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9th Grade Fitness Plan Ideas

If you are a teacher or parent, you probably already know that high schoolers can have a difficult time maintaining a healthy lifestyle; creating an overall fitness plan for 9th graders can be an effective way to make good habits stick early on. Aside from promoting an active lifestyle, consider other important health concepts like diet, hygiene and a healthy sleep schedule to ensure a well-balanced fitness regimen.

  1. Planning Out Nutritional Meals

    • Promoting a healthy diet should be a key focus of your 9th grade fitness plan. The foods we consume can affect a variety of areas, including both our physical and emotional well-being, so it's especially important for growing adolescents to pay attention to the nutritional value of the items they eat. To make a healthier eating regimen more appealing, you could incorporate some contemporary cooking lessons for teens to test their skills in the kitchen. You could also demonstrate ways to improve on the nutritional value of less-healthy favorites; for instance, encourage teens to make pita bread pizzas with low-fat cheese, marinara sauce and a variety of fresh vegetables instead of dialing up the local pizza joint for a greasy delivery.

    Making Exercise Fun

    • The 9th grade is a time when many schools stop requiring students to take gym; while some teenagers may already partake in an after school sport to get their daily exercise in, others may fall off the wagon. Incorporate some innovative exercise ideas into your fitness plan to encourage teens to stay active and have fun. For instance, promote some entertaining strategies to stay fit that won't necessarily feel like exercise. Encourage mall rats to wear a pedometer while shopping to calculate the total distance they walk during each spree. Another idea could be to encourage music fans to get up and dance to their favorite tunes for an alloted amount of time each day.

    Promoting Healthy Sleep Habits

    • Getting sufficient sleep is an essential component of a healthy fitness regimen as it supports crucial processes like brain function. Ninth graders are masters of sleeping in on the weekends, and although it could come across as laziness to parents, teenagers require more sleep than other age groups. While some teens can function on 8.5 hours of sleep, the average adolescent requires 9.25 hours of sleep; most teens don't receive this amount of sleep. Encourage your 9th graders to take naps to get the extra shut-eye in, and encourage them to avoid caffeinated products, especially around bed time.

    Personal Hygiene Concepts

    • Although some 9th graders should have their hygiene schedule down by now, the late bloomers may be confronted with new concepts concerning cleanliness. Continue to push the standard areas of personal hygiene like washing hands to avoid the spread of germs, as well as brushing and flossing teeth to promote dental health; keeping up with these kinds of things can help 9th graders to stay on track in other areas of overall fitness. And if the 9th grader really takes to the exercise component of your fitness plan, encourage a little extra time in the shower to keep everyone's noses happy.

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