Barton College has added a new master’s degree program in kinesiology.

“Kinesiology is technically the study of human movement,” explained Tim Dornemann, director of exercise science program and associate professor of allied health and sport studies. 

In the seven years since he began his association with Barton, Dornemann said the college has expanded from eight sports teams to 24.

“We had about 300 athletes prior. We have doubled that to over 600,” Dornemann said. “That is including cheer and dance, that are also an NCAA sport.”

With their undergraduate coursework in health and fitness, those student-athletes could potentially work toward a graduate degree in kinesiology.

Benefiting the program is the Barton College Sports Performance Center’s renovation, where about $250,000 worth of weight training equipment was installed three years ago.

“It is pretty much state of the art, top of the line,” Dornemann said. 

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the facility allowed up to 70 athletes to work out at one time.

The kinesiology program has two tracks — strength and conditioning and fitness and wellness.

Graduate students Jacob Heintz from Rocky Mount and Justin Bellamy of Fayetteville are studying on the strength and conditioning track.

Heintz is a Marine Corps veteran.

“While I was in, we actually had a training coach that gave us more of an opportunity to push our strength abilities and physical abilities even further outside of our regular PT within our platoon and stuff like that,” Heintz said. “I thought it was a great job and was really interesting. In my future, I want to go to the tactical side as a strength coach and continue to bring that information and that knowledge to the military to help prevent injuries and to keep our soldiers and troops healthy and be able to do their jobs effectively.”

Bellamy said he simply fell in love with sports.

“Connecting the whole weights and sports performance part to try and get better for my sport was one aspect that I really wanted to focus on,” Bellamy said. “Combining the sports science side and weightlifting to recover from injuries and create prehab and rehab procedures or dynamics, those things are somewhat overlooked besides regular strength and bodybuilding. Lifting weights and working out is actually rehabilitative and good for an extended period.”

Heintz and Bellamy are completing their kinesiology practicums at the sports performance center in the fall and spring. They’re working about 10-12 hours a week helping the college’s full time strength coaches run the facility.

Dornemann said grad students on the strength and conditioning side are measuring athletes’ performance outcomes and their power, strength and stamina. 

“A lot of times, we forget to look at that injury prevention, and that is part of the programming process,” Dornemann said. “Any good program should actually incorporate injury prevention and actually look at what are common injuries in that sport.”

Heintz and Bellamy can prepare to earn certification as strength and conditioning specialists.

“That is one of the three certifications that is required at (NCAA) Division I for strength and conditioning that coaches have to be certified,” Dornemann said. “For that, we have given them the knowledge, the experience and the certification that they employers are looking for.”

On the fitness and wellness side, students can chose one of two American College of Sports Medicine certifications. 

“The certified exercise physiologist is more like if someone is in the Triangle area and they are running a workplace fitness program for someplace like IBM or if they go to somewhere like (East Carolina University) where they have a campus recreation program and they have a fitness professional, or like Vidant has their hospital-based wellness center, or YMCAs for that leader level,” Dornemann said. “Or they can also choose the clinical route, and that’s for the clinical exercise physiologists and that requires 600 clinical hours. Those students we specifically place with cardiac rehab, and we have two students right now who are with cardiac rehab programs.”

Dornemann said each track has two specific courses in its content area. 

“They do practicums during the fall and the spring semesters of 160 hours in that setting, so they are learning and doing,” Dornemann said.

Barton covers the cost of students’ certification exams.

“We are actually in a good cost point because at under $20,000, that is below the limit that they can borrow from federal student aid,” Dornemann said. 

Seniors participating in the “four plus one” fast-track program can take one fall and one spring graduate course during their senior year.

“Those are two courses that they don’t have to take as graduate students,” Dornemann said. “They are paying for it within their undergraduate tuition, and that saves them $3,600. Students can come in to the college as an exercise science undergrad major and by doing four plus one, they can go seamlessly into that last year of grad school and have a kinesiology master’s degree when they leave.”