At Penn State University’s Department of Kinesiology, undergraduate students have the opportunity to do an internship many working adults dream of: at a CrossFit box.
According to Bryan St. Andrews, owner of CrossFit Nittany, students are learning principles of training but have no practical experience.
“They come in and I’m like, ‘All right, perform the power clean.’ And they don’t even know what piece of equipment to pick up,” he says.
The internship idea all started with senior Tim Richardt, who admittedly had ulterior motives.
“It ended up being a poor college’s students plea for superior training as opposed to me just going to the college gym and trying to CrossFit on my own,” he says. “It really just started out as lack of money and also just a genuine interest to learn more about CrossFit and kind of the movements themselves.”
St. Andrews, who was a personal trainer for 10 years before opening his affiliate, says the partnership between CrossFit Nittany and the university “just made sense.”
“It’s been fantastic because they have a place now, an outlet for students that want to learn,” he says. “They want this stuff . You didn’t get into being a (kinesiology) major because you want to sit around and not know how to exercise.”
8min 17sec
HD file size: 488 MB
SD wmv file size: 99 MB
SD mov file size: 66 MB
Please note: These files are larger than normal Journal videos. For smoother viewing, please download the entire file to your hard drive before watching it (right-click and choose Save Link As...).
Additional reading: Manage Your Own Business by Paul Southern, published Aug. 31, 2011.