Sweat drips down your face as you start your final lap. The pain in your muscles is intense but in a good way—like you’re being stretched and molded into someone stronger. The feeling is something you’re used to, thanks to months of training. Step after step, you keep pushing, your mental self-discipline propelling you forward despite the fatigue. And then it happens. You cross the finish line, and the euphoric rush that washes over you is like nothing else you’ve experienced. You did it. You mastered your body and persevered through the pain.
That feeling is so compelling that some athletes can’t give it up, competing well into their eighties and nineties. It is this select group of exercise enthusiasts who take part in the annual Huntsman World Senior Games (HWSG) in St. George, Utah. “The participants have worked so hard to be here. They don’t let their age tell them that they can’t compete anymore,” says Olivia Gneiting (MS ’25, NDFS), a recent BYU graduate student who participated in the Department of Exercise Sciences’ internship at the games.
These athletes are prime examples of exercise and wellness, demonstrating the positive impacts of using physical activity as preventive medicine. But the competition isn’t just for elite athletes. It’s open to everyone age fifty and over and features more than forty different events for each skill level, resulting in tens of thousands of participants from around the globe competing in sports like softball, archery, swimming, square dancing, and golf, to name a few.
Students and faculty from the BYU Department of Exercise Sciences interact with and serve the athletes by conducting more than fifteen life-saving screenings in a variety of categories including nutrition, visual acuity, cognitive health, pulmonary function, and oral and skin cancer.
During the games a team of sixty to eighty BYU students spends nearly 2,000 hours over two weeks conducting approximately 8,000 screenings to help seniors understand their health risk status, empowering them to take the needed next steps to improve their overall well-being.
Students are trained in advance to perform each screening and rotate from station to station throughout the day. These screenings give students an opportunity to apply what they are learning in class to real-world situations and make connections with people from around the globe as they explain results to the athletes and share practical tips to improve their health. “It’s really cool to see the students give fitness and health and wellness advice,” says Dr. Ron Hager, BYU exercise sciences professor and HWSG internship coordinator. They are an excellent example of BYU’s motto: enter to learn, go forth to serve.
A Stroke of Luck
Once, while conducting a carotid artery ultrasound screening for one participant, a student found something unsettling. After the student consulted with Hager and his research collaborator Dr. Cane, a cardiologist from the University of California, San Francisco, it became clear that the participant had 90 percent or more occlusion in both arteries in his neck, meaning they were almost entirely filled with plaque, and he was extremely likely to experience a stroke at any time. Cane shared this news with the participant and recommended that he head home straight away to see his primary care doctor and get a referral to a vascular specialist.
The next year at the games, this same participant returned. At the carotid artery ultrasound screening station, he shared his experience. Thanks to the ultrasound images they had provided him, he was able to meet with a specialist and was immediately scheduled for a bilateral coronary endarterectomy surgery to remove the plaque, preventing what easily could have been a life-threatening stroke. With sincere gratitude, he thanked Hager and his student team, shaking their hands.
Though not every screening reveals such serious results, these tests are always helpful to the athletes. Each screening provides an opportunity for the students to serve an individual one by one as Christ did, focusing on helping them feel seen and ready to take the needed next steps to improve the trajectory of their health. Many students who have served as full-time missionaries were also able to speak to participants from other countries in their native language.
Seeing the Light
Participating in the HWSG internship is an eye-opening experience for students. They come to the games with “this perception of what it means to get old,” Hager shares. “Their experience has been seeing older people in nursing homes or memory care facilities in their sixties or seventies. They rarely see people live into their nineties.” Then they see an 86-year-old man do a 17-minute plank with perfect form without even breaking a sweat and a 76-year-old swimmer do a 27-inch vertical jump. Witnessing these feats helps students learn about health and the joy that good health brings to life. “It has changed my perception about getting old and has served as a motivator for me to take care of my body while I am young,” said one student in the internship exit survey. The HWSG gives students a chance to see a different way to live, resulting in a paradigm shift in their understanding about the importance of exercise in their lives.
Making physical activity a priority throughout life can have a profound impact on longevity with an increased quality of life and a decreased likelihood of developing serious chronic conditions. “When people recognize how much taking care of your body impacts your mental, physical, and spiritual well-being, that’s when your life takes a full 180,” explains Callie Floyd (Dance and Gerontology ’25), another student intern. “You start realizing your full potential and what you’re capable of.”
Not only do the screenings benefit the participants but they also help students and faculty collect valuable data used to conduct interdisciplinary research and complete thesis and dissertation projects.
Serving athletes at the HWSG also helps students see God’s hand in their lives and increase their faith. “I really believe that as we strive to take care of our bodies, whether we’re running or lifting weights, it shows God that we are grateful for our bodies,” says Bryce Black (EXSC ’25).
Whether you’re twenty-nine or seventy-nine, one thing is certain: it’s never too late to start pursuing your health goals. The HWSG internship provides an opportunity for students to share their light through service and receive light in return from the athletes, whose example of hard work and dedication to healthy and active living is truly inspiring.