Squat for Teacher

Carolyne Prevost: “I have been asked to arm-wrestle almost every boy in the school.”

Kristine Best: “They think I can lift a car.”

Chloe Gauvin-David (pictured above): “‘Hey, miss, can you do a handstand for me?’ … . And I always say, ‘If you’re good, I’ll show you one at the end of class.’”

School kids in eastern Canada and the northeast United States want to see what their super-fit teachers can do. So do fans of CrossFit.

In a weird coincidence, three of the fittest teachers in the world are competing at the East Regional this weekend, sometimes in the same heat. During the Open, Best lived up to her surname in the new Leaderboard category for teachers, while Gauvin-David was second. Prevost was tied for third.

When kids ask the 27-year-old Prevost to drop her elbow on the table and face off against a student, it’s certainly more fun than learning about glaciers and fjords. Similarly, feats of strength and handstands also trump subordinate clauses and algebra. The kids’ daily fascination with their teachers’ athleticism is cute, but it also shows the ripple effect a fit leader has on developing minds.

That effect couldn’t come at a better time, with the Centers for Disease Control reporting that about one in five American kids is obese. The rates are slightly worse north of the border, though they are improving slowly. School kids are in their formative years, and good habits established now are likely to provide 70 years of benefits. If a kid sees his or her teacher eating broccoli at school and then crushing CrossFit workouts on Facebook, it’s far more likely that child will put down the soda and try a squat. We all know that’s a playground slide leading to thrusters, pull-ups, Fran, health and happiness.

Best, Prevost and Gauvin-David are passionate about fitness and education, and CrossFit principles trickle into their instruction whether they’re in the gymnasium or the classroom.

Best said her kids very much know what she’s up to outside the school, and they appreciate it as long as they can gently heckle her.

“They all know that I do CrossFit. They don’t know the extent of it—they’re third grade. But they knew I was competing, and they know I can’t have chocolate because I’m watching what I’m eating,” laughed Best, who teaches Grade 3 special education at Babylon Memorial Grade School on Long Island, New York.

Best, 27, said they emphasize playing, activity and exercise, as well as nutrition—though the kids don’t always listen and bring healthy snacks. Kids will be kids, after all, but every healthy suggestion helps counteract the bombardment of advertising that tells kids chocolate and cheesy puffs are the secret to happiness.

Like Best, Prevost emphasizes fitness when she can, but she’s also aware that just her presence as role model positively influences her students. They wanted the link to watch her compete on Friday, for instance, and they were no doubt proud of her performance.

“It gives students different role models to look up to—especially being a female teacher. And they see that it’s OK to be athletic as a female and (balance) a life with sports and school,” said Prevost.

She teaches math, kinesiology, physical education and geography at Gaétan-Gervais Secondary School in Oakville, Ontario, and she plays for the Toronto Furies in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League.

Next year, she’ll teach fitness conditioning, and she plans to introduce CrossFit. She said she hopes her students will learn how to use fitness to get them from where they are to where they want to be. If she can show them the path to health—if she can educate them and help them make good decisions on their own—they’re less likely to become confused about fitness and pop the top off a tube of chips.

Gauvin-David, a substitute physical-education teacher who’s applying for full-time jobs, also sees the emotional value in teaching young people—especially young women—to be fit.

“It gets them to understand that it’s OK to move, to sweat, to be yourself. No mirrors in CrossFit,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what you look like. So I think it’s really important for their confidence and for their growth as a person.”

Gauvin-David, 25, is fired up by physical education. She spoke excitedly as she rattled off stats and core competencies in the warm-up area between Events 2 and 3 on Saturday. She knows kids need more than the 38 gym classes they get every year in Quebec if they are to learn to live well.

“That third competency—adopting an active and healthy lifestyle—occurs more when the kids have more participation. So the ones that have the options (to take phys. ed.) … carry that on into their lifestyle.”

In those 38 classes, Gauvin-David works in about four or five that cover CrossFit principles, and she said her kids look forward to the sessions.

“They often tell me, ‘When are we doing CrossFit?’ because they know that’s when I smile the most and I enjoy myself the most.”

For Gauvin-David, who also owns CP CrossFit in Saint-Eustache, Quebec, fitness is simply a necessary part of education, and she finds ways to connect with students. She’ll play nutrition games with her charges, stick the occasional handstand for good behavior and get kids moving to help their bodies connect with their minds. She’s seeing the same connection between exercise and cognition that researchers have reported.

“If you get your kids to be active before a test, get them to shake out the nerves, they’re better. So I think it’s important for them … . I believe that there’s not enough phys. ed. Like I said, 38 classes. Not a lot. So I think it’s important for them to grow their understanding of being fit.”

Her words echo the goal of the CrossFit Kids program: Help kids learn how to be fit for their entire lives. It’s not about traditional PE classes in which the jocks whip balls into the faces of the nerds and laugh like pirates. It’s not even about learning how to score a bowling game or shoot a free throw. It’s about making fitness fun and educating children so they can make good, healthy choices for a lifetime.

When the continent is trying to find ways to end the obesity epidemic, it can’t hurt to have one of the world’s fittest teachers in classrooms in New York, Ontario and Quebec.

After the second day of the East Regional, Prevost was in seventh, Gauvin-David was in ninth, and Best was in 11th.

Regardless of where they finish on Sunday, one thing is clear: Their students have already won.

For complete details, visit the Leaderboard.

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