Avery McFaddin
Avery McFaddin is our athlete of the month for June. She’s a rising senior at Starr’s Mill High School. She swims for SCAT and has verbally committed to swim for the University of Pittsburgh in the Fall of 2021.
She’s got an incredible work ethic and drive. Her parents, Will and Kendall McFaddin weigh in on the training experience at goperformance. Avery shares her point of view and in this month’s post, Coach Treon shares what it’s like to train an athlete like Avery.
From Will and Kendall:
Avery has trained with goperformance for several years. What made you decide to go ahead with one on one training for her? She has always really enjoyed training at goperformance. We felt like the individual focus would ultimately push her more and enable her to work on specific things for the events she competes in.
What difference have you noticed in Avery since training with Treon? She has developed really good form and gotten considerably stronger. This strength has translated to faster and more powerful starts and turns in the pool.
How does what we do here at goperformance supplement what she does with her Swim Team? The strength-based training that she gets at goperformance complements her time in the pool at practice, where she focuses more on cardiovascular endurance and stroke specific work. This helps her to be a stronger and more efficient sprinter.
Describe the environment at goperformance? goperformance has an extremely supportive, yet challenging environment. The trainers are all very positive and knowledgeable. They have really helped Avery work towards her goal of getting stronger and dropping time in her sprint events.
From AVERY:
Since I started training with Treon, my strength and power have improved drastically in the pool. I am able to attack the water in sprints and push off of the wall harder at each turn. Training with Treon has given me an edge over my competition because of the combination of being able to move my muscles faster and pull and kick more water in the sprint events. My performance goals in the gym for the next few months are to continue to get stronger and build more muscular endurance so that I am able to finish the 100 yard races with the same speed and power as the 50 yard races. My training sessions with Treon are both fun and challenging. Treon knows how to push me beyond what I think I can do, but he also knows when I have had hard swim practices and may need more rest. It also helps that we both love cleans and snatches! I love the community at goperformance. Everyone is friendly and it feels like a big gym family. Even though I don’t go to a class, it is hard to go to the gym without seeing someone I know from only the gym. I chose to commit to swim for Pitt because of the amazing coaching staff, the city, the academics, and because I can see myself improving the most with how their sprinters train.
From COACH TREON:
Her overall strength has really improved since I’ve been working with her. Avery has the best hang-cleans in the building. She’s gone from 120 pounds on her hang cleans to 145 pounds. Her snatch is great too; she’s worked up to 105 pounds. We’ve been working on jumps during her sessions. Her broad jump has improved more than 12 inches. Her box jump has increased from 32 inches to 36 inches.
The main focus with our program has been to balance out her left side so it is as strong as her right side. In addition to that we’ve been focusing on increasing her power so that she’s got more power to get off the wall and more explosive on her turns in the pool.
I enjoy training Avery because she’s awesome! Avery comes in the gym ready to work hard. She walks in and says “What are we going to do today?” She is always smiling even when I am putting her through a tough workout. All athletes should take weight lifting more seriously like Avery. Many don’t see the value in it. Only the upper level swimmers like Avery know what it translates to in the water. She’s the type of person that every coach wants to train.