Athletic Lab

As we enter into this special season of thanksgiving, we would like to thank all our clients and supporters for trusting Athletic Lab with your health, fitness and athletic performance needs. Without your support and business we wouldn’t be where we are today. We know that you have many options for places to train and we are grateful that you have placed your confidence and trust with us. Thank you and we look forward to providing you with the best possible sport performance and fitness services for years to come. Happy Thanksgiving!

Professional Soccer Player and Carolina Railhawk Tony McManus had the following to say about Athletic Lab:

As a professional soccer player of 9 years I have found that the development of an athlete’s speed is one of the most important things that players can have and most spend too little time developing it. At the professional level the technical ability of a player is a given, but the thing that separates good professionals from great ones is the speed of their feet and play. I work very hard at my strength and speed at Athletic Lab to develop and continue to learn new skills and techniques which is one of the reasons I have been able to last as long and be as successful as I have been thus far. I feel that Athletic Lab is the ideal facility to continue to train and hone my strength and speed during the season and the off season because of all the tools available to you there. You have a very knowledgeable staff prepared to offer advice and expertise that will help guide me when I am training specifically for soccer, large open spaces to work on speed and agility drills, and fixed and free weight areas that make it easy to do multi-movement workouts which are key in my training. In addition they have all the latest kettle bell, medicine balls, and elastic bands that are very important in specialized training. As I get older one of the first things to go is your speed, so in order for me to continue to stay relevant and able to keep up with players who are 10+ years younger I must work very hard during the season and off season to develop new training techniques to keep and improve my speed and agility and I have found that Mike Young specifically has the knowledge and experience with professionals of all backgrounds to help me to improve and develop these key areas of my game and training. Since I have started working out at Athletic Lab I have noticed the difference in the way my body continues to improve through the speed and strength training. I highly recommend this facility and the staff to high level athletes and even people who are just interested in keeping their bodies fit and in shape through the various workouts they have available like crossfit or more personalized ones from the training staff. As long as I am walking and staying fit and active and in the Raleigh area Athletic Lab is my gym!

Thanks for the kind words Tony!

In celebration of the Thanksgiving Holiday we will be special holiday hours on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Please note the following changes:

• Wednesday: 6pm and 7pm classes are cancelled
• Thursday: Special 9:30 am 2nd Annual Thanksgiving Day Workout (all members are welcome…and bring a friend or family member for free). We’ll have coffee and healthy snacks for after the workout
• Friday: CrossFit @ 8am and 5:30pm; Scholastic Training @ Noon
• Saturday: Scholastic & CrossFit @ 11am; Special Skills Clinic [Power Clean] @ 12:30

By popular demand, Athletic Lab will be offering special skills clinics several times a month. The intent of these clinics will be to provide specific hands-on instruction on a difficult skill. The clinics will be open to the general public but members will receive a preferred rate for the class. In each class we will spend an entire hour focusing on the progressions and fundamentals necessary to master a difficult skill. If you have an idea for skills that you’d like to see addressed please let a staff member know.

Our first skills clinic will be focused on the power clean and will take place on Saturday November 26th. If you want to immediately improve your performance on this lift, learn why we favor certain body positions, understand the benefits of this great lift, or just bring yourself up to speed with your peers, then this is the class for you. Members can register for this clinic for an additional $10 fee. Non-members may enroll for $20. Improve your power clean today! Register HERE.

Athletic Lab is pleased to announce a special speed school in December focusing on the unique needs of Masters athletes (those aged 30+). The speed school will be specifically designed to enhance the straight-ahead speed of masters athletes competing in track and field. The class will develop correct acceleration and sprinting mechanics, and train the athlete to be stronger, faster and more powerful. The school begins on Monday December 5th and extends until December 19th with sessions on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of those two weeks. The class structure and at least half of the classes will be lead by Dr. Mike Young who has coached athletes ranging from high school to elite to masters to the national or international level. At the masters level, Mike has coached 4 national champions in the sport of track and field and one masters World Champion. The cost of the school is $199.95. Athletes can register HERE.

