Every Friday afternoon, the 19 members of the dance team pile into the fitness room to start their weekly weightlifting session. Under the guidance of instructional coach Kristofer Orre, the girls spend the next hour doing various exercises and drills that work to improve general strength.

The dance team began weight training in September this year when team adviser Julia Peck suggested the strength-building activity. The team has one-hour sessions once a week, on either Monday or Friday. Peck hopes that weight training will help the team have more success in their upcoming competition season.

“The dance team is very hard working, and they practice long and hard,” Peck said. “They compete against some amazing teams and do very well. We thought by giving the girls the opportunity to develop their stamina and strength they could gain just a little edge to make them even stronger as a team.”

In past years, numerous sports such as football, baseball, and basketball have been required to weightlift. These teams weight train to build strength and stamina that is essential for players in these sports and, some may argue, all sports in general.

Even though the dance team is required to weight train, their cheer team counterparts do not practice weightlifting, despite the physical demands of lifting and throwing other cheer team members.

There was initial confusion over the idea of weight training for dance and many members did not enjoy having to come on Monday or Friday afternoons, days when the team never used to meet on. However, the girls have grown accustomed to the extra hour of practice each week and are slowly starting to appreciate the extra work. According to sophomore Isabelle Lee, they look forward to seeing the improvements of weight training on the entire team and have already felt like their routines are getting less tiring to complete.  

“I remember last year one of our biggest issues was not having enough stamina to keep high energy throughout the entire routine,” Lee said. “I think weight training will really help us build our strength, and I’m excited to see what happens this competition season.”