Christiansburg High School athletes now have a much larger and more equipped weight room to put to good use in preparation of their current and upcoming seasons. Expansion into a space near the school’s wood working shop has tripled the size of a former location.
Christiansburg High School athletes now have a better place to lift weights. Last month, school officials opened a new spacey weight room that almost triples the size of its old facility, going from 900 to 2,400 square feet.
Principal Tony Deibler is excited about the changes.
“We are adding four more squat racks with bars and plates, a rack of dumbbells, kettle bells and some suspension trainers. We are looking at adding some exercise bikes and a few other items after we get the initial items in, and we want to move forward incrementally with input and financial support of some of the booster clubs,” he said.
The old weight room was prohibitive for team workouts and class activities, simply because it was so small and cramped. Now all of that will change.
“We anticipate multiple teams using it at the same time for varying activities, and we have installed a turf strip to do some additional agility drills and other training requiring an open space,” Deibler said.
All of this comes as good news for new football coach, Alex Wilkens who was the strength coach at Glenvar before taking the Christiansburg job. He said the new weight room space has been incredible.
“We, unfortunately, were only able to lift with rising seniors and juniors for the first month due to lack of space. We have now been able to open up the weight room to all grade levels, and our numbers have grown every day,” he said. “We do not have all of our new equipment yet, so we are still hamstrung with lack of resources in that sense. Because of that we have groups of 4-5 kids at each station and that makes the workouts go slower than what we would like. We hope to have the new equipment in the next couple weeks and at that time we will be up in full force.”
Wilkens said the additional equipment and space would build for the future.
“I think there is a direct correlation between weight room resources and team success. I think you can look at football teams and the product they put on the field on Friday nights and see which ones have a majority of their kids spending time together in the weight room. I think that some teams are capable of being athletic due to clientele without weight room emphasis. I find it very rare to see a team that is physical without this emphasis,” he said.
“I think there is a direct correlation between weight room resources and team success. I think you can look at football teams and the product they put on the field on Friday nights and see which ones have a majority of their kids spending time together in the weight room. I think that some teams are capable of being athletic due to clientele without weight room emphasis. I find it very rare to see a team that is physical without this emphasis,” he said.
The new coach believes this addition will help to make everyone more physical and athletic.
“When you can put those two things together, get a vast majority of buy-in from your athletes, that is when you have a special team and organization. But more than anything, I think it allows you to field a team that is more invested, plays with more togetherness, and plays with more discipline. Those things equate to success,” he said.
Deibler agreed. “This new space, coupled with the additional equipment, should really strengthen our overall athletics program. Regardless of the sport, it should be used regularly in season and out of season by athletes and teams to prepare them for success on the court, field and track,” he said.
Several physical education classes are using the weight room on a regular basis, and Deibler said next year, the advanced PE classes will focus on strength and conditioning. Additionally, the 9th and tenth grade PE classes will have strength and conditioning options.
“The weight room will not simply be for after-school athletic teams to use. It will be used throughout the day every day,” Deibler said.
