First year students across the country have increased their fitness levels by 17% in just six weeks during the Dublin City University/John Murray Radio Show Beat the Bleep Fitness Challenge. And the students who completed the challenge are now amongst the fittest in Europe.

The winning classes in the Challenge came from:

Class Eilis at St Marys Convent of Mercy in Mallow (girls)

Class 1C St Patricks, Navan, Co Meath (Boys)

And Wilsons Hospital School in Westmeath (mixed)

Jedward, magician Keith Barr, Dublin Footballers Bryan Cullen and Paul Flynn, and John Treacy, CEO of the Irish Sports Council were at the Sports Complex in Dublin City University this morning (April 24^th) to announce the winners and findings of the Beat the Bleep Challenge.

In January the John Murray Show joined forces with Professor Niall Moyna and Dublin City University to see if they could improve the fitness of First Years across the country, by incentivising them to get fit.

First Year students undertook a “bleep test” to gauge their fitness and then undertook 6 weeks of physical training before retaking the test before their Easter Holidays. Over 9,000 students from approximately 140 schools across the country tested their fitness for the Challenge (can you retain the phrasing of this sentence please)

Professor Niall Moyna, from the school of Health and Human Performance at DCU- and fitness advisor to the Dublin Football team - believes that we should be incentivising our young people to get fit – by offering Leaving Certificate Points, or even cash, for students who reach an acceptable level of fitness.

Our classes were offered the incentive of 1,000 euro towards their Physical Education Programme, and a place on a multi-activity camp at DCU, to improve their fitness levels.

Beat the Bleep was about participation, and getting the un-fittest students involved, so prizes were awarded, not to the fittest schools, but to the classes who improved the most – who worked hardest to beat their own bleep test scores.

The three winning classes with the most improved classes (based on the average class scores) were:

Girls School – Class Eilis from St Marys Convent of Mercy in Mallow, Co Cork

Boys School – Class 1C St Patricks, Navan, Co Meath

Our Mixed class winners come from Wilsons Hospital School in Westmeath

Findings:

In our second bleep test the boys who participated completed an average of 62 shuttles (+9) and the girls 42 (+6). Results from the first stage of the challenge showed the boys completed an average of 53 shuttle runs on the Bleep Tests and the Girls 36 runs.

This shows an increase in the average of:

· 17% for both boys and girls

· Boys went from 53 to 62 (level 7.3 to 8.2)

· Girls went from 36 to 42 (level 5.4 to 6.1)

When compared to the European average of fitness for children of the same age Irish boys are now in the top 20 percentile (7.6) and Irish girls are in the top 10 pecentile (6.1). (Our first bleep test scores put Irish boys in the top 30% of the same age and girls in top 20%)

· 36% of boys in Phase 2 ran more than 72 shuttles compared to 21.6% in Phase 1

· And 38% of girls ran more than 50 shuttles during the second bleep test compared to only 19.5% when tested in January

· This places all these boys and girls in the top 10% of European Children for fitness.

· 2.7% of boys ran 100 shuttles or more in phase 1 but 4.8% ran 100 shuttles or more in Phase 2.

· 10% of girls ran more than 70 shuttles in phase 2 compared to 4.4% in phase 1.

· The highest number of shuttles was run by a boy in Colaiste Iosagain in County Laois ran 150 shuttles

· Two girls ran 125 shuttles - one from St Marys Convent of Mercy in Mallow and one from Loretto Community School in Milford, Donegal

Aside from our three winners the Top 10 classes which improved the most (in no particular order) were:

Mixed

· Bishop McEgan College Cork 1

· Portlaoise College Laois 1

· Coláiste Cholmcille Donegal 1.1

· Athboy Community School Meath 1

· O Carolan College Meath Class4

· Presentation de La Salle College Carlow 1B

· Arklow Community College Wicklow 1U

· PCC Falcarragh Dorin

· Boherbue Comprehensive School Cork 3

· Presentation de La Salle College Carlow 1D

Girls

· St Marys Convent of Mercy, Cork Neasa

· St Josephs College Dublin 1A3 0

· St Josephs College,Dublin 1A2

· Our Lady's College Greenhills Louth 1.6

· St Marys Convent of Mercy Cork Clar

· St Josephs College Dublin 1A5

· St Josephs College Dublin 1A4

· Loreto College Foxrock Dublin Wigmore

· St Marys Convent of Mercy Cork Siun

* St Josephs College Dublin 1A1

Boys

· Pats Navan Meath 1I

· St Macartans College Monaghan 4

· St. Joseph's Garbally College Galway 113

· Pats Navan Meath 1T

· Oatlands College Dublin 102

· Pats Navan Meath 1K

· Tralee CBS Kerry 1a3

· St Macartans College Monaghan 5

· Oatlands College Dublin 103

· Pats Navan Meath 1R

The “Beat The Bleep” challenge will not be publishing details of individual class scores. However, the top 10 fittest schools in each category (in no particular order, ie. not ranked) are:

