SAPT Spring Sport All-Met Selections

I just wanted to take this time to give a HUGE shout out and congratulations to a few of our Spring sport athletes who made the All-Met selection for 2012: -Jessie Ferrari (Soccer, signed to University of Virginia) -Taylor Heasley (Softball, signed to Ohio Wesleyan) -Kent Blackstone (Baseball, signed to New Mexico State University) -Red Dowdell (Baseball, signed to VMI)

Not to mention, SAPT athletes Daniel Whitaker, CJ Herold, Kent Blackstone, Red Dowdell (baseball), and Taylor Heasley (softball) are in the Northern Virginia's Top 50 for home runs this past season! Soccer goalie Jessie Ferrari also ranked 13 in the entire region for number of saves (78 total).

This is an enormous accomplishment, and we're proud of each and every one of them, along with all of our other athletes who won All-Region and All-District selections, as well.

Getting Stronger In-Season

One of the coolest things for us coaches at SAPT is to see the athletes continue to arrive at our facility to get after it, even when in-season. We have the special privilege of working with a large group of HIGHLY motivated individuals.....those individuals that are willing to drive 30 minutes (and more) to SAPT to train late in the evening immediately after they get out of their sports practice. Sometimes they show up ready to kick down the doors of the gym, and other times they  arrive feeling pretty beat up, but the point is they understand that the season is a great opportunity to get a leg up on the competition. While many of their friends and rivals are going home to lie down on the couch after practice, they drive over to SAPT to get their trainification on (yeah, I suppose I made up that word....).

Similarly, when their practice/game is canceled because of bad weather, they schedule in a last-minute appointment at SAPT to become stronger, more powerful, and undergo recovery modalities while their competition takes the time off to sit on the couch and watch late-afternoon sitcoms.

I think it goes without saying that it's extremely motivating to us coaches to watch them remain consistent throughout the demands of in-season sport, and it certainly makes our long days worth it, to have an opportunity to help further the physical qualities of our athletes.

As an example, catcher Red Dowdell (recently selected to the *All-Met baseball team for 2012, and will be playing DI baseball at VMI next year), has been driving 30+ minutes, 3 days a week, out to SAPT to train late in the evening after practice. Just this week he hit a 405lb deadlift, a 80lb increase compared to what he was pulling before the season!

And who says you can't get stronger in-season? This showed on the field, too, as his poptime decreased from 1.95 to 1.88, the speed of his throws increased from 80mph to 86mph, on top of the fact that his doubles, triples, and RBIs shot up. Not too shabby if you ask me.

He is just one example of MANY of our athletes who has made enormous strength/power gains throughout this past season, and we couldn't be more proud of each and every one of them.

I say all this to drive home the point that it is certainly possible, and should be desired, to get stronger while in-season, be you a high school athlete or even an adult runner/triathlete (where the "season" tends to last 6+ months).

Many people assume that training will only make you sore and tired for your sport-specific practice, but this is only if you don't understand how to design+implement the training plan appropriately, and fail to manage the competing demands and training stressors throughout the week. If you have a qualified coach to walk you through the process (Wink wink, nudge nudge, click HERE), the sky is the limit with what can be accomplished. While your opponents strength gains are diminishing rapidly by the time playoffs arrive (assuming they haven't trained since pre-season), you're only stronger and more ready to go than ever.

*A pretty freaking huge deal, for those of you who live outside the Metro/DC area. SAPT is also extremely proud of our other athletes who made the highly coveted All-Met teams, to be announced next week

BIG News: SAPT is Moving!...

...Just down the road!

This is another HAPPY 5th ANNIVERSARY effort I"ve made to say "thank you" to our loyal clientele and Team Fantastico (aka, the SAPT coaches).

While we"re only going about 1-mile from our current location, we"ll be taking a huge step forward in terms of improving working conditions for the SAPT coaches.

Don"t worry, the actual training floor will retain all the aspects that keep us out of the "commercial gym" category... you know the concrete floors, concrete block walls, high ceilings, and big bay door.

Where we"ll be getting "soft" (if you can call it that): We will FINALLY have a CLIMATE CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT!

The coaches will also have some pretty nice offices (check out the picts below).

I wish I could say this deal is 100% done and done. But, we will be having a public hearing to see if we get approved for the permit required for us to make this move on June 5th with Fairfax City"s Board of Zoning Appeals.

If you"re in the area or are a City resident, please consider coming out to the hearing to support us and our continued online casino occupation within Fairfax City! The meeting will be Tuesday, June 5th at 7pm at City Hall in the City Council chambers.

In the meantime, check out what we hope will soon be our new digs:

At this point you may be wondering about the exterior and how it compares to Pickett Road. While I don"t have any photos to share, I can say with full confidence, our clients and visitors will no longer get to enjoy the sights of "bombed-out" and abandoned vehicles in our parking lot.

25% Off Sale Ends Soon!

