YAP Training aims to fill a need for speed and strength training for teen athletes

Tim Harty, The Business Times

Grand Junction, you don’t have this, and you need it.

That’s what a couple former Colorado Mesa University football players – Jeremy Harrison and Jarrod Wyatt, from back in the program’s Mesa State College days – believe when it comes to serious strength and speed training for middle school and high school athletes in the Grand Valley.

So, they’re now ready to provide it with the opening this week of their Youth Athletic Performance (YAP) Center, 2893 North Ave. in Grand Junction. Oct. 13 was Day 1 for the facility after open houses on Oct. 8 and Oct. 11 gave potential clients a peek at the facility and an introduction to YAP Training.

The center will be staffed by certified coaches and utilize technology to help young athletes increase strength and speed.

Jenn Langford moved from North Carolina to be the facility manager, and her husband, Mitch Langford, a certified strength and conditioning coach, also will be the head coach. YAP Training begins with a staff of eight coaches, and Jenn Langford said that number will grow.

Langford said Wyatt lives in Cortez and has a “general-population gym” there, but he has a Youth Athletic Performance Center built into it.

“Jarrod and Jeremy wanted to bring that same performance center to the valley just because there isn’t anything else like it in the valley,” Langford said. “So they just wanted to make sure that there’s a performance center for middle school, high school athletes here.

“They just saw the needs. Since they both played college football here, they know the community a lot. They both don’t live here anymore, but they definitely know the community and just felt there was a need for a performance center.”

Most middle schools and high schools have facilities for their athletes to train, but Langford promises that doesn’t rival YAP Training.

To answer what is different, she started with the Stray Dog Strength equipment, calling it “very different.” Then, she said, “We also have a lot of technology. So, each rack that we have where each athlete is going to be working out, we’re going to have a (computer) tablet, and we have our own app within our facility. (Harrison) actually created that app himself. So, it’s very customizable.”

Using the tablet and app is going to allow the athletes to track their progress with precision.

“That’s the biggest thing that we’re going to have,” Langford said. “We have these Speed Gate systems that will also integrate into the app. We have what’s called a SHREDmill, which is also a speed system that will integrate into the app. And then we have the OVR system. It’s a velocity-based training system. That one doesn’t actually integrate into our app, but we can put what is going on in that system into our app itself.

“Each athlete during their workouts, they’re going to be putting in the app what weights they did that day, whatever their velocity was that day, so when we test them again, maybe in 12 weeks, in six months, they can see their progress.

“And it’s just really good visual feedback. We think kids nowadays really need that kind of visual feedback for what they’re doing.”

Each athlete will receive a wristband and can tap the tablet at a rack with the wristband, and it will call up the athlete’s profile. Then, they click on their workout for the day, and it will be displayed. 

“When they go ahead and put in all of their weights in the system, it’s just super easy to use,” Langford said. “Athletes are going to be able to see their weights and compare themselves to other high school or middle school athletes, kind of around the country.”

Langford said the words speed and velocity frequently when detailing YAP Training, and she explained why:

“The biggest things that we are training these athletes to do is to be faster. Speed is one of the biggest things that we are working on, strength obviously is huge, and then velocity. It’s just a velocity-based training, so it works on explosiveness for these athletes. … so when they use those systems, they get the automatic feedback from the OVR system that shows them how fast they’re working.”

YAP Training is for all athletes, male and female, regardless of sport, but there is one caveat.

“We’re just here for the athletes that are serious, that really want to take their training to the next level,” Langford said.

She said the coaching staff is diverse, “which is going to help with that diversity in sport.”

Langford then rattled off the backgrounds of those coaches, saying, “We have a CMU wrestler, female wrestler. We have a D1 college football player. He played at South Carolina. We have a CMU soccer player. We have a baseball player that played in Arkansas, I believe at a D2 (university). I cheered professionally in the NFL (for the Carolina Panthers). One of our coaches is also a USA weightlifter, so he does the Olympic lifts.”

As much as YAP Training is about making serious athletes better athletes, Langford emphasized the performance center is not just a training facility.

“We’re trying to change student athletes’ lives in this facility,” she said. “We want them to gain confidence in themselves, in their sport, but also in life. That’s what strength training does. That’s what speed training does. That’s what explosiveness does.

“And we want to create that culture within Grand Junction, because I don’t think this is being done anywhere else.”

MORE ABOUT YAP ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE CENTER

The Youth Athletic Performance Center, 2893 North Ave. in Grand Junction, is now open.

For more information, go online to yaptraining.com.

The website describes YAP Training this way:

“YAP Training exists to level the playing field. We’ve brought the exact same caliber of programming, equipment and expertise that elite college programs and pros use and made it accessible to middle school, high school and college athletes who are hungry enough to chase it.”