Speed, agility training for young athletes
PORT ANGELES — The North Olympic Track Club will hold a fall speed and agility training season geared primarily toward multi-sport athletes ages 7 and older.
The sessions will be held Mondays and Wednesdays, starting this week, from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Vern Burton Community Center gymnasium. They will run through Nov. 18.
Greg Halberg, who has extensive experience training youth, collegiate and professional athletes, will coach the sessions following the principles of Long Term Athletic Development.
Long Term Athletic Development has been adopted by numerous sport-governing bodies as a way to raise the athletic ceiling of young athletes as well as reduce overuse injuries and burnout.
One of the tenets of the development philosophy is that there are certain developmental windows as a child grows.
During specific phases of maturation, certain athletic qualities have the greatest potential to be enhanced. Missing that window of opportunity is difficult to make up.
Halberg said the North Olympic Track Club sessions will maximize those training windows.
“My experience working with collegiate and professional athletes is that the limiting factor in an athlete’s future is usually pure athleticism — speed, quickness, agility, power and body control,” Halberg said.
“These are very improvable qualities, especially in youth athletes given age-appropriate training.
“Our community has numerous high-quality opportunities in a variety of sports. My purpose in providing these training sessions is to supplement existing sport-skills opportunities with high-quality athletic performance training.
“Having said that, I would like to emphasize that the training itself is fun and entertaining, and [I] would like to especially reach out to youngsters who do not necessarily fit into traditional competitive sports.”
Vern Burton Community Center is located at 308 E. 4th St. in Port Angeles.
The cost for the full fall season is $100.
More information can be found at the North Olympic Track Club’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/NOTrackClub or by phoning Halberg at 360-477-3015.
Boys hoops tryouts
PORT ANGELES — Boys AAU basketball tryouts start today at Stevens Middle School.
The tryouts are today and Thursday from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. for boys in fourth through eighth grades.
There also will be tryouts Sunday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. for fourth- through sixth-graders, and 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. for seventh- and eighth-graders.
Potential players only need to attend one tryout but are encouraged to attend as many as possible.
The goal is to field two teams for each grade this season.
Third-graders may tryout for the fourth-grade team.
Stevens Middle School is at 1139 W. 14th St. in Port Angeles.
