Sean Harrison was looking for an edge.
With concerns about injuries affecting the Heritage Academy football team’s depth this season, Harrison wanted something to help his players get in the best shape possible for the 2017 campaign.
Beth Jeffers was more than willing to help him.
Jeffers, who owns the Fitness Factor, a gym in Columbus, did such a good job with the functional training workouts she designed for Heritage Academy’s football and boys basketball players that she may be persona non grata at the school’s weight room.
“The workouts at the Fitness Factor were driving,” Heritage Academy sophomore wide receiver/cornerback Jared Long said. “They are going to get the best out of you. Our stamina is going to have to be a big issue because we’re going to have to play a lot of minutes. Fitness Factor definitely helped us with that.
“She makes sure you walk out of there without an ounce of energy left in you. That is really going to help us in the long run.”
Heritage Academy started training with Jeffers the last week of May and worked out with her once a week for an hour up until late last month when Mississippi Association of Independent School teams could begin football practice. Harrison said Jeffers will continue to work with his players on strengthening their cores and stretching. He said the workouts will complement the training the football players will do in the school’s weight room.
“It was a shock to a lot of their bodies the stuff they were doing and working muscles that hadn’t been worked before,” Harrison said. “It was a good deal. A lot of them couldn’t hardly do a plank for 30 seconds. She had them doing them for two minutes by the time they got done. In the weight room I have seen results, and I am anxious to see them on the field.”
Harrison credited assistant football coach Toby Lott for helping set up the workouts with Jeffers. Lott goes to church with Jeffers, who said she talked with Lott about things she could do with the football players to prepare them for a marathon of a season. Jeffers said she was more than willing to assist, so she designed a workout for 30 participants with 10-12 stations that featured high-intensity interval training. She said her goals were to improve the players’ agility and footwork and to help them build more power and to strengthen their cores.
“Most people think core is abdominal, but core is super important for your hips and back as well as your abdominal area,” Jeffers said. “A lot of these movements are called functional movements because they can do them in a game setting. They’re going to use their core to be able to stabilize their body when they get hit.”
Jeffers said she encouraged the Patriots to give maximum effort for the periods of activity, which ranged from 30-45 seconds. The student-athletes had short recovery periods and then repeated the movements or went to other stations, like stepping through a ladder, jumping onto a box, holding their body in the shape of a plank, using their arms to make a rope do a wave motion, and manipulating a medicine ball. The plank is done from a pushup position on the floor. You bend your elbows at 90 degrees and rest your weight on your forearms. Your elbows should be directly beneath your shoulders, and your body should form a straight line from your head to your feet. Hold the position for as long as you can.
“I think the workouts at Fitness Factor will help us because they’re more cardio workouts, and we really needed that,” senior center/outside linebacker John Henry Fields said. “It got us into shape. She definitely whooped us where we needed to get us stronger in those areas we needed to be.”
Jeffers said anyone can do the exercises because their benefits can help prevent injuries. She said the high-intensity interval training also is appealing because it doesn’t take a lot of time and pushes participants to give 100 percent. All of the Patriots who talked about their experiences at the Fitness Factor said the workouts pushed them to the limit.
“I feel the Fitness Factor workouts really got us some good endurance, something we can’t really get in the weight room,” senior wide receiver/safety Dalton Alexander said. “It was more body and core stuff. I feel that will help us for the long season.”
Said senior running back/safety Dontae Gray, “The Fitness Factor workouts helped us to condition since we’re going both ways and we have a limited number of people. It helped us mentally. It helped our mental strength to push through and to finish the workout.”
Harrison hopes to see the first benefits from the workouts tonight when his team travels to Pillow Academy for its first preseason action. The team also will travel to Jackson Academy before it faces Kirk Academy in its season opener Friday, Aug. 18, in Grenada. Everything he has seen has convinced him to do the workouts again in the spring.
“It all kind of came up last year and we just couldn’t make it work time wise and things like that,” Harrison said. “I think especially when you have limited numbers like we do you have to find something to give you an edge. Sometimes that is a risk and it doesn’t work and sometimes it does, so I am always interested in branching out and trying new things.
“I don’t think this was much of a risk. I think it has helped us big time as far as flexibility, core, and speed. I think it was a really good deal. I think the biggest thing they provided us is they have equipment we don’t have to do exercises we may want to do here but we can’t. I think having a different voice — we still coached them up — but having somebody else running the workout, they responded to it.
“I don’t think they liked it, but I think they understood it was working muscles they weren’t working here, and I think they appreciated it.”
Jeffers is excited to continue to work with Harrison and the Patriots. As a former girls basketball coach at the school, Jeffers understands the difficulties coaches face and knows it can be tough to find new ways to get their players in top shape for the start of a new season. She hopes the functional training, stretching, and core work provide the edge the Patriots need.
“I applaud (Harrison) for trying something different,” Jeffers said. “The conditioning part of coaching is not the most fun part of coaching. Coaching is the most fun. … A lot of times it is easy for a coach to just pull out the same preseason workouts they have done year after year after year. I applaud him for trying something different because a lot of times it is hard to step out and try something different. … It makes us feel good that we were able to help them and the kids saw that it wasn’t easy.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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