Pleasant Valley encourages athletes to have a “total effort” mentality. This mentality doesn’t just stop when an athlete leaves the weight room, it extends into Pleasant Valley’s acceleration work after school.
The acceleration class at Pleasant Valley focuses on, speed, agility, and conditioning. Ryan Arnold, the head coach, recommends that every athlete, especially during the off season participate in order to keep up their level of fitness.
The program is not required for athletes playing a high school sport; however, some coaches urge their athletes to join the program, so they can focus on conditioning before the season starts. The point being not to waste time getting into shape.
The acceleration program is three weeks long, and only 45 minutes after school. In that short amount of time, athletes participate in mirror drills, tempo runs, and chaos drills. Mirror drills and chaos drills are simply when one athlete shuffles back and forth while another athlete tries to mirror them and copy their actions.
Last year, the program focused on treadmill training; however, this year the program is centered more around strength. Arnold stated, “Acceleration and the PV lifting program go hand in hand. Developing strength can give an athlete more agility and power. You can see great results from the program if there is a focus on strength.”
An athlete can expect results if they are committed to the Pleasant Valley strength program as well as the acceleration program. Arnold emphasized that an athlete will see better results if they do both.
A great thing about having an acceleration program hosted at Pleasant Valley is that Arnold constructs both the strength workouts and the agility workouts so he knows that the athletes won’t be overworked. When athletes start going to other programs that aren’t based out of Pleasant Valley they can be at risk of injury because the coaches at other facilities don’t know what other strength workouts they are doing and they can get overworked.
The program has already benefited a lot of athletes at Pleasant Valley. Jamie Trentz, a senior at Pleasant Valley stated, “The program has benefited me by keeping me in shape during the off season. I did the program freshmen year and this year, and I feel that it has improved my endurance and agility.”