I'm in the middle of a bear of a day, so I just wanted to pop in and remind you all that the 25% off sale ends this Thursday, May 24th. See here for more information. This is the first time we've EVER done this in the five years we've been open, and I can guarantee you won't see anything similar again until the 10-year mark. Even if you can't begin right away, you can still make the purchase and cash-in once your back in town for the Summer or home from vacation.

Click HERE to sign up, OR email Kelsey directly at: kelsey@studentathletept.com

Be back soon for more training-related content!

SAPT 5-Year Anniversary Sale!

(Note: This is a message from Sarah Walls, the SAPT President.) In honor of a summer-long celebration for SAPT’s 5th Anniversary, we’re offering a 25% discount on ALL paid-in-full session packages* until Thursday, May 24th!

For our most popular Nuts-&-Bolts package, the savings will top $175 and for our twice-weekly adult training package, the savings will easily exceed $225!

As I just now begin to reflect on the last 5-years of my life, numerous memories come to the forefront of my thought and – I can admit – they are overwhelmingly positive. My life has been enriched in ways I could have never imagined when I conceived the foundational ideas for SAPT in 2007.

We’ve survived and continue to press forward in, what can be described as, a TRUE small business start-up situation. What does this mean? It means I’ve never had any big (or small) financial backers or fancy back-office support staff. My husband and I managed to scrape together enough money for the bare minimums and grew from there with the support of a fiercely loyal clientele and amazing set of coaches.

Please take advantage of this 25% session discount offer – I’ve NEVER offered an across-the-board discount like this and will probably not offer another one until we’re prepared to celebrate 10-Years of SAPT Goodness!

Here are 5 SAPT “Growing Pains” Facts that – up until today - only a few of us knew about:

1. For the first – oh, I don’t know – 6-months or so, we conducted business from an ancient folding table placed in the corner of our current Pickett Road facility. Chris sat on top of several stacked sandbags and I sat in a folding camping-style chair (gotta keep up appearances - I was the boss, after all).
2. Before moving into our permanent training facility, we would host Saturday morning sessions in the Field House at George Mason University. One morning I had the group stretching in a racquetball court at the end of the session… it was completely silent… then we all heard something small fall to the ground from, well, to this day I don’t know where. “It” fell near one of the girls. “It” was a very old broken tooth! Let me tell you, an old tooth is NOT what you want to have a 14-year old girl find while she’s laying on the ground stretching.
3. Our beautiful Sorinex Base Camp racks were ordered and scheduled to be delivered in conjunction with the opening of the training facility. We received delivery of the bars, plates, and kettlebells within a week. But the racks were delivered 4-months late! 4-months! Writing this, I still believe this was an unacceptable situation on Sorinex’s part, but I must also acknowledge that what I (at the time) considered missing VITAL training equipment helped us forge our exceptionally Spartan training style. We were forced to refine the basics for our clients and ourselves. I suppose it was a blessing in disguise. Our clients can thank Sorinex for the development of the multitude of variations for EVERY sandbag, tire, sledgehammer, kettlebell, band, body weight, and slosh pipe exercise introduced in 2008.
4. In April 2008, northern Virginia was experiencing severe rain storms almost every evening. I remember well because our “well-maintained” facility we’d recently moved into was springing leaks from the roof in honor of each storm. One evening – it was raining quite steadily outside - I was wrapping up a trial session by taking the athlete through a ground-based stretch when the roof drainage pipe above us burst. All… over… her. You see, there are two roof drain pipes in our unit and up to this moment, only the other one was leaking. It was mortifying. But as this athlete is an exceptional young-woman, she still signed up and trained for years before heading off to college to play soccer.
5. Personally, this last one I think is pretty funny: for at least 6-months SAPT did not have internet. Instead there is a very weak free signal that we would tap into daily (you just had to sign-up every 24-hours). But the signal was so weak, you literally had to walk outside and hold your laptop up towards the sky while praying for the free daily internet god to transfer the data to its final destination.

All those challenges are definitely funny to look back on… but, WOW, in the moment… no thanks!

Please take advantage of this once-every-five-years deal! 25% is nothing to shake a stick at! It is open to current clients, new clients, anyone! Just submit your info here OR email Kelsey directly at: kelsey@studentathletept.com.

If you’d like to give us a helping hand in spreading the word , please post on your Twitter feed, Facebook page, Pinterest, or whatever outlet you use!

P.S. – If you’d like to see my Doppelganger, cruise on over to StrongGirlsWin.com for the Domestic Goddess I turn into during “Super Moons”!

*A minimum package purchase of 12-weeks at 2-sessions per week applies to receive this special discount.

Thanks To All Our Athletes

The best part of being a strength coach is watching our young athletes come in and train hard.  It takes little to no motivating from us coaches to get them to come in and smash weight; they have an awesome desire to get better.  It’s the best part of our day to see them come train and grow.  With that said I wanted to do something cool for the athletes so I decided to put together a video.  However, I lack the software and technological talent to do such things so I enlisted the help of my friend Binh.  He did an awesome job and captured exactly what I was looking for, so thanks man I appreciate the help.  And to the athletes I hope you guys like the video.  Thanks for coming in and TRAINING HARD!