The Fair Grove athletes who are not participating in winter sports have started an after school weights and conditioning program to help their performances in their upcoming seasons. The program takes place Monday, Wednesday, and Thursdays after school and lasts approximately an hour. The program is for anybody in 7th through 12th grade.
The program is designed to give students an opportunity to workout by lifting weights, doing various agility and core exercises. Coach Bill Voorhis runs the junior high program which has about 48 students attending, and Coach Ryan Buffington is in charge of the High School program which has 37 students attending. Voorhis stated the purposes for the program is to keep building the “One School, One Team” philosophy and to stay ahead in the sports that aren’t currently in season. Macey Stallings (10) stated, “I participate in off season weights because it helps me get faster and stronger and also helps me prepare for soccer in the spring.”
The junior high students and high school students who don’t have a weights class during the day go into the weight room after school and participate in various weight lifting activities to help them get stronger. Students that have a weights class or have participated in weightlifting exercises during the day go and participate in agility exercises with Coach Buffington. Noah Sandridge (11) stated, “The off season program helps me get better as an athlete, but it also helps me build chemistry with my teammates.”
The thought behind the program was to give athletes an extra opportunity to get a head start to their upcoming seasons. “We saw how other schools have had success by doing an off season program so that’s why we started ours, and I think the work will show come spring and next fall,” Sandridge explained. The offseason program continues all the way until the beginning of the spring sport season.