When it comes to sports, it can be difficult to keep the consistency of strengthening and conditioning over the summer. That’s where Jason Morrow, WSH’s main strengthening and conditioning coach, helps students to stay active during the summer. Morrow helps keep students moving and exercising for upcoming sports seasons, so they are prepared for competitions no matter the sport. 

  “[When you are] involved with something that is sports specific, make sure that you are communicating with your coaches. [Sometimes it can be] a little tough if you’re a three-sport or two-sport athlete, [but] I think it’s doable. We have different sessions throughout the morning from seven to 12, [with] two-hour blocks where there’s an hour skill portion and there’s an hour weight room, speed portion. All of our athletes really should be doing [the sessions], you know it’s two days a week in the summer, you have your app and you get your workouts when you’re at home,” Morrow said.

  The summer schedule for training and conditioning starts just five days after school lets out. It lasts for five weeks until the fall sports season starts up again.

  “We start on June 19. It’s a Monday, and we offer through until the week before fall sports start, so I think like August 1st. [We have] between 200 and 400 students [who participate in the summer training],” Morrow said.

  When training, it shouldn’t depict what sport you play and having certain training because all training and conditioning could impact all athletes’ sports. Taking the training and conditioning classes over the summer helps to prevent serious injuries during the off-season, so that way athletes don’t have to come back in the fall having to regain their muscle memory. 

  “I think the biggest thing is injury prevention. If you keep working and your body’s prepared for the fall, then it’s a lot less likely you would have any kind of injury or overuse injury. It’s important to take time off the sport part of it and to just focus on the speed and strength part because it doesn’t matter what sport you are playing, if you’re going to get stronger, if you’re going to be faster, you’re going to be better at the sport regardless of skill,” Morrow said.

  One of Morrow’s students, junior Samuel Schutte participates in the summer training and conditioning to help him with football. Schutte has been doing the sports summer training camps since he was in middle school. 

  “I think it just gets your [mindset] right and you get a good mentality going into the school year, not only for your sports but for school too. It [has] definitely helped me a lot in both aspects,” Schutte said.

  Something Schutte finds a bit difficult with the summer training and conditioning is their schedule because it may vary depending on the week and how the students are feeling.

  “The schedule [can be the most difficult part], [and] trying to figure out exactly what you’re going to [be doing] because it changes [every so often]. It’s not like school, where it’s eight to three every day, it depends on the certain weeks [and] what’s going to happen,” Schutte said.

  Another one of Morrow’s students,  Kyler Brunan, who is also a junior, has found the summer camp very helpful in improving his football ability over the summer. He started doing the summer camp when he was in sixth grade

  “Since sixth grade, [the summer training has] definitely improved my ability and it’s good to be in there with the team all summer long,” Brunan said.

  Summer training and conditioning camps can make serious impacts on one’s ability in a sport. It is very important as an athlete to keep working your muscles and strengthening them as much as you can before the season starts. If an athlete doesn’t continue working over the summer it can be very straining when starting up again as they would need to retrain their muscles.

  “It’s kind of the average, if you don’t use it you lose it kind of thing. Especially from a strength and speed standpoint, you need to make sure you’re ready to do that. Football is a little different, because football is a contact sport, so you need to make sure that your body is prepared for the contact. The strength portion in football is really important, but the speed portion in every single sport is really important [as well], whether it’s laying your speed or lateral speed [and] changing your direction, all that stuff will [help you improve],” Morrow said.

  In the summer, most families tend to go on trips which makes taking the training and conditioning summer class a bit hard for them to do. That’s why they started using the team building app where students can go on and exercise anywhere and at any time.

  “Everybody is signed up for our team building app, so even [if] they come in twice a week they actually get seven days of workouts. We have two days of active recovery, two sprint days, a mobility lift day, and two heavier lift days that are in [school]. Even if you’re traveling to Europe, and you can’t be here all summer, then you could still sign up and get all seven days of workouts every week. So you have them at your leisure,” Morrow said.