Working out six days a week for an hour and a half each day could be considered extreme, but for senior Noah Morris, it is just a part of his typical week. 

Morris started lifting his sophomore year because “Darlington didn’t offer any of the sports that I played back home, so I decided to start lifting.”

He has been working out consistently for nearly three years and has seen progress. His current routine consists of a three-day rotation that cycles through a “push,” “pull” and legs day. On push day, he extends his muscles, while on a pull day, his muscles undergo flexion. At the start of each workout, he does a dynamic stretch on that day’s muscle group. 

Morris’ push day includes heavy bench press, dumbbell lateral raises, overhead presses, cable chest flies, push-downs and single-arm pushdowns. On pull day, Morris does pull-ups, single-arm cable rows, cable lat pulldowns, heavy JPG pulldowns, cable hammer curls, incline dumbbell curls and heavy concentration curls. Finally, on leg days, Morris does heavy squats, hammy curls, contralateral Bulgarians, leg extensions and calf raises.

“The workout I look forward to the most is definitely lower body,” Morris said. “Hitting legs is good for your entire body because of the testosterone that is released. For me, it’s the workout that yields the most results.”

Morris sees his progress so far as a motivator to continue.

“I didn’t come this far just to quit now, and I don’t want to let down the part of myself that used to get pushed around,” Morris said. “I also realized this is the best thing I can do for myself.”

Just this year, Darlington was given a donation to revamp the weight room completely. It was dedicated to Coach Tommy Atha, who has spent 30 years at Darlington and the last 21 as head football coach, and who will be retiring at the end of this year.

“Thank the Pierce family,” Morris said. “I can now do a lot more exercises that I couldn’t do before (like cable chest flies) because before, we only had one working cable machine. Now, there is a full cable system at every rack, which has also allowed me to do a lot more cable back exercises.”

Morris, along with Noah Kinney, has undertaken a Senior Leadership Ventures project, which centers around exercise and nutritional guidance. They are personally training faculty, students and others interested in challenging themselves physically and mentally.

“Fitness could be considered one of the most important parts of the lives of young adults and high school students,” Morris said. “Being able to demonstrate the emphasis of a healthy lifestyle’s importance to our trainees is a top priority for us.”

Hoping to inspire their trainees to continue their fitness journey, Morris and Kinney aim to promote healthy and happy living.

“Coming this far has shown me that you don’t have to fit into the regular mold of people, and you can do your own thing,” Morris said. “You just have to figure it out yourself.”