Top 10 fittest girls classes in Phase 2 in no particular order:

· St.Marys Convent of Mercy, Mallow – (Classes Neasa, Eilis, Siun and Clar)

· Mount Sackville, Dublin (Johnston and Cassels)

· St Josephs College, Dublin 13 (1A4 and 1A41)

· St Marys, Macroom, Co Cork (1A1)

· Loretto College Foxrock, Dublin (Wigmore)

Top 10 fittest Boys classes in Phase 2 - in no particular order

· St Macartans College, Monaghan (4)

· Oatlands College, Stillorgan, Dublin (101, 102)

· St Josephs Patrician College Galway (302, 303, 301, 306)

· St Patricks Navan (1K, 1L, 1T)

Top 10 fittest mixed classes, in no particular order

· Wilsons Hospital, Westmeath (1)

· Bishop McEgan College, Macroom (1)

· Colaiste na hInse,Meath (Wallace, Strachan)

· St Aidans Cootehill, Cavan (Rang Oran)

· Colaiste Iosagain, Laois (1)

· Boherbue Comprehensive School, Cork (1)

· Deele College Donegal (1L)

· Scoil Chonglais Baltinglass (1)

For Beat the Bleep Challenge training programme click here...

Click here for an overview of the results of Phase 1

For photos of some of the participating schools, please click here.

Results of our Beat the Bleep Fitness Challenge will be announced during a special show from DCU on April 24th

The bleep test is a 20m shuttle-run test used to determine cardiovascular fitness, which involves continuous running between two lines 20 metres apart in time to recorded beeps. The running speed is increased at approximately one minute intervals. Participants attempt to complete as many runs (shuttles) as possible while keeping up with the bleeps.

Beat the Bleep Challenge Training Programme
Training - Week 5 & 6
Click on the links below to get the fitness programmes or click here.

• It is recommended that girls who achieved a shuttle run score between level 1 and 2.8, and boys who achieved a score between level 1 and 3.8 should undertake Fitness Programme 1

• Girls who score between level 3 and 5.3 and boys who score between level 4.1 and 7.1 should undertake Fitness Programme 2

• Girls who score above level 5.3 and boys who score above level 7.1 should undertake Fitness Programme 3

• It is recommended that boys and girls exercise on 3 school days and 1 weekend day

Female Example
Female Fitness Programme 1

• On the Monday of Week 5, the girls in ‘Female Fitness Programme 1’ should accumulate a total of 30 minutes by jogging for 20 minutes, walking for 3 minutes, jogging for 5 minutes, and walking for 2 minutes

Female Fitness Programme 2

• On the Monday of Week 5, the girls in ‘Female Fitness Programme 2’ should accumulate a total of 25 minutes by jogging for 20 minutes continuously, followed by 5 minutes walking.

• On the Wednesday of Week 5, the girls in ‘Female Fitness Programme 2’ should accumulate a total of 30 minutes via interval training, involving 3 minutes of fast jogging, 2 minutes of walking, 1 minute of fast jogging, 2 minutes of walking and so on, as described in programme.

Male Example
Male Fitness Programme 1

• On the Monday of Week 5, the boys in ‘Male Fitness Programme 1’ should accumulate a total of 26 minutes by jogging for 24 minutes continuously, followed by walking for 2 minutes.

Male Fitness Programme 2

• On the Monday of Week 5, the boys in ‘Male Fitness Programme 2’ should accumulate a total of 30 minutes by jogging for 28 minutes continuously, followed by 2 minutes walking.

• On the Wednesday of Week 5, the boys in ‘Male Fitness Programme 2’ should accumulate a total of 30 minutes via interval training, involving 2 minute of fast jogging, 1 minutes of walking, 2 minute of fast jogging, 2 minutes of walking and so on, as described in programme.

Male/Female Example
Fitness Programme 3

• On the Monday of Week 5, the boys and girls in the ‘Male/Female Fitness Programme 3’ should accumulate a total of 30 minutes by a 5 minute warm-­- up (easy jog), running hard for 6 minutes, easy jog for 3 minutes, running hard for 5 minutes, easy jog for 3 minutes, running hard for 4 minutes, and an easy jog for 4 minute.

