IST CrossFit Resumes In-Person Training With Youth Athletes

IST is following the safety guidelines from the state of having no more than nine youth athletes in the gym with one coach leading them through the workouts. 

DULUTH, Minn. – After two weeks of virtual workouts, Impact Sports Training (IST CrossFit) is back in the gym.

“Now that we can get outside and offer outdoor workouts as well as the indoor sessions, it’s nice to have that face to face contact,” owner and director of Performance Chris Bell said.

“It’s less of a mental struggle being back in the gym, having the coaches push you instead of having to push yourself through every rep on your own at home, so it’s really nice to be back,” former Duluth East soccer player Hailey Coda said.

“The last week of May, we were in contact with the Minnesota Department of Health and we received verbal and written permission from them, kind of a special circumstance, to work with youth athletes again in our gym,” Bell added.

IST is following the safety guidelines from the state of having no more than nine athletes in the gym with one coach leading them through the workouts.

“The only difference is the social distancing, maybe the structure of the workout, the exercise plan and some of the things we do to achieve social distancing. Disinfecting, we’re not sharing equipment or anything like that, we’re not doing any competitive type drills,” Bell said.

Athletes had to pick a time slot to train during and cannot attend any other session to limit mixing with too many people.

“Their sphere of contact here is these nine other people. If they attend another session, now it goes from their nine people and doubles it to 18,” Bell said.

While the setup is slightly different, the workouts are mostly the same.

“Normally when you first start coming back if you take a break from IST for your sport season, you come back and you ease into things because you don’t want to be super sore this week so that’s what we kind of did this week,” Coda said.

As IST looks ahead to high school and other outdoor training opportunities, both the athletes and trainers are glad to be getting back to work.

“It’s kind of getting you used to being back in that sport setting, that competitive setting. Even though we’re all here to support each other, we all kind Especially missing out on that spring season, not being as fit during this spring even with the virtual workouts, it’s even more important to be back in here,” Coda said.