IMG Academies

It's been quite a while since I've been on a field trip. Over two and a half years to be precise. But last Thursday morning, our 20-person class boarded a 56-person charter bus and went to IMG Academies in Bradenton, Florida, with Captain "Yo guys check it out" Brian as our fearless driver.

IMG is a training and educational facility for both youth and professional athletes. It has training facilities for tennis, golf, baseball, basketball, soccer and other sports. At IMG they also help athletes with general performance and mental conditioning.

We had speakers talk with us about performing under pressure, proper nutrition and got hands on training with Steve and Blair, two former actors who help athletes by honing their communication skills with improvisation activities. This is supposed to make athletes more comfortable with social and professional interaction.

Another part of our tour was a workout led by one of IMG's performance trainers for the entertainment of many of IMG's trainees. We did lots of lateral bounds, skips and gallops, reminiscent of my days as a high school lacrosse player. And when I say reminiscent of those days, I mean I hadn't done exercises like that since those days. Needless to say the next day, when I swung my legs down to get out of my bed, I almost yelled out in pain. I guess I didn't realize the consequences of using muscles that I hadn't used in almost three years. But I liked the workout, I miss exercising like that. Almost makes me want to join a club sport. Almost.