MHM Backs Community Exercise Outreach for Second Year in a Row
Texas A&M University Kingsville
KINGSVILLE, TEXAS (News Release) - Texas A&M University Kingsville’s Dr. Brian Menaker, Associate Professor, Interim Associate Department Chair and Kinesiology Graduate Program Coordinator, and Dr. Christopher Hearon, professor, Human Performance Laboratory Coordinator and Exercise Science Program Coordinator, recently received the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc. award of $75,000.
This is the second year the program has received the award.
The grant is for the Community Exercise Outreach: Connecting Education, Fitness, and Health Screening, a free exercise program offered to community members to help get them active. The program is run and organized by the TAMUK Health and Kinesiology department, TAMUK Rec Sports and Kinesiology students.
For Menaker, the grant helps fund a program that both connects with the rural community and helps students earn valuable experience.
“Something I’ve acknowledged here as a professor to a rural regional comprehensive university is that you have to adapt and provide programming that provides a service to the community and in turn offers the students the ability to be a part of that service and learn from it,” Menaker said.
The program, which will be starting its second year in early February, is designed with the idea that exercise is healthcare and looks to eliminate barriers that prevent members of the community from getting active by providing free classes, adapting to the needs of participants and even incentives.
Classes offered include walking and running, yoga, weightlifting and even providing equipment instructions.
In addition to the free classes, the funding also goes towards program workout equipment, expansion of the program’s collaboration with TAMUK Rec Sports and two graduate assistant workers. There are also funds available to give participants access to the rec center during the off time of courses, but those funds are limited.
Another free component offered to participants is a body composition assessments and recommendations. There also will be an opportunity to have a DEXA Scan, an X-Ray test that measures the strength and mineral content of bones — a test more common in women and older men due to higher risk of osteoporosis.
Tests will be administered with the help of graduate assistants and other students in program-incorporated kinesiology classes where students have earned or will earn their certifications as exercise physiologists.
“The students we’re training will get experience to sit with that certification can gain experience testing participants,” Hearon said. “That’s the ultimate goal that we have in mind. Students at the end of the term have practical examinations where they must demonstrate their ability to conduct certain testing accurately. If the people participating in the program want an assessment, that’s a lot of different types of tests that our students can get practice in.”
