Is “working out” enough to stay healthy and active? In short, NO! There is so much more to having a long, successful, and healthy active lifestyle. 

Did you know, there are approximately 12 million student athletes in America. Those athletes miss approximately 2 days of school annually because of injuries, costing their families an estimated $448 million dollars.  In addition to the financial burden, “[sports] injury is one of the strongest risk factor for mental health issues in athletes.“ Sending our children to a sport without proper physical and mental healthcare professionals is a recipe for failure, fatigue and depression. Investing in proper support for your child’s athletic training can save you in more ways than you could have imagined.

EVO’s primary goal is to help athletes stay happy and healthy and prevent injuries.  Therefore, we’ve invested so much into partnering with CORA physical therapy, providing our families the only multi-sport youth athletic facility in the area with an in-house athletic trainer. 

CORA’s mission is keeping athletes in their games and to do that, our athletic trainer has developed a unique set of preventative injury workouts specific to the type of injuries most commonly seen in gymnastics, cheer, volleyball and ninja warrior. Ankle sprains are one of the most common sustained injuries by gymnasts, lower back pain is more common in cheerleaders and knee injuries in volleyball players. Our athletic trainer works with coaches, athletes, and parents to target these areas with short fun workouts. The workouts are scheduled weekly or daily and are constantly revised for the best interest of the athletes and teams. While everyone in EVO’s family has complimentary access to CORA’s diverse benefits, our team athletes have these preventative injury workouts included in their monthly tuition. 

These workouts also give our awesome athletic trainer the opportunity to check in with the athletes’ mental health. “Young athletes competing at national and international levels, anxiety and depression were 20% to 45%” higher than other youth of the same ages.   Mental and physical health go hand in hand and often, when one lacks, they both lack. After injuries, athletes can feel down. They are accustom to the positive endorphins released during success in their sport and when that gets abruptly taken away, their mental health can suffer.  Open conversations with teams during workouts can cue our athletic trainer to under lying issues that can then be brought to their parents and additional healthcare providers. Our trainer is also able to keep injured athletes participating along side their regular teams with modified workouts, a key factor in mental wellness post injury. 

At EVO, we believe that investing in our families’ long-term health and wellness with our partnership with CORA Physical Therapy is priceless. We are the only gym in the area with a full time in-house athletic trainer which brings our families so many benefits!  

• Immediate injury evaluation
• Reduced treatment costs
• No more travel to another facility for basic physical therapy
• No more calling out of work or school for appointments
• Daily access to taping, heat, ice, Astym and cupping therapies
• Easy access to assessment during mild nuances to prevent them from becoming huge problems
• Injury prevention workouts for all team athletes
• Complimentary assessments for all family members (Did you wake up with a kink in your neck? Stop by their office and let our athletic trainer check it out!
• Mental wellness check-ins
• The list of benefits is endless!

In conclusion, repeating skills and lifting weights is not a well rounded athletic plan. Including sports specific preventative injury maintenance and mental wellness checks are key to a long and healthy active lifestyle.

Check out this video for a free preventative injury ankle workout.  Repeat each exercise on both feet 10 times each for 3 sets.  

 

EVO is very excited to be growing and welcoming so many new faces to our coaching staff!  Our programs are growing and we are committed to giving our athletes the most elite training opportunities possible.  If you see one of these new coaches around, say HI!

Kiril Vorona was honored with the award of  Florida Optional Coach of the Year by USA Gymnastics.  He was a Florida and Region 8 elite team staff member. He coached Level 10 state, regional and national champions as well as P&G qualifiers.  Some of his athletes have received collegiate scholarships to Minnesota, Berkeley, and Stanford.

Ian Bullard has been a head coach at North Florida Gymnastics with consistent All-Around state and regional champions as well as Future Star state and regional champions. He had four level 6 gymnasts make the Regional Development team last year and he was nominated for Florida Coach of the Year.

Tammy Armstrong has been coaching gymnastics for 30 years!  She’s worked in recreational, preschool, and competitive men’s and women’s programs.  She said her favorite part about coaching is introducing kids to the greatest sport around – gymnastics!

Summer Armstrong is, as you can guess, Tammy’s daughter!  Summer grew up in a gymnastics gym and is starting her 4th year of coaching the sport. She says “being able to show kids how much fun gymnastics can be is something I am grateful for.”

Matt Krames has has a diverse background in competitive sports. He competed in elite gymnastics for 7 years as a youth, joined the competitive diving team in high school and then moved into cheerleading while attending the University of Iowa.  Matt continues to hold his high school’s highest diving record!

Rosbie Thompson competed in all star cheerleading for 5 years prior to his collegiate experience at Florida Gulf Coast University.  There he founded a competitive cheer club and competed at the NCA College Nationals. He has since been coaching for the past 3 years and just recently started a teaching career at Palmetto High School.