Sunday, May 19, 2024
The Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (MCJROTC) program at Granbury High School will soon have a new workout station for its students.
The Granbury Independent School District board of trustees unanimously approved the purchase of the MCJROTC BeaverFit workout station during a regularly scheduled meeting April 22.
Housed in a standard BICON shipping container, the 10-foot performance locker is custom-fabricated to anchor a BeaverFit functional training rig and store the equipment necessary to create a world class, multi-modality training center for up to 60 people.
“BeaverFit designed a workout locker for military personnel that we would deploy overseas,” Johnny Rositas, JROTC instructor, said during the meeting. “Basically, everything that we needed to work out was in a container. It could be shipped, it could be put aboard a ship, it could be flown, however it needed to get into the country, and then the service members would get everything out, conduct their workouts, and when they were done, everything would go on back into the box, and it was able to come back. It's the same concept here.”
Rositas said he and Senior Marine Instructor Lt. Col. Scott Casey were looking for something the cadets could call their own, as well as to alleviate some of the traffic in the weight room at GHS.
"There's times in the weight room where you get six or seven athletic teams and they're working out along with our kids,” he said. “As the MCJROTC Physical Training Team continues to grow, it will allow them to have a dedicated workout area. This in turn, will free up space in the Pirate Pavilion Weight Room, which supports all of the GHS Athletic Teams.”
Features of the station include: two climbing wings, two stainless steel “ace” pull-up bars, three J-cups, three squat racks, a 12-foot rope tower, a wall ball target, 12 pull-up stations, two dip bars and two landmines.
"The container allows students to perform various Olympic lifts such as deadlifts, squats and power cleans to build muscle,” Rositas told the Hood County News. “The locker also includes different types of conditioning equipment for endurance and stamina. The container comes equipped with barbells, plates, medicine balls, kettlebells, sandbags, battle ropes, mobility bands and agility cones. The equipment provides the cadets the opportunity to focus on functional fitness that is imperative to making better athletes. Since we have seniors that will seek military enlistments after high school, the locker provides the gear necessary to prepare them for military type conditioning.”
Rositas explained the workout station provides many benefits to the MCJROTC students, especially since it can accommodate as much as 60 athletes working out at one time.
“The locker will make it much easier for the cadets to perform their workouts throughout the school year as they prepare for upcoming meets,” he said. “The cadets will also be able to utilize the locker during the summer months to keep them in shape.”
Another benefit of the locker, Rositas said, is that the equipment can be easily stored inside when not in use but can still be readily accessible when needed.
During the meeting, Board President Barbara Townsend asked Rositas where the workout station would be installed.
“Right now, the discussions are putting it behind the bandstand since there's already a fenced-in area there, and we need a 26-by-28 space around the box, because it has some pull up bars and riggings that are attached to it. That’s one course of action," he said. "Another course of action would be to put it next to the fenced-in area. There's a green space there that would require some combination of concrete and fencing around it, but hopefully we can put it in behind the bandstand there.”
The total cost for the BeaverFit workout station is $68,575, and the entire purchase would be covered by donated funds.
“I see you and your cadets out there working every day, so it's definitely something you guys can utilize,” Superintendent Jeremy Glenn said.
“We think it’s great,” Townsend said, chiming in. “And just the fact that you had people in our community that were willing to donate enough money so we can have this, it just talks to the outstanding program that you have there.”
Secretary Billy Wimberly made the motion to approve the purchase of the BeaverFit workout station. After a second from Vice President Courtney Gore, the motion passed unanimously.
