West Perth Development Program
Athletic Institute in conjuction with the West Perth Football Club are creating history by launching its very first strength and conditioning program across all development squads.
This initiative is groundbreaking and a long time overdue! Young athletes will be exposed to aspects of training that will be required when reaching elite status to further enhance athletic performance and reduce injuries.
Athletic Institute is working with the 13’s, 14’s and 15’s development squads, totaling a massive 160 athletes. The goal of the 6-week program is educating these young men of what is required to take their football to the next level.
The younger these athletes are exposed to proper lifting mechanics, the more time we have as coaches to build stonger, faster, professional and resilient athletes, the better. Therefore, we can keep more athletes on the field which in turn creates a larger talent pool of footballers for state and national selection.
The 6-week program includes four practical lifting sessions which entails learning the fundamental exercises required to reduce injuries and improve movement mechanics and body awareness. Athletes will also be taught basic running mechanics to enhance running efficiency. Ironically, this has never been done amongst youth footballers before, even though their sport is predominately running based in nature.
Nutrition and performance go hand-in-hand, and we want all youth athletes to be fully aware of this. That’s why in Week 5 of the program, West Coast Eagles sport dietician Simone Allen is presenting to all 160 athletes about how to fuel their bodies for performance, recovery and general well-being.
Finally, the program concludes with a player development and goal setting workshop. West Coast Eagles player Mark Hutchings alongside West Perth’s Kody Manning, senior player Seva Mozhaev, under 18’s state player Connor West and Colts player Jordan Moore will all discuss the importance of taking care of their bodies. Topics will include nutrition, strength and conditioning, recovery, goal setting and rehabilitation.
The next generation of elite footballers can say they started their journey at Athletic Institute all those years ago, and those athletes will have us and the West Perth Football Club to thank for that. Athletic Institute is raising the bar for all future generations, which is an exciting time to be a young footballer in Western Australia.
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