Phys Ed

Amy asked for an update on how things are going, especially with PE.

I met with the teacher, who was quite friendly and seemed willing to be accommodating of Monkey’s situation. He did ask if it would a gradual increase in Monkey’s cardiovascular fitness would improve the situation, and I told him that it wouldn’t. I think it is key for his teacher to realize that this shortness of breath does not come from being out of shape.

PE overall has been going quite well. They have to do a 2-minute run at the start of each class, which will be working up toward 6 minutes by the end of the semester. They don’t have to run fast, they just have to keep jogging the whole time. He said he hasn’t had trouble with his breathing during these so far, even the time the teacher forgot to tell them to stop until after 3.5 minutes. I don’t imagine he’ll have too much trouble even with the 6-minute runs. I’ve suggested that this “low stress” running where there is nothing else (like a soccer ball etc.) to concentrate on is the perfect opportunity for him to practice his relaxed shoulders and hand posture, and abdominal breathing during running. He says he is doing that.

Monkey did have an attack during the “Pacer” test on his first day of PE. According to Fitness Finders:

Pacer (Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Run)
Students run for as long as possible between two marked lines set at 20 meters apart. They navigate the distance between two marked lines, keeping pace with a series of beeps. Students can miss two beeps before they are stopped. Score is determined by how many laps a student can do.

He says his score on this was about 1/3 of the goal they are supposed to be aiming for. I suspect that this will always be a challenge for him VCD-wise. Sprinting in a stressful situation(“testing”, increasing pace, and Monkey says that they also play “stressful” music during it) pretty much defines Monkey’s primary VCD triggers. Monkey doesn’t think they’ll be doing it often, but if they do, I may have to call the teacher’s attention to the fact that this is likely to remain problematic for Monkey. He did say that after he had to drop out for missing two beeps, he was able to get his breathing back under control without much difficulty.

He is taking the tums with breakfast, and it’s hard to tell if they are helping or not, since he does it every day, so has nothing to compare it with. He still hasn’t found his breathing trainer, so he hasn’t started with that. He’s in a school play and has been in practice 4 hours every night for the past few weeks, so I haven’t been pushing the cleaning up the room thing. The play is this week/weekend, so maybe next week he’ll find his IMT trainer.

Tags: phys ed