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ST. GEORGE — Summer sports camps are in full swing. But one team is taking summer training to whole new level.
A Desert Hills Thunder youth football team now holds its workouts indoors, but it's not because of the heat. It's so it can take part in the Intermountain Dixie Regional Health and Performance Acceleration Program.
"Push off as hard as you can, go!" trainer Dayna Robinson tells one of the participants.
While at the same time, another trainer tells an athlete, "Keep those arms to the side a little bit; there you go."
These 10- and 11-year-old athletes give their trainers 100 percent in hopes of getting a leg up on the competition.
"We have tested, proven guaranteed results so that if they do the program the way it's designed, 22 training sessions, ideally they come three times a week for an hour each time, they should increase their foot speed by 33 percent," Robinson said.
They will also increase their vertical jump by 2 inches. "Sometimes it's hard, and it's really heavy when it's like doing 120 percent of your body weight," said athlete Ryan Smith.
"We want to put them in a safe environment and take away their body weight and teach them how to jump," Robinson said.
The program also claims to decrease their 40-yard dash by two-tenths of a second. They do that on a high-speed treadmill with a trainer right next to them and a mirror so they can make corrections.
They learn these new developments that are going to help them in their later years in life and again it helps with their confidence level and that's the key.
–Brian Barrow, coach
But you can't put a number on what coach Brian Barrow hopes to get out of these sessions.
"They learn these new developments that are going to help them in their later years in life and again it helps with their confidence level and that's the key," Brian Barrow said.
Robinson said research supports starting athletes in this kind of program before they hit puberty. "Basically teaching your brain how to talk to your muscles and fire more quickly before puberty they see even more long-term results," said Robinson.
Barrow said they're also building teamwork, "They help each other, they encourage each other, they push each other and that's cool," he said.
The fourth- and fifth-graders have similar goals. "We can help each other and can work hard on the field and be good and listen to our coaches," said Boston Barrow.
These gridiron boys won third- and fourth-grade division last year, so they're thinking another championship trophy wouldn't be bad either.
