For Release: May 16, 2012
Contact:
Jim Gosky 330.344.6083, jim.gosky@akrongeneral.org
Amy Kilgore 330.344.6014, amy.kilgore@akrongeneral.org
Akron General Health System’s Sports Performance Department, teaches area athletes how to be faster, stronger and more powerful.
Located within Akron General's Health & Wellness Centers in Stow, Bath and, soon, Green, Sports Performance in many ways is the area's best-kept athletic secret. The Sports Performance Department has been serving area athletes since 2007, training hundreds of athletes from a variety of sports, ages and levels.
"Regardless of sport or age, athletes need to be fast, strong, and powerful. These are the skills we teach every day," says Amanda Kephart, the facility's head coach. "We teach local athletes the same skills I taught my Division One athletes," says Kephart. "Linear speed, lateral speed, strength development and power improvement are all learnable skills that help athletes take their game to the next level."
Prior to Akron General Sports Performance, Kephart was a Division One Speed, Strength and Conditioning Coach at The University of Akron and The University of North Carolina, Greensboro.
The Sports Performance Department, which Akron General started because of the large number of young injured athletes whom their physical therapists were seeing, offers a year-round program with sessions available every day after school and on Saturday mornings. Sessions run for 90 minutes.
The program is built around teaching proper biomechanics and physics of speed and scientifically proven methods in strength and power development. This science-based approach yields great gains in athletes' 10-yard sprint, vertical jump, broad jump, and 5-10-5 tests, which are tested monthly.
Sports Performance receives many compliments from its clients. "Besides parents calling and telling us how much improvement they see in their children's/athletes' speed, strength and power," Kephart notes, "they also tell us how much fun their children are having."
For more information about the Sports Performance Department at Akron General, call 330-945-3150 or visit www.strengthcoachamanda.com. Sports Performance is also on Twitter, www.twitter.com/AkronGeneralSP.
About Akron General Health System
Akron General Health System is a not-for-profit healthcare organization with the mission of improving the health and lives of the people and communities we serve. Akron General Health System includes: Akron General Medical Center, a 511-bed teaching and research medical center, and Edwin Shaw Rehabilitation Institute, the area's largest provider of rehabilitation services; Akron General Partners, which includes Partners Physician Group, the Akron General Health & Wellness Centers, Lodi Community Hospital, Community Health Centers and other companies; Akron General Community Health Ventures, which includes Visiting Nurse Service and Affiliates, the largest and most comprehensive provider of home healthcare services in Ohio; and Akron General Development Foundation. Akron General has earned the prestigious National Research Corporation (NRC) Consumer Choice Award for 14 out of 16 years. Recently, Becker’s Hospital Review named Akron General Medical Center one of the nation’s top 100 hospitals. For more information about Akron General Health System, visit About Us.
