Testing finishes up with success!!

The last day of testing for the class of 2010 finished up earlier this afternoon. There was a big crowd for outside running of the 40's. It was a beautiful spring day in Maine with temps in the 80's. Like the times inside last week, there were some tremendous improvements from the fall.

Overall, the year finished up with guys getting bigger, faster, and stronger. We'll say goodbye to the class on Saturday and start thinking about the class of 2011, which will start the summer program at the end of May.

Weather ruins day 3

With a combination of rain on Wednesday and a very heavy wind today, not much testing happened. A couple of the guys tested in the max rep 225 bench press and a couple of guys tested on standing broad jump.

A few trends started to surface, however. We noticed that not many guys improved significantly in the power tests. Speed and agility tests were through the roof and maybe that was because of an increased emphasis on these throughout the spring.

It's back to the drawing board for next years class...

Surprises on day 2 of testing

In a day full of surprises, none was more significant than from an athlete who has been too busy for the SQA program.

As expected, the testing numbers from the SQA athletes was outstanding. Everyone testing in the 40 yard dash improved their numbers by at least a tenth of a second. Jake Lane and Viondy Merisma continued to show tremendous growth this spring with Lane posting a 5.04 at 275 pounds and Merisma running a 4.98 at 285 lbs.

Steve Goniprow (Barrington, RI) and Brian Wilcox (Jericho, VT) both turned in excellent times with Goniprow improving from 4.71 in the fall to 4.50 and Wilcox going from 4.62 in the fall to 4.47.

The biggest surprise of the day was turned in by Tad Gold (Oak Bluffs, MA) who decided to test because the baseball team had a rainout vs. Hebron. Having never run a 40 yard dash before, he blew away all preconceptions by turning in a school-best 4.30 on three separate runs. The hockey-baseball player then took a turn on the vertical jump test and jumped a very impressive 30.5 inches. He then followed us into the gym and ran a blistering 4.98 seconds in the 20 yard shuttle.

This coach was impressed and blown away by this display of athletic prowess. Tomorrow is bench press and standing long jump so check back for reports on that.

Exit testing all week

A week before the BA students get their final academic exams of the year, the Wolverine Strength program is doing its exit testing for the spring strength & conditioning programs. A group of 10 athletes came out for the first day of testing which measured the 20 yard shuttle and pullups.

9 out of the 10 showed a significant improvement from their testing numbers in the fall in the 20 yard shuttle. The day's top performer was John Moscatel (Lexington, MA) who set a blistering pace with three consistent performances of 4.03 seconds. This represented a 2-tenth of a second improvement from the fall. The most drastic improvement came in from Jake Lane (Harrison Valley, PA) who came in at 4.66, down from 5.28 in August.

For pullups, the days top performer was Ethan Barnes (New Bedford, MA) who knocked out 28 pullups. The most impressive performance in this test came from Viondy Merisma (Waltham, MA) who did 10 pullups at 285 lbs.

Coach Sawicki to present

On Saturday, April 24th, Athletic Trainer/S&C Coach Joe Sawicki will be presenting at the Maine NSCA conference at the Portland campus of the University of New England. The title of his presentation is "Developing the College-Ready Athlete" and focuses on trends that separate the typical high-school athlete versus the college-ready athlete. For more information contact Coach Sawicki at jsawicki@bridgtonacademy.org

SQA program hits record number of participants

A program that was once a throw-in activity for a few football players each spring has blossomed into a vital part of the athletic development program. This spring, the SQA program is reaching nearly half the student body. It has become a key supplement to the spring workouts for all our programs. The spring SQA program is currently following the schedule below:

Football: Tuesday-Agility and lateral speed, Thursday-Straight ahead speed
Soccer: Tuesday-Footwork and speed, Thursday-Power development
Hockey: Monday-Footwork and footspeed, Wednesday-Power development

Wolverine Strength kickoff!

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Wolverine Strength blog. I've been toying around with the idea of doing this for a while. Last week I was at the Perform Better Clinic in Boston and I realized that we might be the only organization without a blog. So here we go! I am sure we have plenty of activity to report on so check back regularly!

-Coach Sawicki