Geelong's Gym

My name is Thomas Henry and I am in Year 10 at St Joseph’s College in Geelong.  I chose to do Work Experience at Geelong’s Gym and was asked to write a Blog about fitness from a teenager’s perspective.

Thomas Henry, from St Joesph's College Geelong, doing Work Experience at Geelong's Gym

I have always enjoyed sport and it has had a big impact on my life.  For example, I have participated in many sports including Swimming, Diving, Hockey, Basketball, Athletics, Cricket and Football. I enjoyed most of them but my biggest passion was for Footy and Athletics.

I’ve played footy for about 10 years starting off with Auskick and am currently playing for St Mary’s Under 16’s.  My athletics started about 6 years ago, but it wasn’t until recently that I have taken it to higher levels.

Two Years ago I won my first State Championships for High Jump at The Victoria Little Athletics Championships in Under 14’s and since then I have represented Victoria and have competed at a National Level in Tasmania and Sydney.

Recently, I competed at the Australian Junior Athletics Championships where I placed 3^rd in my High Jump and Triple Jump.  It was a great experience and has definitely helped me get noticed more with my sport.

But here’s how my success in Athletics opened the door to footy for me.  At the St Joseph’s College Athletics day I broke the High Jump record by 17 cms and broke all the other age group records too.  I was pretty happy with that, but what was special for me was that the Coach of our school footy team was there and watched me jump.  Straight away he rang up the other coach and insisted on putting me in the Ruck for the school footy team!

I may not be the tallest Kid in the team but all my training and hard work has paid off and has helped me achieve a goal I set a long time ago and worked so hard to reach.