{"id":51017,"date":"2020-10-10T03:36:10","date_gmt":"2020-10-10T09:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-school-district-adds-crossfit-class\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:54:07","slug":"dolores-school-district-adds-crossfit-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-school-district-adds-crossfit-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores School District adds CrossFit class"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"John
John McHenry, a teacher and assistant athletic director, received an $8,000 grant for exercise equipment, as well as a donation from Mountain Range Fitness in Cortez, for the school\u2019s new CrossFit program.<\/span>Courtesy of John McHenry<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Dolores School District has added a new middle school exercise class: CrossFit.<\/p>\n

John McHenry, a teacher and the assistant athletic director, is certified to instruct CrossFit classes, so he worked with Secondary School Principal Justin Schmitt to give middle school students something fun and active to do after school during the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

With 50 students already participating in the new exercise class, McHenry said at a school board meeting Thursday that students are asking to take the training class next semester.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m having a blast,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

McHenry received an $8,000 grant from CrossFit to purchase equipment for the CrossFit course, and Mountain Range Fitness in Cortez donated equipment to the Dolores School District.<\/p>\n

Students do \u201cmonkey hangs\u201d from a new horizontal bar in the gym to improve their core and back strength, and swing kettle bells to work their upper bodies.<\/p>\n

\"Dolores
Dolores Secondary School students workout after school in the new CrossFit program.<\/span>Courtesy of John McHenry<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Abdomen mats give the students lumbar support during situps, and students build upper body strength with big rubber bands.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been really excited, it helps kids on a personal level,\u201d such as building confidence, Schmitt said.<\/p>\n

McHenry secured an official CrossFit affiliate status for the class as well, called Dolores Bears CrossFit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The affiliation status gives McHenry workout routines and ideas for kids, but because the affiliate is under the umbrella of the school, it does not face the fee commercial organizations might face, McHenry said Friday.<\/p>\n

Nine teachers also participate in a class after school.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really grateful for everything you\u2019re doing,\u201d Superintendent Lis Richard told McHenry during the board meeting Thursday.<\/p>\n

He is working with Mountain Range Fitness in Cortez to find out how the students can participate in a Halloween CrossFit competition.<\/p>\n

ehayes@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

50 secondary students participating in new class<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[155,13,28,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-51017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-education","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87877,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51017\/revisions\/87877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51017"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=51017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}