Elite personalized training
Athletic success requires the right things, in the right place, at the right time.
In The Core Elite is semi-private sports performance training in Boulder for athletes from eight years old up. One coach per one to four athletes. One or two sessions a week, every one of them tailored to the individual athlete.
We’ve been doing this here for twenty-plus years, with over a thousand athletes across more than thirty sports.
Already in the program? Book your sessions on Booksy.
Is this right for your athlete?
From eight years old up, with no upper end. The same program runs for youth athletes just starting out, middle-school and high-school athletes, college athletes, and adults who still compete.
Athletes are not grouped by age. Programming runs in levels set by training ability: how long an athlete has actually trained, and how well they control their own body. From there it is tailored to the individual.
An eleven-year-old with two years behind her and a fifteen-year-old who has never lifted are not at the same starting point, and treating them as though they were is how young athletes get hurt.
How you start
1. Fill out the Train With Us form. A few minutes. It tells us the athlete’s sport, age, season, and history.
2. Aaron calls you. Aaron Vogel founded In The Core and heads performance here. He’ll talk through where the athlete is, what their season looks like, and whether what we do is the right fit, including when it isn’t.
3. First session. Come a few minutes early so we can meet the athlete properly. Parents are welcome to wait in the lobby.
Sessions run Monday to Thursday, 2:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., and Friday, 2:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m..
The inside-out approach
Most training starts on the outside, with a muscle group. We start where movement starts, with the decision.
Every athletic action runs the same chain. The athlete reads the situation and chooses. The brain sends the signal down the spinal cord, where it meets everything the body is feeling right then. Motor units fire. How many fire, and how fast, decides everything after it: force, the way tendons store and return that force, and the movement itself.
What the athlete asks of that firing decides the adaptation. Maximal intent at high speed trains speed and power. High force demands train strength. Repeated efforts with little recovery train endurance.
It runs both ways. Every attempt feeds back up the chain and adjusts the next one. That is what learning a movement is.
Decision-making, reaction, and technique all degrade as fatigue builds, so the session trains them first and leaves conditioning for last. The order is the method.
That whole sequence, decision through to performance, is what we mean by Total Athleticism.
How we know it’s working
Three to four times a year, every athlete goes through a performance testing battery: strength, speed, power, aerobic fitness, anaerobic fitness, and other measures.
It shows the athlete and their family what has actually changed, in numbers rather than impressions. And it tells us whether the programming is working, because a coach’s confidence that a plan is good is not the same as evidence that it is.
Ninety minutes, in four blocks
Readiness
Reaction time, decision-making, ambidexterity, and balance work, then activation for the joints and muscles about to do the work. The block most gyms skip, and the one that sets the tone for everything after it.
Response
Running mechanics, quickness, change of direction, agility, power, precision. Pushing the edge to optimize where decisions become actions, both generally and sport-specifically.
Performance
Speed, strength, and power. Form first, then balanced development, then intensity raised deliberately. Always finishing in situations that look like their sport, so the capacity shows up in their sport.
Finisher
A finisher, a burnout, or extra active recovery. Chosen for what the athlete needs that day and what is already in their week.
Every session is different. None of them are improvised.
Sessions run inside a gym-wide long-term athlete development plan. That plan is our periodization, a flexible annual scaffolding rather than a fixed program. Every session is tailored inside it three ways: to the individual athlete’s needs, to the demands of their sport, and to where they are in their sport’s season.
A goalkeeper and a distance runner train the same week, off the same outline. Different variations, for different reasons, at the same point in the same plan.
Age, safety, and cost
What does it cost?
We don’t publish a price, and it is worth saying why. Sessions are semi-private and individually programmed, so the number depends on how often an athlete trains and the length of the block. We give you a firm figure on the call, with no obligation. If price is an issue, we are always willing to work with you to find a solution.
At what age should a child start strength training?
We take athletes from eight. That surprises people, usually because “strength training” brings a loaded barbell to mind. At eight it means learning to land, decelerate, change direction, and hold position under control. Loaded work is a later chapter, and it arrives when an athlete’s level says so, not when their birthday does.
Is it safe for a growing athlete?
Yes, when the program respects development instead of treating a fourteen-year-old as a small adult. That is what the long-term development plan exists to do, and it is why every session opens with readiness and activation rather than load.
How often would my athlete train?
One or two sessions a week alongside their sport.
My athlete is in season. Is that a bad time to start?
No. In-season work looks different, with the performance block shifting to maintain rather than build. In season is also when it matters most, because game and practice load is at its highest and the qualities that hold up under it, strength, tissue tolerance, and control when decelerating and changing direction, fade first once training stops. Those are the same qualities that keep an athlete on the field. Stopping in season is how athletes arrive at the next season further back than they finished the last one.
What if they play more than one sport?
Good. Multi-sport athletes are generally the ones we worry about least. We program around the calendar they actually have.
Questions? We would love to answer them
Tell us about your athlete and Aaron will be in touch within the week. He calls rather than emails, because the first useful step is a real conversation: the sport, the season, and what you’re hoping training does for them.
Working to a tighter deadline, like a season starting or a tryout coming up? Say so in the form and we’ll move you up.
