Overview of Video Below In this video below, I discuss a few ideas for what a faith-based PE curriculum can look like with some things you can implement this week in your class. I hope this is the beginning of a better conversation about these ideas. Here are the main things covered: What is the purpose of school? Two of many answers: hopefully to answer the questions: who am I and what am I doing here? to facilitate the development of creative, critical thinking problem solvers. Isolation vs Integration Too often we isolate or compartmentalize religion and P.E. We must evolve past this ..read more

I met with a 32-year-old father of 2 young daughters today, joining the gym in order to “have more energy for his work and family.” We spent the first 30 minutes talking about building his foundation of health as depicted in this week’s bulletin health tip. He left telling me the session was “fun” … how awesome is that? To talk about your health and fitness, to learn and become more mindful of your God-given health and strength … and call it fun? I love it. We talked about the fact that health is the prerequisite for fitness. As the pictures to the right and below depict, the fruits of heal ..read more

Tip of the Week: New Year's Resolutions Starting in 2019, I will be posting weekly tips that will also show up in some parish bulletins. If you’d like to use any of these tips in your bulletin, you can simply right click, copy and paste (or download) the image to the right. Keeping it simple, I hope to offer some faith and fitness, physical and spiritual health tips that are easily digestible and practical enough to put to practice immediately. To kick off this week, you can find plenty of strategies and opinions for creating new year’s resolutions and goals, so I will keep these tips to th ..read more

*THIS IS A SAMPLE OF THE WEEK 1 RESOURCES PAGE  – not all of the links are active as they would be on the actual resource page sent out to teachers during the program. The video below shows the first 2-3 minutes of the 6 minute video shown in the program. Are your students Catholic and FIT? Contact us today to talk about sharing this fun faith and fitness message with your school community. Welcome to CatholicFIT! We kick the program off asking what it means to be Catholic, and what it means to be fit. We also discuss the three pillars of CatholicFIT: FAITH > FITNESS > SERVICE ..read more

(FYI – This is a sample page from the CatholicFIT 8-week program, though no links are active not all information is up to date. If you’d like to discuss sharing the CatholicFIT program at your school, please contact us today!) Welcome to week 3! We are squatting this week – air squats, double squats, pause squats, and single leg squats (stand ups) from a chair or bench. These are great leg strengtheners after an agility warm up. Check out the video below. This week’s principle is FOOD & FASTING – focusing on eating “God-made food” most of the time. Also, we discuss mindfulness when eating ..read more

Thank you for stopping by – in this video, CatholicFIT founder and head coach Dave Reddy talks a little bit about why he created CatholicFIT, along with highlights of the program. The post The CatholicFIT Grade School Program (Video Description) appeared first on CatholicFIT ..read more

Welcome to week 2! We get moving this week, practicing AGILITY EXERCISES like skipping and side shuffle and ANIMAL MOVES such as the frogger, monkey and crab walk. Also, we discuss the importance of water, both of physical health (before and during exercise), and in symbolizing life, especially when blessed to make holy water for baptism. We recall that even Jesus was baptized with water by John (Matthew 3:13-17), so it must be crazy important not only to drink water, but to bless ourselves each time we go to Mass to recommit to being the Christians (awesome, holy people) God has called us to ..read more

*THIS IS A SAMPLE OF THE WEEK 1 RESOURCES PAGE  – not all of the links are active as they would be on the actual resource page sent out to teachers during the program. The video below shows the first 2-3 minutes of the 6 minute video shown in the program. Are your students Catholic and FIT? Contact us today to talk about sharing this fun faith and fitness message with your school community. Welcome to CatholicFIT! We kick the program off asking what it means to be Catholic, and what it means to be fit. We also discuss the three pillars of CatholicFIT: FAITH > FITNESS > SERVICE ..read more

THE FINAL PRINCIPLE Our faith in who Jesus was 2000 years ago and who he is for us today in 2016 is what the Christian life is all about. One of the primary reasons I choose to be Catholic is that the Church’s teachings help me wrap my head around who God is and what part Jesus plays in my life today. This takes quite a bit of faith. I find it comforting to know that even Mother Teresa prayed for faith to understand this. She has been quoted, “God does not ask us to be successful, but to be faithful.” For more on this, and to check out the final week’s exercises, here is this week’s Worksheet ..read more

After nearly two decades of health, fitness and lifestyle coaching, I have talked to many people about the relationship between spiritual and physical health, though putting these concepts into practical ideas for exercise and healthy lifestyle behaviors remains a big challenge. I have studied many philosophies and approaches doing so, but always find myself gravitating back to my Catholic faith with more and more curiosity (and  answers;) To explore this further, I focus on 4 simple and fundamental questions: What does it mean to me to be Catholic? What does it mean to me to be fit? How ..read more