologist or primary-care doctor.
“Regardless of their background or diagnosis, all these kids need more physical activity,” Gallagher said. “We’re using play and exercise as medicine.”
Play Strong was founded in 2012 to help children recovering from cancer rebuild strength and learn anew how to be active.
In time, though, the group began including patients from New U (a Nationwide Children’s medical weightloss program) and other departments as doctors learned of its successes, Gallagher said.
The program now works with children referred from 12 specialties within the hospital system, serving more than 100 young people annually.
Dr. Anastasia Fischer, a sports-medicine physician at Nationwide, said she has become a cheerleader for the program, alerting colleagues to its practices and benefits as well as referring patients to Gallagher and his team.
“The kids I send the most often are trying to become involved with a sport and tried wrong, like a sixthgrader who is overweight and overzealous,” she said. “His ankle sprain is healed, and we put him in the Play Strong program to build endurance, motor skills. They’re injured because they didn’t have the skills, but we don’t want them to be disheartened by it.”
Program participants learn how to jump and land and kick a ball, Fischer said, so they’ll be more apt to try a new sport or activity.
Giving young children the tools to lead an active lifestyle is vital, she said.
“We recommend kids get 60 minutes of physical activity a day,” she said. “For kids who don’t have P.E. or recess or walk to school, how can you get that 60 minutes without sports? This program teaches them how to have a dance party or what they can do with a balloon.”
The pediatric patients meet twice a week at one of two locations: the Westerville Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Center or the Franklin Park Adventure Center (although this site will move next month). Some students might require oneon-one training, but most work is done in groups.
One day a week is an exercise play day, during which Nationwide interns alternate between leading traditional exercises and stretches and childhood games — Sharks and Minnows and kickball — that are strenuous enough to be considered a workout.
Much of what Play Strong does is based in research and best practices, Gallagher said.
That thought was lost, however, on 13-year-old Alejandro Avila-Garcia as he was being chased by “a shark” during an exerciseplay session last week. He simply viewed the game as fun and sweat-inducing.
Through the program, the seventh-grader said he has learned to be healthier and now spends more time outside playing basketball and walking with friends.
He also tried curling, even though he initially thought the sport looked boring.
“I thought it was just sweeping,” Avila-Garcia said. “But I had fun talking to people and falling.”
The curling event was part of the portion of the class — held the other day of the week — in which participants are introduced to new activities and sports, oftentimes with the help of community members. For example, a Columbus Crew player might teach the kids soccer or a tae kwon do instructor might lead a martial-arts lesson.
“These kids are not the kids who move really well, and they don’t have the confidence,” Gallagher said. “They’re slower and not coordinated. Very rarely is there ever a ‘here’s how you do it’ lesson for a sport once you get to middle school or high school.”
In a safe environment, they can learn how to play a sport without the pressure of joining a team or fear of not faring well against more athletic schoolmates.
Payton Polk said the program has helped her appreciate the many options she has for a workout.
“The program exercises you, and you don’t feel like you’re exercising,” she said.
Her mother, Elizabeth Phelps, has noticed a difference, too.
“Her confidence has most definitely gone through the roof,” Phelps said. “Her energy has increased. She’s been walking home from the bus stop instead of saying, ‘Hey, come pick me up.’”
Her grades have improved, too.
The program has affected the whole family, which has a history of diabetes and heart problems, said Phelps, who regularly jumps in on the workouts with the kids.
Parents and siblings are encouraged to participate free alongside the patient. (Insurance is billed for patients.)
“It’s given us more ideas on how to get out and move,” Phelps said. “A teen daughter and a mom don’t normally find a common ground with anything, but this has drawn us closer.”