Move Mountains 2018
On behalf of the Edge School Society Board, Foundation Board, and Parent Council, thank you to Edge students, alumni, families, supporters and staff for helping us raise $87,504! A special thank you to our Move Mountains 2018 matching donors, Tim Harvie and his family, the Kyle Stuart Memorial Foundation, the Bean Family, and the Unruh family. In recognition of the outstanding support from our community, each donor provided $12,500 matching donation for their Mountain Team!
The support of generous donors has helped us build a special place for student-athlete development and the education of young leaders.
The impact of your donations
Through the funds raised with the 2018 Move Mountains campaign, the Duckett Performance Centre (DPC) received a major boost in equipment and technology. Below are the main items added to the DPC as a result of the generous donations made to the Move Mountains campaign.
Force Plates
Force plates are used to assess the strength and power of athletes. Having force plates in our training facility has been a game changer for athlete assessment. Each jump our athletes do on our Hawkin Dynamics dual force plate system provides 48 pieces of data on their performance. In addition to learning more about the force, power and braking profile of the athletes, we are now able to more accurately assess movement symmetry in our athletes, which is imperative for accurate return to play decisions during end stage injury rehab.
Every athlete in the school who has a regular weekly class in the DPC has been tested on the force plates and all athletes in that cohort in grade 8 and above have a profile in our athlete portal.
Push Band Velocity Measurement Devices
The push band is designed to measure movement velocity during training. The push band attaches to a piece of equipment, or the athlete's body, (depending on the movement being performed) to measure the velocity at which the athlete, or the equipment, is moving during an exercise. This technology allows us to more precisely target desired physical adaptations by keeping movement velocity within specific velocity ranges. We no longer have to guess whether we are working on strength, power or speed during our strength training movements. Based on science, we can now prescribe exercise intensity and volume based on the precise velocity with which the athlete is moving.
The Push Bands are used primarily with athletes in high school and older in the DPC.
Dumbbells/Weights
With the number of athletes we have in our facility year round we needed to increase the quantity/availability of highly used equipment. The lower weight dumbbells were frequently used by multiple user groups at the same time, forcing extended rest breaks or using inappropriate weights during workouts. Having a more complete stock of weights in the lower weight ranges, and more variety in the higher weight ranges, has allowed our athletes to keep better flow during workouts and use appropriate weights due to the increased selection.
Because of the large range of weights our new dumbbells cover, this investment has benefited all of our user groups in the DPC.
Additional Equipment Upgrades and Additions
Various other equipment upgrades and additions were made as a result of the Move Mountains campaign. These additions included age appropriate weighted bars and medicine balls and size appropriate stability balls.
One other notable addition was our acquisition of a safety squat bar. A safety squat bar serves numerous benefits to our athletes, especially those who have recently incurred upper body injuries. With the removal of injury induced movement restrictions, made possible by the safety squat bar, athletes can now return to proper strength training much earlier in their rehab stints. As a result, injured athletes are better able to ward off strength regressions during their time in rehab. Better strength maintenance and/or gain during rehab means a more functionally conditioned athlete upon return to play/competition.
All of the users of the DPC have benefited in some capacity from the aforementioned upgrades/additions made possible by the Move Mountains campaign.