• On the Friday of Week 5, the boys and girls in the ‘Male/Female Fitness Programme 3’should accumulate a total of 1500 metres of sprinting by...
o Sprinting for 100metres, followed by a 90 second easy jog to recover
o Repeat the above 5 times
o Complete set with a 3 minute easy jog, followed by 2 minutes of total rest. The above should be repeated 3 times.

•Results

Results from the first stage of the challenge showed the boys completed an average of 53 shuttle runs on the Bleep Tests and the Girls 36. (This equates to levels 7.2 and 5.4 on Bleep Test scoring for the girls and boys respectively).

Niall believes that First Year girls should be able to run around level 7.0 (50 shuttles) and boys level 9.0 (73 shuttles).” This would place both genders in the top 10% of European children their age”, he said. “ 841 boys (22%) and 917 girls (20%) who are taking part in “Beat the Bleep” have already reached or surpassed those scores. This indicates that 1 in 5 boys and girls currently achieve that fitness level,”

917 girls out of 4691 (19.5%) could run 50 shuttles or more. One girl from County Laois ran 111 shuttles and 84 girls ran 80 shuttles or more during their test.

105 boys out of 3882 ran 100 shuttles or more. The highest number run was 136 shuttles by two boys in County Kilkenny.

The “Beat The Bleep” challenge will not publish individual class scores, but the First Year classes currently showing the highest fitness levels in each category were in Cork, Dublin and Galway.

- The fittest mixed gender class was in Cork – they scored 34 shuttles above the average
- The fittest girls only class was in Dublin. They scored 25 shuttles above the average
- The fittest boys only class was in Galway. They scored15 shuttles above the average..

Beat the Bleep is about participation, and getting the unfittest involved, so prizes are going to be awarded, not to the fittest schools, but to the classes who improve the most – who work hard to basically beat their own bleep test scores.

For the 6 weeks leading up to the Easter Holidays participating first year classes were asked to improve their fitness levels and then retake their bleep tests. Prizes will then be awarded in three categories; The most improved classes (based on the average class scores) from: Boys Only Schools; Girls Only Schools; and Co-educational Schools.

Photo by Sancho McCann

RTE – DCU Schools Challenge Phase 2
Well done to all First Year classes who have qualified for our Beat the Bleep challenge in association with Dublin City Univeristy by completing and entering your bleep test results for First Year Secondary school classes.

Due to the high interest in the fitness challenge, it is no longer possible to gather data using email and spreadsheets. Apart from the significant numbers of hours involved in processing the entries, there are too many points at which data can be lost, processed incorrectly, or simply entered incorrectly by the school.
We have devised a simple 2-step process where we can gather the data more efficiently for the second phase of the challenge, and provide better feedback.

Step 1. Each School who has entered must Send an email to fittest.schools@computing.dcu.ie with subject “Name of the Your School” ( ie. the name of your school in the subject)

Inside the email, provide a full address for your school.
This email will be used for all future communication and to inform the school how to enter competition data. You can change your email whenever you wish by sending a message to fittest.schools@computing.dcu.ie.

Step 2. Enter the Bleep Test Results for each class
You will receive a web link which invites you to enter the data for your school. This can be accessed any time before the deadline and allows you to enter results for up to 9 classes per school.
We will keep you informed on the rte.ie/johnmurray website as to when you should receive your web link invitation.
If you still haven’t sent on your verification emails from your principals please email them as soon as possible to fittest.schools@computing.dcu.ie

NB: You can still register and take part in our challenge by sending an email to fittest.schools@computing.dcu.ie with the name of your school in the subject line and the full address of your school in the body of the email. However, you will not qualify for prizes on this occasion.

The Bleep Test is copyrighted, but you can buy and download a MP3 on this http://www.thebleeptest.com/
We are using the 20m test.

Further details are available for participating schools at http://www.computing.dcu.ie/~mark/node/17 including a list of all Schools and Classes that participated in Phase I, and list of schools currently confirmed for Phase 2.

Photos of some the schools participating in our Beat the Bleep challenge:

First years at Arklow community college before beginning Beat the Bleep fitness challenge

And First Years at Arklow Community College training for the Beat the Bleep challenge.

First Years from Mercy Secondary, Tuam

First Years from Mercy Secondary, Tuam enjoy their running training

Students at Davitt College, Castlebar

First Years from St Patrick's College, Cavan