The Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) and the Arkansas Activities Association are sponsoring a workshop on “Athlete Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids (ATLAS).”
The ATLAS program is a multi-component, universal program for male high school athletes, designed to reduce risk factors and use of anabolic steroids (AS), alcohol and other drugs, while promoting healthy nutrition and exercise behaviors.
The program provides sports nutrition and strength training alternatives to illicit athletic enhancing substances, and strategies to avoid alcohol and other drugs that have a detrimental effect on sports performance. Coaches and peer teammates facilitate curriculum delivery with scripted manuals in small cooperative learning groups during the sport season. This takes advantage of the team atmosphere where peers share common goals.
Ten, 45-minute classroom sessions involve role-play, student-created campaign and educational games. Instructional aids include pocket-sized food and exercise guides and easy-to-follow workbooks. Parents are involved with homework and diet goals.
Features include learning about anabolic steroids and other drugs; skills to resist drug offers; team ethics and drug-free commitment; drug use norms; vulnerability to drug effects; debunking media images promoting substance abuse; parent, coach and team intolerance of drug use; and goal-setting for sports nutrition and exercise. Weight training principles are reviewed with explicit training program examples in the exercise guide.
Student assessments were performed by pre- and post-student questionnaires in a randomized, controlled study of 31 high schools, with 2 consecutive cohorts.
ATLAS-trained students had significant change in the risk factors; reduced intent to use anabolic steroids, improved resistance skills for drug and alcohol, perceived greater harm and susceptibility to AS effects, while improving protective factors of exercise self-efficacy and perception of athletic competence. AS use was reduced by more than 50%. Illicit drug use (marijuana, amphetamines and narcotics) was significantly reduced, whether alcohol was included or excluded from the index. Fewer students reported drinking and driving and there was less use of sport supplements. More ATLAS-trained students recorded improved nutrition behaviors.
Participation in the ATLAS program will be held to seventy (70) coaches. The first workshop will be held on June 10, 2002, and has a limit of thirty-five (35) participants. The second workshop will be held on June 11, 2002, which will also have thirty-five (35) participants. The workshops will begin at 8:00 a.m. and conclude at 4:30 p.m. each day.
The presenter is Linn Goldberg, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Head of the Division of Health Promotion and Sports Medicine at Oregon Health Science University (OHSU) in Portland, Oregon, and the principal investigator of ATLAS. He is a member of the U.S. Department of Education’s Expert Panel on Safe, Disciplined and Drug-Free Schools, a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, and United States Olympic Committee Crew Chief for Drug Surveillance. Dr. Goldberg is the co-author and editor of “Exercise for Prevention and Treatment of Illness,” and co-author of “The History and Physical Examination Casebook” and “The Healing Power of Exercise.”
This workshop has been approved by the Arkansas Department of Education for professional development. Contingent on local district approval, each coach will receive eight (8) hours of professional development for this workshop, which may be used as the state required professional development.
The ATLAS workshops will be held at the Arkansas Activities Association Building, 3920 Richards Road, North Little Rock, Arkansas.
Superintendents who want the district to participate in the ATLAS Program should send one coach to be trained as a “trainer of trainers” for the school district. This is a good opportunity to use preventive alternatives for drug education in athletic activities.
The coach/trainer will receive free materials and booklets for 100 students to enroll in the ATLAS Program.
Enclosed is an enrollment form for the workshop. Please complete the appropriate form indicating June 10 or June 11 to attend the workshop. Send the form to:
Ray Lumpkin, Coordinator
School Administrative Support
Arkansas Department of Education
#4 Capitol Mall, Room 204-B
Little Rock, AR 72201
Questions regarding the ATLAS workshops should be directed to Ray Lumpkin at the ADE, 501-682-4557 or Lance Taylor at the Arkansas Activities Association, 501-955-2500.