Altru Family YMCA to offer youth sports acceleration training at Altru Performance Center
Jun. 14—The Altru Performance Center is partnering with the Altru Family YMCA to provide a new youth sports acceleration training program.
The program, aimed at competitive and recreational athletes, is the latest offering of the YMCA Sports Academy, said Adam Sorum, the YMCA's healthy living director. It is intended to help athletes build skills in strength training and learn how to move and safely change directions to improve their overall physical fitness and performance ability.
The one-hour sessions begin this week and run through July 8 at the Altru Performance Center at 1375 S. Columbia Road, in the Hugo's Family Marketplace strip mall across from Altru Hospital.
Through the YMCA Sports Academy, "we want to teach kids advanced skills specific to whatever sport they participate in, and be coachable and a leader among peers," Sorum said.
The sessions are titled Movement Progress and Conditioning, and Intro to Strength Training. Each session runs four weeks and costs $80. Scholarships are available for families in need.
"The focus of these programs is to prepare children for an active future," Sorum said. "They are designed to help improve general athleticism, but participants don't have to be athletes."
In Movement Progression and Conditioning, participants will learn how to move and change directions safely and efficiently. It is aimed at youth who are age 8 and older, including adults, involved in any sport.
The activities will include a dynamic warm-up including balance training; movement progression and core training, Tabata conditioning; upper and lower body plyometrics; push up variations; and cool down stretch with foam rolling.
Participants may attend the session that begins at 5:30 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays, or one that begins at 6:45 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The focus of Intro to Strength Training will be on proper lifting techniques for the essential compound movements that the athlete will need to improve sports performance.
This session, for participants who are 11 years old and older, is not about lifting heavy weights, Sorum said. "It is about mastering the technique so your athlete can lift heavy weights in the future."
The session will include a dynamic warm-up including balance training, exercises for injury prevention, compound and Olympic lifts, and cool down stretch with foam rolling.
Participants may enroll in the Monday and Wednesday session that begins at 6:45 p.m. or the Tuesday and Thursday session that starts at 5:30 p.m.
Matthew McCreary, who will lead the sessions, is a former UND football player and high school track athlete. The new sports acceleration coach for the YMCA Sports Academy holds a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in kinesiology. A certified personal trainer, McCreary also holds certification as an exercise physiologist through the American College of Sports Medicine, Sorum said.
"We are eager for the opportunity to collaborate in our training facility," said Jennifer Estad, director of orthopedics and neurosciences at Altru Health System. "Altru Family YMCA and Altru are strong partners in supporting our community's wellness. Along with our recently announced partnership with Choice Health and Fitness, we will continue to use Altru Performance Center to support our youth development and the community's health and wellness."
For more information, or to register, contact Sorum at the YMCA, 701-775-2586 or email asorum@gfymca.org.
