Instead of “drop and give me 20”, coaches can now be heard shouting things like “give me your recovery time!” and “log your workout!” This is because Garmin is taking school coaching, and thus school-sport training, to a whole new level. Welcome to Garmin’s Edufit programme.

The Edufit programme, which was launched earlier this year, was created after Garmin recognised that school sport was no joke. Kids (boys and girls) who are competing at a national level are serious about achieving great things in their chosen sport, so they go through vigorous training programmes.

Garmin recognised that their Garmin fitness technology and wellness support structures were needed at school level or, as Garmin saw it, pre-professional level. 

What better way to educate coaches and training staff on factors affecting performance and general well-being than with Garmin fitness knowledge and technology?

Garmin jumped into action and sponsored fitness watches and training tools to pre-selected rugby and netball teams that are competing at the highest school level. These donors include the Netball teams from Diamantsveld Hoer Skool and Oranje Meisie Hoerskool  and the rugby teams from Greys College, Paul Roos School and Paarl Boys High

During sport practice and fitness training sessions, coaches and biokineticists use the Garmin Fitness watches as a training tool to monitor things such as heart rate, time, distance, speed and elevation. All of this information is logged wirelessly on to the Garmin Connect website (www.connect.garmin.com), a worldwide training database where the information is analysed and fitness goals set.

It is then delivered to coaches by way of charts, illustrations and a variety of map representations including street, photo, topographic and elevation maps, all in a comprehensive report.

Garmin’s head of fitness, Mich Letcher, attends quarterly fitness tests with each school to gather their data and vital information for the continued development of the system.

One of the greatest learnings that coaches and biokineticists have gained from the system is the importance of recovery. An individual’s recovery time is a vital component to the success of the team during busy seasons, so this information has been used to maximise recovery time between games.

With the sponsored teams already showing vast improvement based on their team information and tailored fitness plans, Garmin intends to spread this opportunity to other, less fortunate, schools.

The long-term goal is to create a school training programme that allows Garmin and training staff from the participant schools to share training programmes and knowledge with underprivileged schools that don’t have access to world-class training personnel.

In this way, more children will be taught the importance of health and fitness and will have the opportunity to thrive in their chosen sport. Significant change and improvement has to start at grassroots level or, as Garmin sees it, pre-professional level.