Lessons in PEAK Performance
COH Program Redefining Fitness for Campus Community
By Sarah Shebek
PEAK Health & Fitness is a mainstay at the University of Utah, providing fitness classes, testing, and assessments for students, faculty, staff and community members.
Just like the University, PEAK has grown and evolved from somewhat humble beginnings. That positive trajectory can be credited to the one-woman force of Traci Thompson, MS, ACSM HFD, CSCS, who’s served as director for almost 25 years.
“When I arrived in May 2001, PEAK primarily focused on body composition and fitness testing for athletes," she explained. "Initially, I focused my efforts on expanding the University employee fitness class program because that aligned with my previous experience."
But Thompson had a plan beyond fitness classes. She noticed that the COH’s nutrition clinic was also doing body composition and fitness testing, essentially duplicating services. There was room for the two to work together, and they merged to offer even more services, like metabolic testing, after seven years.
“Our most significant evolution has been transitioning from a narrow focus solely on exercise to embracing a holistic vision that integrates lifestyle-oriented wellness programs and services,” she said.
Young and Hungry: Students Make Programming Shine
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With a background in exercise physiology, Thompson knows the significance of movement not only for physical health but also for stress relief and mental well-being. She’s passionate about educating and over time has built an impressive PEAK team of undergraduate and graduate students.
"I'm fortunate to observe students participating in actual health and wellness activities with clients seeking guidance," she explained. "At first, students may feel anxious because they see a gap between what they've learned in theory and what they can actually do. However, by the end of their time at PEAK, they gain confidence in their abilities."
College of Health students run most of PEAK’s programming, and at any given time there are 12-14 on staff. They teach fitness classes, run the Bod Pod assessments and provide fitness and nutrition consultations, drawing on their backgrounds from Health & Kinesiology, Nutrition & Integrative Physiology and Parks, Recreation and Tourism.
All PEAK services are discounted for university employees and students, and community members can also take advantage of all the assessments, consultations and coaching.
“Sometimes the misconception is that the quality of care will be less if a student is providing the service,” Thompson said. “I don’t believe that’s the case. I think these students are in the prime of their knowledge and they’ve received a lot of training and mentorship. They’re amazing professionals.”
Moving on Up: From Student Success to Careers in Wellness
Katie Atkinson is one of those professionals. Atkinson completed her undergraduate degree at the U, then applied for grad school in the Department of Health and Kinesiology’s Coaching Wellness Program. She started at PEAK teaching a fitness class, then moved on to leading a variety of classes for employees.
"Katie demonstrated brilliance despite her initial self-doubt," Thompson remarked. "She eagerly embraced all the challenges I presented to her, rapidly acquiring skills and building confidence. Throughout her time at PEAK, she consistently pushed beyond her comfort zone and ultimately decided to pursue a career as a wellness coordinator upon graduation."
Atkinson created a position for herself at Security National Financial Corporation, where she served for two years. Recently she re-joined the University as a wellbeing navigation coordinator, which includes overseeing daily operations of wellness coaching services.
“Traci’s really great to give you things she knows you’ll be good at and also pushes you to do things that you’re maybe a little unsure of,” Atkinson said. “I’m passionate about wellness programs and I don’t think I would have gone that direction without PEAK.”
Students get to drive their own experience in PEAK, with Thompson’s guidance. Nikole Squires joined PEAK as a teaching assistant, but her personal history made body composition testing difficult. Thompson sat down with her, and they pivoted to create a class that’s still in place.
“Nikole suggested that she would like to create a 10-week class on intuitive eating. I was a bit apprehensive because we’d never tried that before,” Thompson said. “But she took the initiative, created the class and we still teach the Intuitive Eating course today. Nikole’s initiative helped PEAK grow and she was able to work in an area that was a good fit.”
Today, Squires is a doctoral student at Northern Arizona University in the interdisciplinary health program. She researches in the areas of intuitive eating, body image, eating disorder recovery and weight-inclusive healthcare.
“It was really cool to create a program from scratch,” she said. “What really made the experience was working with Traci. She gave me the space to share and supported my autonomy, it was really neat to have someone like that.”
The Future is Now: PEAK’s Impact Continues to Grow
Even though Thompson has spent most of her career with PEAK, she still has plenty of fresh ideas to grow and better the program. A constant influx of new students helps, too.
“Students keep things young and fresh, and they have great ideas,” she said. “Every semester brings new opportunities for experimentation and growth.”
Thompson hopes to continue to grow the number of students on PEAK’s staff, so the program can have a wider reach across campus. She’s started a partnership with the University’s School of Dance to fund a teaching assistant and shares a teaching assistant with the Student Life Center.
"Through a collaboration with the Health and Kinesiology department, we offer wellness coaching and nutrition consultations to over 500 COH students annually," Thompson explained. "Our H&K students gain from this program, and we aim to extend these services to students across the COH and the broader University community."
In the last year, Thompson has taken on an additional position as Director of Education for the Osher Center for Integrative Health, which partners with the COH to offer PEAK’s services. In that role, she seeks to enable students to implement comprehensive health approaches by integrating integrative health curriculum into their professional education.
One such initiative involves Health and Kinesiology graduate students offering clinical wellness coaching at the U of U Health Madsen Center.
“One goal for the next five years is to expand that partnership,” she said. “In an ideal scenario, we’d have medical students working with COH wellness coaching students on an integrated team to serve patients.”
It’s safe to say PEAK is fulfilling the mission of providing practical training and education for undergraduate and graduate students in the COH. Through Thompson’s leadership, PEAK is giving students the skills they need to help their communities live longer, healthier lives.
"My healthcare vision is focused on prevention and integration," Thompson explained. "We aim to instill the concept of ‘Redefining the Human Healthspan’ into how our students perceive wellness and healthcare."