A sports performance enhancement program might not have made Michael Jordan a better basketball player, but might have made him a better athlete, says Tom Metzger, Rockwood Clinics director of physical therapy.


Thats the role Rockwood hopes to play when it launches a performance enhancement program here late this year for Spokane-area athletes who aspire to be the next Jordan, Mia Hamm, or Tiger Woods.


Its going to be for athletes of all ages and all abilities, Metzger says. It concentrates on taking the athlete to the next level physically.


By the next level, hes talking about the next level of speed, strength, agility, or other measures of pure athleticism, reachable through the program.


Rockwood plans to convert into a high-tech sports training facility a 3,000-square-foot storage space behind its physical therapy office, which is located just east of downtown Spokane at 505 E. Third. As the facility is envisioned, athletes will work there one-on-one with trainers and, in some cases, physical therapists and sports-medicine physicians. Such therapists and doctors typically concentrate on rehabilitating injuries, but at Rockwoods facility, theyll focus on improving performance in competitors who are healthy, Metzger says.


Different areas of the training facility will have special athletic flooring for various drills, including a short two-lane rubber running track, an Astroturf area, a sandpit, and maybe a patch of hardwood court space.


Rockwood also plans to install about a dozen pieces of specialty exercise equipment at one end of the facility.


Metzger says that equipment will include three high-end treadmills capable of operating at speeds of up to 25 miles per hour and at up to a 30 percent inclinealthough, of course, the equipment typically wont be used at such speeds. Rockwood hasnt decided what other pieces of equipment will be installed at the facility, but is considering specialty weight training machines in which the weight resistance can be changed electronically, a plyometric machine that provides resistance as an athlete jumps, and an agility machine that simulates ice skating.


Aside from installing the athletic equipment and new flooring, Rockwood doesnt plan to make many improvements to the storage space.


This isnt going to be a nice, frilly setup, Metzger says. People are going to be working hard in here.


In all, development of the facility will cost in excess of $100,000, Metzger says.


The protocol


The performance enhancement protocol, or program, that Rockwood plans to use was developed in recent years at Marshall University, in Huntington, W.V. Metzger says its a six-week program that involves three training sessions a week, each of which will last about 90 minutes and typically will include six different drills.


The program is tailored to each athlete, Metzger saysa football lineman, for example, will be doing different drills than a long-distance runner.


Participants in other such programs offered elsewhere have ranged from players of traditional team sports, such as basketball and football, to those involved in less mainstream activities, such as wake boarders and kayakers, Metzger says. He says even a competitive dart thrower went through Marshall Universitys program, because he wanted to be in improved aerobic shape so he could control his breathing better while throwing darts.


Regardless of the sport, he says, the program generally will be geared toward improving speed, quickness, agility, and strength.


Youre trying to get the nervous system to recruit more muscle fibers faster, Metzger says.


Metzger says that on average, Marshall Universitys program makes an athlete a two-tenths of a second faster in the 40-yard dash and gives him or her a 4-inch increase in vertical jump. He hopes that the program here will produce similar results.


While athletes will work hard while going through the program, the incidence of injury at the facility is likely to be low, judging by the experience of at other such facilities, Metzger says. Some of the exercise equipment includes added safety measures to prevent injury. At the treadmills, for example, an athlete will be strapped into a harness suspended from the ceiling, so that he or she will danglerather than fall awkwardlyupon accidentally slipping off the machines while running at a high speed.


Prices for the program havent been set, but will be around $300 to $400 for six weeks of three-day-a-week training.


Such a program is designed for athletes of all ages and skill levels, but Metzger expects the Spokane facility to attract mostly junior high and high school-aged athletes. Participants typically would go through the training during their off-season. Athletes wouldnt necessarily need to stop their regular off-season workout regimen while going through the performance enhancement program, he says.


Rockwood is starting the program as an offshoot of its physical therapy department, which it launched about a year ago. The clinic now plans to open a satellite physical therapy office in the Spokane Valley. That physical therapy-only operation, which will open in early November, will be located in a 3,000-square-foot retail space at the Sullivan Square Shopping Center, at 15412 E. Sprague.