Maintaining the Mustang Mentality Coach Riley Edgerton brought when he was hired last year, the weight room and the students that walk through its doors have only grown in strength. Along with an entirely new exercise tracking system, the athletic department and Munster’s dietary department, Chartwells, have been collaborating to ensure our students and athletes are well-fed, and walked.
With the addition of iPads linked to a new program, TeamBuildr, which tracks athletic progress, and a fluctuating lunch line aimed at promoting protein intake, the athletic and nutrition departments are pushing their student athletes to be the best version of themselves.
“At every rack we have an iPad. Our kids track their attendance, body weight and all of their metrics that we do in the weight room,” Edgerton said. “We track all that so we can pull up data on any student athlete, look back at history, and tell them why they’re fatiguing or why they’re making so much progress.”
With the ability to track their own progress, students are beginning to realize the connection between taking care of themselves not only mentally and physically, but nutritionally.
“At some point, your body has to have the fuel, nutrients and energy to make progress,” Edgerton said. “When people come and ask me why the weight room is important, I wanna be able to pull up a small data sheet and say this is why it’s important.”
Along with pushing student athletes to make healthier dietary choices, Chartwells has been focusing on pushing high protein options in the second lunch line. According to Chartwells dietitian Erin West, the third-party company is focused on providing athletes with the opportunity to fuel themselves before their big games.
“My job is to do the menus. We are under the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Program, meaning we have to follow specific guidelines when it comes to menu-ing food. I go based off of what I hear in the lunchroom. My staff also gives me ideas, and then I work it into the menu to see if it’s feasible,” West said.
Besides working harder to educate students about dietary decisions, West has been the brains behind our lunch menu, with influence and feedback from teachers and students alike.
“With ‘fueling the mustangs,’ I based it off of a nutrition education I did over the summer with our football team. We always talk about high protein with our athletes, but carbohydrates are also very important. So that’s what I wanted to focus on with doing a pasta bar and stuff like that,” West said.
