Trinity alums helping athletes with new High Intensity Training program

• Zach Kubas

Press Photo by Dustin Monke Zach Kubas, who will be a freshman at Dickinson Trinity in the fall, throws heavy rope during his Thursday afternoon H.I.T. Program workout at Knights of Columbus Activities Center. Kubas and other athletes are training to increase speed, agility and strength through the program.

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• H.I.T. Program video

Zach Kubas is already a big boy.

The 6-foot-3, 212-pound soon-to-be freshman at Dickinson Trinity seems to be getting bigger every day.

Soon, he hopes to play football for the Titans’ varsity football team. But, Kubas said he can’t do that if he isn’t getting faster and stronger.

That’s where the H.I.T. Program comes in.

“It’s completely different every day,” Kubas said. “You won’t be doing the same stuff for more than two days — if at all. You’ll be doing cardio one day and then one day you’ll do a little bit easier stuff.

“You can’t just go crazy intense all the time or else your body is going to be exhausted. You won’t be able to do anything anymore.”

The High Intensity Training (H.I.T.) Program is an eight-week, 24-session athletic training cycle emphasizing speed, agility, quickness, power training and nutrition. It was started this year by a pair of Trinity High School graduates, Joe Champa and Kevin Poswilko.

Champa, a certified personal trainer and licensed registered dietician, said as the program’s first summer comes to a close, the athletes who have been involved with the H.I.T. Program have seen positive results.

“There’s kind of a mindset that I want to get in the kids,” Champa said. “We have a progressive protocol throughout the entire program, to prepare you and help you get into the more intense part of the program. From there, you can see a lot of the sport-specific drills are going to help with basketball, football, volleyball.”

Athletes said they’ve seen improvement in strength, leaping ability, footwork and agility throughout the summer.

Alyson Schieno, a senior-to-be at Trinity who was a standout for the Titan’ volleyball team last fall, has battled her share of athletic injuries but said she has felt improvement this summer thanks to the program.

“It really helps get stronger and it’s going to help get faster, just to help with sports,” she said. “It’s going to help a lot.”

Champa said the program isn’t about weight training, nor is it just about plyometrics or cardio. It’s purpose is to balance all aspects of athletic training while also teaching the science of nutrition, which he believes is an aspect of training overlooked by most teenage athletes.

“We try and set ourselves apart from any other training or conditioning program out there,” Champa said. “We feel that that (nutrition) is at least half of the key to get there. It’s amazing how much nutrition will do, especially after your workouts.”

Brett Mortenson, a 6-foot-2, 220-pound Trinity sophomore who hopes to compete for time as a lineman on the football team this fall, said he has witnessed improvement in his footwork and agility and enjoys the CrossFit portion of the program, where athletes work to improve their strength in several exhausting, yet entertaining ways, such as flipping large tractor tires.

“You’re working out the fun way,” Mortenson said. “You’re not going to be working out just lifting all the time. You’re outside half the time. It’s another important part when you’re working out different parts of your body.”

Several Trinity athletes and much of the Dickinson High boys hockey team have been enrolled in the H.I.T. Program, which began June 4 and concludes at the end of July.

Champa said he hopes to grow the program in the future and expand beyond Dickinson.

“I want to continue and I want to try and spread it out into the western part of the state,” he said. “The nice thing about what we do is we can tailor the program to any gym.”

Tags: h.i.t. program, hit program, trinity titans, joe champa, athletic training, preps