Athletic Lab will be hosting our first annual Pre Thanksgiving Day Pot Luck Feast on Saturday, November 19th at 1:00pm. Friends and family members are welcome to attend.  We will be posting a sign up sheet for those who are interested in attending and what you would like to bring.  We will be providing Turkey and Ham so don’t worry about that.  There will also be games and challenges for everyone! We look forward to chowing down with you there soon!

At the end of December, Athletic Lab will be giving away a 42” Flat Screen TV to the client who refers the most clients to us (and who sign up for a membership).

Here are the rules of the contest:

• The member with the most “referral points” will be declared the winner of the contest.
• In the event of a “referral point” tie, the tie will be broken based on the number of people referred; with the member having the most referred signups declared the winner.
• The TV will be delivered no later than 2 weeks after the conclusion of the contest (pending manufacturer equipment availability).
• The eligible window for referrals is from November, 1st 2011 to December, 16th 2011. 
• Remember there are no losers! Every referral for someone who signs up for a monthly membership gets you 50 dollars!  Punch Card referrals are worth 25 dollars.

Clients may earn “referral points” as follows:

• Referrals who sign up for a Monthly Unlimited membership (either Scholastic or CrossFit) will earn 2 points toward the contest;
• Referrals who sign up for any other membership option will earn 1 point towards the contest.
• Referral credit for a new person can only be given to one member. In the event of a dispute, the referred signup will be asked for the member who most influenced them

If you haven’t seen it already, pick up the latest issue of Cary Magazine. In it, you’ll find a great feature story on one of our athletes and some-time trainer, Chris Hoina. Chris is training hard to be a member of the 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams in the sport of skeleton. When Chris is not at the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, NY hurtling himself down a mile-long track at 80mph, he’s one of the most regular faces in Athletic Lab. In fact, he’s the only athlete who’s participated in 4 of our training programs (Elite Olympic development, Olympic weightlifting, speed camp, and CrossFit) so many of you know him. If you’re interested in supporting Chris’s Olympic dreams you can donate here and follow his journey on his blog. In the meantime, check out this great snippet from the article:

Hoina found a speed camp at Cary’s Athletic Lab teaching the basics of sprinting mechanics. While it was exactly what he needed, he was a bit out of place.

“I was 26 or 27 and the mean age was about 11,” he said.

As if by fortune, the coach of the sprint camp was Mike Young, PhD, a nationally renowned athletic development expert who had himself trained on the skeleton development team.

“What are the chances that I find this guy who’s a doctor, who’s living five minutes away from my house, who did the same thing that I’m trying to do, and is one of the most qualified guys in the country, hands down?” Hoina asked.

After the camp, Young invited Hoina to join the Human Performance Consulting Elite team to train with other world-class athletes competing at professional levels. After months of grueling training, Hoina tried out for the Skeleton Olympic National Development Team, and made the cut.

One of the many things that differentiates Athletic Lab from other training centers is our holistic and comprehensive approach to human performance. We recognize that performance is the outcome of a myriad of factors including the physical (strength, speed, mobility, endurance, and coordination), psychological, and lifestyle (rest, nutrition, etc). One of the biggest limiters of performance for an athlete training on the edge is an unexpected injury. This is why we have aligned ourselves with several of the top medical and sports medicine professionals in the Triangle. It’s also why we have an in-house therapist, Julie Donnelly, who is an internationally renowned clinician, author, and instructor. Julie is great for treating (and teaching you how to treat) day to day aches and pains, fixing long standing problems, and even limiting the likelihood of bigger injuries. Julie has developed her own therapy technique known as Julstro for addressing Trigger points that limit performance and may eventually lead to an injury. You can learn more about Trigger Point Therapy in this informative blog from our friends at My Athletic Life. You can find more about Julie at her business website.

Tomorrow (November 7) is our 3rd monthly fitness challenge. The challenge will be held at the 6pm CrossFit / Performance Fitness session on the first Monday of every month. All members (Scholastic, CrossFit / Performance Fitness, and Elites) are welcome to attend.

What’s the Challenge? What’s at stake?

Members will complete a workout challenge against one of the members of our staff. If ANY member in the class should beat the staff member, the ENTIRE class will receive 10% off their next month’s membership and the winning member will receive 20% off. Class size will be limited to 12 with slots reserved for those that RSVP via our online membership manager.