Four ASU East graduate students in the Exercise and Wellness Program are getting hands-on experience in a new sport conditioning program established this year to train, test and monitor Chandler-Gilbert Community College athletes.
Sport Conditioning Program assistant director Mark Peterson works with graduate students Kelby Klosterman, Daniel Dodd and Ben Brown. They are all responsible for creating, implementing and monitoring a unique training plan for each of the men's and women's soccer, basketball, baseball and volleyball teams at CGCC.
Sport Conditioning is now officially part of the CGCC athletic program and is under the guidance and supervision of Brent Alvar, wellness faculty of the CGCC and assistant research professor in the department of exercise and wellness at ASU East.
"We do a 'needs analysis' for each sport," Peterson said. "Strength, power, aerobic capacity and agility are some of the things we look at.
"Based on research, we create a custom training plan for each team and even each student," he added.
Alvar said the Strength and Conditioning Program is a collaborative effort between CGCC and ASU. He added that the community college is partially funding the graduate students in their pursuit of advanced degrees.
"We're led really well, and Mark is covering all the bases," said Brown, whose focus is on the stretching and flexing aspects of the conditioning process.
Dodd, who received a bachelor's degree from Edith Cowen University in Australia, is focusing on building the athletes' power. Klosterman focuses on strength, determining the number of sets each athlete should do.
"We all have a say [in any decisions] and the coaches give us freedom as well," Dodd said.
Peterson said the students are working on gaining the trust of the athletes and coaches because the program is in its first year.
"We have to be careful because when [athletes] are in season, they are already working so hard. We don't want them to get injured," said Peterson. "But when they are out of season, the training is intensive to keep them in shape."
The trainers spend about one or two hours a day with each team, depending on whether or not the sport is in season.
Allison Carrol, a freshman on the volleyball team at CGCC, has been training mostly under Peterson and Klosterman.
"It's important to train, and they focus on what we need to work on," she said. "They make [training] specific to the movements in our sport."
When asked about how strenuous the current conditioning program is, Janalyn Garcia, also a freshman on the volleyball team, said, "We are working on improving, but not burning out because we are in season and playing about two games a week."
Reach the reporter at erika.camardella@asu.edu.
