Growing up, I was always an athletic child. I may not have had natural talent in the sports I participated in, but that only made me work extra hard to succeed in the activities that I tried. At age six, I was introduced to gymnastics and swimming and immediately fell in love with both sports as you can see in the pictures that follow.
I had so much passionate for these two sports which made me willing to spend so much time in the gym and the pool. Between the two sports, I trained about seventeen hours a week during the school year and about twenty-five hours a week during the summer. Outside of the pool or gym, I also did extra activities on my own such as rollerblading, skiing, or windsurfing. I continued to compete in gymnastics until I was twelve, and in swimming until I was eighteen. During these years, I felt powerful, healthy, and like nothing could bring me down. It wasn’t until after I stopped competing in both sports that I realized how important exercise is to making one feel lively and strong. The less I exercised, the more tired and in pain I felt. This is what sparked my interest in exercise and fitness and brought me to choose my undergraduate major, exercise science.
Now that I have studied the physiology behind it, I realized how important exercise is to live a long and healthy life. Regular exercise can boost your energy, improve your mood, and help you to have a more regular sleep pattern. It also can prevent certain diseases. To further my knowledge on the body and benefits of exercise, I have enrolled in graduate school to obtain my doctorate in physical therapy. Hopefully, I will soon be able to fully understand the mechanisms behind these processes and will therefore be better equipped to convince others why they should live an active lifestyle. In the meantime, I will continue to advocate exercise to the children I coach at gymnastics, and the patients I assist at the physical therapy office that I work at.
If you have any questions or comments, you can email me at diana.kudelko@gmail.com.
