Velocity in the News - The Seattle Times

Performance Art

In coaching kids, it's about core mechanics and confidence
By Richard Seven

TIMES HAVE SURE changed from when I was a kid so many years ago. That's what I'm thinking as I veer from a Redmond arterial one weekday afternoon and turn into a mall of warehouses inhabited by companies that teach kids dancing, martial arts and gymnastics.

Past those, I arrive at Velocity Sports Performance, where the kids make up about 80 percent of the clients working with personal trainers and learning competitive mechanical concepts like explosion and quickness.

Inside, I find four high-school lacrosse players warming up for their 90-minute training session with Sports Performance director Rick Huegli, who was strength and conditioning coach for the University of Washington football team for 18 years.

Kids from 8 to 18 begin showing up to work out in small groups and at the direction of coaches inside the 14,000-square-foot training facility. Two kids, perhaps 10 years old, trudge up an artificial-turf field while a coach restrains them in a harness. This drill helps them practice the proper running motion and build stabilizing muscles in the legs and core. Other kids move sideways up another part of the field, each focusing on pushing off the correct portion of the propelling foot.

Velocity's mantra of "Speed Balance Agility Power" is displayed prominently inside the gym. Coaches there don't spend time on skills specific to a sport, say kicking a soccer ball or dribbling a basketball with the off-hand. Instead, they work on mechanics such as how to quicken that first step, keep speed at a high level longer and move in ways that reduce the chance for injury. Velocity coaches work with athletes such as former UW sprinter Ja'Warren Hooker and recreational athletes, but the core business is kids who want to improve their ability, whether it's so they can make a team, move up on the depth chart, get a scholarship or improve self-confidence.

More intensive youth coaching is a growing trend, and the Redmond Velocity club, which opened just more than a year ago, is part of a national company that has dozens of franchises. While youth sports are bigger than ever, school programs are going through continued cuts. The concept of Velocity started with Loren Seagrave, a former Olympic track coach. He maintains that speed is a skill you can develop. Huegli agrees and follows a developmental pyramid in his approach to his young athletes.

"Between, say, 7 and 10 years old is about fundamentals, with FUN in capital letters," Huegli says. "Between 10 and 14, train them how to train. From 14 to 18, you train them to compete. And at 18-19, you train them to win."

As the after-school crowd rolls in, Huegli breaks down the mechanics of a stride to the lacrosse players and then sends them sprinting, two at a time, down a four-lane indoor track. Velocity guarantees that kids who go through at least 24 sessions (36 hours) will improve their scores in a series of athletic tests.

Clients usually employ packages in blocks of 12, 24 and 50 sessions. Prices range from $20 to 35 per hour; most sessions are 90 minutes. See www.velocitysp.com/redmond for details. The value I see in programs like Velocity is that they help give kids a better chance of sticking with sports by developing good habits and building confidence. I've read where three-quarters of youth baseball players quit by the time they are 13. And the American Obesity Association says about 30 percent of youths are overweight. Part of me wonders how necessary all this is, but the kids seem to be there because they want to be. So if Mom and Dad are willing to spend the money and drive them to and from another appointment, why not the gym?

Velocity in the News - Sports Illustrated

Sports Illustrated, "After-school Special"

By Kelly King, Sports IllustratedAugust 06, 2007

For too many kids, the after-school hours are spent parked in front of a television or computer. But in places like a nondescript strip mall in Cherry Hill, N.J., a countermovement—with emphasis on the word movement—is afoot. At 4 p.m. on a recent Wednesday the brightly lit, 21,000-square-foot space is bustling with youth in motion.

In one area six high school lacrosse players cheer one another through dumbbell squats. Behind them a pack of middle schoolers, representing both sexes and four sports, are running timed sprints on a 65-yard rubberized track. Across the way a placekicker who’s headed to the Naval Academy next fall deep-lunges his way across a 40-yard AstroTurf field. Through the windows of an adjacent waiting room parents sip complimentary coffee and watch contentedly.

Welcome to Velocity Sports Performance, a fast-growing national chain of workout facilities where kids from aspiring T-ballers to Olympic-caliber collegians are getting faster, stronger and more agile. (And in lesser numbers, so are adults—from women wanting to lose postpregnancy pounds to NFL players looking to gain a step.) For $25 to $30 an hour Velocity’s clients are led through a variety of running, jumping and lifting drills by certified trainers, all of whom have been schooled in Velocity’s core principle: At the basis of all sports are certain fundamental movements. Sharpen those, and performance—and by extension, confidence and even happiness—will improve.

It was two decades ago when Loren Seagrave, Velocity’s 53-year-old founder, first scribbled those ideas on a scrap of paper. Although he was a technique guru who would tutor some of the world’s top sprinters and hurdlers, including Olympic champions Donovan Bailey and Gwen Torrence, Seagrave longed to return to his roots in basic phys ed, in which he earned a degree at Wisconsin. "Not only was obesity running rampant, but I also was seeing more and more athletes [specializing too much] and losing out on the important mechanics that a mix of sports teaches you," he says. "I thought it was time to get back to honest phys ed—not rec play, not ball play, not weight training. Teaching."

Seagrave opened the first Velocity facility in Marietta, Ga., in 1999, and his state-of-the-art equipment and emphasis on developing quickness attracted immediate interest from area kids, a few pro athletes and, most important, a pair of businessmen acquaintances. David Walmsley, a
former director of consumer products at the A&E TV network, signed on as CEO, and Richard Kissane, a former executive with Sylvan Learning Center, the tutoring and test preparation company, became COO. In six years Velocity has opened 51 branches with more than 120 on the way.

Velocity’s success is largely due to young participants and their parents spreading the word. "I truly believe it gives kids a competitive edge," says Dianne DaTorre, whose 13-year-old son, Danny, a football player, works out at the Cherry Hill facility three times a week. "More than that, kids sit around too much these days. This improves health and wellness all around."
Even if that promise of improved health and athleticism doesn’t sell a typical kid on Velocity, the chain’s rising cool factor might. "At first I assumed this place was for people who were struggling in their sport," says lacrosse player Jen Ingalls, who persuaded her teammates to train for the coming season at Velocity. "But then I came here to rehab a torn ACL and saw that pro and college athletes came here, too. Now everyone talks about ‘meeting up at Velocity.’ It’s kind of the place to be."

Certainly better than the couch.

BE NIMBLE, BE QUICK
Velocity Sports Performance uses five tests to gauge a person’s baseline athletic ability, then works on the skills they measure

Vertical jump This test measures raw leg power. Velocity teaches its clients to put a stronger burst into the takeoff.

Standing broad jump Another measure of leg power; the horizontal element also evaluates how an athlete launches into a jump.

Pro agility This test, which requires an athlete to sprint five yards, then 10 yards in the opposite direction and five back, measures acceleration, deceleration and change of direction.

Three cone Velocity’s take on the traditional cone weave measures ability to run curves, essential in sports such as soccer and lacrosse.

Dash Velocity uses an infrared speed trap to break the 40-yard dash time into segments: from 0 to 10 yards (acceleration), 10 to 20 yards (transitional speed) and 20 to 40 yards (maximum speed).