By Matt Wright
Two to three mornings a week you will hear the sound of metal clanging in the Lakeland Prep cafeteria. But that clanging is not from pots and pans in the kitchen, it’s the sound of dumbbells and barbells.
Coach Tyler White, the Head Coach for Lakeland football, has been leading a group of rising freshman and middle school athletes this summer in an effort to get stronger for Prep sports. With the addition of the new high school opening this fall to rising freshmen, Coach White thinks this is the perfect time to start preparing, even if the new weight rooms are not quite ready.
According to Coach White, over 100 Lakeland athletes, representing a variety of sports, have been getting up early this summer to lift weights in the school cafeteria. The cafeteria is being used as a temporary location with thick mats everywhere on the floor. The groups are divided into rising freshmen, middle school and female athletes. With that amount of athletes, multiple coaches have been there to help the students learn about lifting properly and meeting their strength goals. “Coach Boyd, Coach David White, Coach Welch, and Coach Cain have all been helping with this effort,” he said. He added that the need for stronger Lakeland athletes is vital saying, “I’m big on strength and conditioning. I think it’s crucial to our school having success.”
Lakeland Prep will have a full weight room and field house for all athletes and Coach White hopes all the equipment will be installed by the middle of July. “We hope we can start using it as soon as the building is turned over to us,” he said. Coach White said the weight room will be state of the art and an excellent training source for Lakeland students. “The weight room will have power racks and benches with a bar and an Olympic set of weights at each rack,” he said. “We will also have a full rack of dumbbells in each room and a full allotment of medicine balls, kettle bells, and plyo boxes. The field house weight room will also have a 20 yard long and 12 yard wide turf strip down the middle.”
Rising 9th grader Noah Lindsey has been lifting in the cafeteria this summer and he said he’s already seeing results while having fun. “The experience is super good. I love doing it with all of my friends and the coaches are good. They let us know when we do something wrong,” Noah said. “I feel like when I go everyday and put the work in I get stronger and it has shown off when we do our max lifts.”
“The buy in we’ve had so far has been unbelievable,” Coach White said. “It’s exciting.”
