Year-round training at OMC aims to prevent injuries for athletes, law enforcement – Post Bulletin

ROCHESTER — On a Friday morning, a dozen middle school girls, outfitted in ice hockey gear, glide around the ice rink at the Rochester Recreation Center. The arena is cold, contrasting the hot July sun outside.

As they run drills, they’re not supervised by their school’s or youth league’s coaches. Olmsted Medical Center trainers are leading this practice.

It’s OMC’s first summer hosting hockey skills camps on actual ice, but since 2012, sports and athletic performance lead Wes Emmert and his team have conducted year-round strength and conditioning training for adults and youth. With extra daytime camps for hockey and weightlifting, summer is their busiest season.

“We’ll start at maybe 8:15 in the morning and go until 3:30 in the afternoon,” Emmert said.

These training sessions and sports camps have a larger purpose besides improving an athlete’s skills on the court, field or ice, Emmert said: injury prevention.

Maya Giron / Post Bulletin

“Most injuries happen either traumatic(ally), obviously, or they can happen at the end of a game or at the end of practice when there’s fatigue,” Emmert said. “The whole idea of strength and conditioning for athletes is to reduce the risk of injury.”

That can start as early as elementary school — OMC offers a “Speed for Sport” class for 8- to 12-year-olds that focuses on agility and speed. Young athletes are also the focus of the summertime “Learn to Lift” classes, in which they learn how to do various exercises correctly and safely.

“We train all the different components to make a good athlete,” Emmert said. “Not just a football player, not just a soccer player, not just a hockey player.”

Other programs are more sport-specific. At the girls’ hockey class, many of the drills focused on fine-tuning specific skills, such as using the inside and outside edges of their skates.

“(During the) season, your coach is not watching every single one of your footsteps,” said Olivia Smallbrock, an OMC strength and conditioning coach. “Slowing things down, in that aspect, and making them really dial in on the little things that will change their game.”

But the athletic performance team’s offerings — most of which are held at OMC’s Sports Medicine and Athletic Performance Center in northwest Rochester — aren’t limited to youth athletes.

“The other athlete that people aren’t aware of are called tactical athletes,” Emmert said. “The tactical athlete is law enforcement.”

Maya Giron / Post Bulletin

Athletic training for police officers, sheriff’s deputies and other first responders is a relatively new market for trainers and coaches, Emmert said. OMC partners with the Rochester Police Department and the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office to do trainer-led exercises.

“It can be a very sedentary job, and sometimes it can be very physical,” Emmert said. “They have to be ready to go from zero to 60 in seconds, and then to reduce the chance of injury.”

For all adults, Emmert and his colleagues lead “Open Express” gym classes at the sports medicine center. It’s complimentary for OMC employees; non-employees can train there, too, for a fee, like any other gym. For Emmert, those classes aren’t just about fitness — they also foster community.

“The nice thing about the Open Express, especially on Saturday mornings, (is) we really form a bond and become family,” Emmert said. “People come in the dead of winter, and we train and we just have a great time. After class, we’ll sit around and socialize and then move on with our day.”

Maya Giron / Post Bulletin

Maya Giron / Post Bulletin

Maya Giron / Post Bulletin