AFA Standards

[Newport122]

My daughter excels everywhere, but gets too much in her head during the fitness section. (We’ve done some practice tests).

How did your daughters do?

 

[Toolman002]

My daughter excels everywhere, but gets too much in her head during the fitness section. (We’ve done some practice tests).

How did your daughters do?

I realize I'm not exactly the target audience for your question, but this was something that our DS struggled with and I thought I'd share his experience. An avid XC runner, he felt that he had the timed run in the bag when he began seriously looking at the AFA specs last Fall. He knew he was lacking on both core and upper body strength, so he began a workout regimen that included both push-ups and planks to train for the assessment this summer. By the end of the school year, he was able to max all 3. But when we did a mock assessment in early June...and followed the procedure to the letter, our DS realized that he had DRASTICALLY underestimated the negative impact that doing push-ups before planks would have on his plank performance...and that doing BOTH of these before a run would add more than two minutes to his time. He was super-frustrated with the whole situation but managed to move through the change curve fairly quickly. He modified his workouts to mirror the format of the AFA and, after another 6 weeks' worth of training, he was able max everything but the run (got an Outstanding on that one). It was definitely a challenging mental exercise...