By admin 
TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) – Vail might not be a big community, but you wouldn’t know that by their athletic program. At Cienega High School, they practice less like a 5A division high school and more like a professional sports franchise. Thanks to a high-tech system called Whistle, student-athletes aren’t just using their bodies, but their brains as well.
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Head strength and conditioning coach Steve Schween tells 13 News the program turns raw data into real results.
“It oversees all of what we do, and it allows us to look at our data without me trying to break down Excel spreadsheets as stuff like that because of how much we’re doing,” says Schween.
The school started using Whistle in January and the impact was immediate. The system pulls data from previously acquired training equipment and wellness surveys into one place, giving coaches daily reports on athletes’ health and wellness.
“We’ve gone 4 track seasons without a hamstring issue.”
“A lot of that we attribute to what we do here and how we can monitor them and keep them healthy,” Schween says.
As only one of nine schools in the nation to incorporate this program, Cienega knew it wouldn’t be easy, or cheap. Coach Schween says for three years, students raised money through online text donations.
“None of this is actually coming from the school, which says something about our kids and their fundraising capabilities.”
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And the payoff reaches far beyond the weight room as the athletes use real-world applications of their learned classroom subjects to analyze their data.
“Our kids have to look at all sorts of different charts, different graphs; they’re using force = mass X acceleration…they’re learning all this fun stuff, and we’re trying to take it and kick it back to the classroom,” Coach Schween says.
From athletic acceleration to classroom connections, Whistle Performance gives students the tools they need to excel in any world they land in.
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