Sports Performance
Speed, power and durability for athletes at every level — from high school prospects to professionals.
Training starts with what your sport is doing to you
Most programs start with what you want to become. That is the fun part, and it is the wrong place to start.
Every sport loads a body in one direction, over and over. Sprinting, throwing, swinging, rolling — each asks the same tissues to do the same thing thousands of times, and each one leaves a mark. A program that ignores that is building on ground that is already moving. If you do not lay a foundation, what are you building on in the long run?
So injury mitigation is not a section at the end of the program here. It is underneath all of it.
Any committed athlete. Professionals and Olympians train here, and so do high school juniors trying to get recruited — D1, D2, D3 and NAIA prospects are all welcome, and none of them is the wrong size for this room. If you are willing to train, you belong here.
What the training covers
- Injury mitigationThe foundation. Managing what your sport does to your anatomy so that everything else you build has something to stand on.
- Strength and power developmentThe barbell work underneath all of it. Technique coached first, load second, on competition-standard equipment.
- AccelerationThe first thirty metres. Where most sports are actually won.
- Max velocityTop-end speed mechanics, trained at distance on open ground.
- Speed enduranceHolding speed when it starts to leave you.
- Agility and change of directionDecelerating, re-accelerating, and the positions that let you do both without paying for it.
- ConditioningWork capacity built around what your event actually asks of you, rather than generic cardio bolted on the end.
- Reinforcement and normalisationSomaTraining, ELDOA and myofascial work that returns the body toward neutral after training has loaded it in one direction.
Where the work happens
Brazos Valley Barbell
6,000 sq ft, competition-standard, open 24/7. All of the barbell strength and power work happens here, along with conditioning and the reinforcement and normalisation drills — ELDOA, myofascial stretching and SomaTraining — that hold the rest of it together.
Veteran's Park & Athletic Complex
Five minutes away, public and free to use. Acceleration, max velocity and speed endurance on open ground with room to actually reach top speed. Athletes meet Phillip at the field. If the weather turns, the session moves indoors to BVB or reschedules.
Too often, athletes get hurt in the weight room
Not on the field. Under a barbell, in a room where nobody was coaching the technique.
Lifting is a pillar of sports performance, not something you do on the side. Strength and power under a bar are what let an athlete accelerate, change direction and take contact without breaking. They are also the fastest way to get hurt if the movement is never taught.
That is how a lot of athletes lose a season — not because the lifts are dangerous, but because they were handed a program and left to work the positions out at speed, under load, a few hundred times. A power clean done well teaches an athlete to put force into the ground and catch it again. Done badly, week after week, it is an injury with a date on it.
So every lift in an athlete's program here is coached, loaded and progressed on purpose. Technique is not the warm-up for the training. It is the training.
Competing in the snatch and clean & jerk themselves? That is the sport of weightlifting, and it has its own program here — see Weightlifting.
Back squat
Power clean
Sports performance training includes a full BVB membership
Every sports performance athlete gets a free Brazos Valley Barbell membership — 24/7 access, every platform and rack, and Regen classes included.
That is not a perk bolted on to the price. It is how the program works. Nearly every athlete has ancillary work in their programming, so if you train with Phillip three days a week, there are another two or three days of assigned work to be done at BVB on your own. The membership is the room you do it in.
Most speed programs give you sixty minutes twice a week and send you home to find a gym. This one hands you the gym and tells you what to do in it.
Your coach
Phillip Scruggs
Exercise Physiology, PhD (abd), Texas A&M University · CSCS · SomaTrainer · ELDOA Trainer · FRCmS
Phillip ran short sprints in college and has coached at the collegiate level and beyond since 2011, working with Track and Field, Swimming and Diving, and Olympic Development athletes — athletes preparing for the Olympic Games or to represent their nation at a World level.
He also works with professional and elite athletes across softball, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, football, baseball and golf, alongside general population clients and a group he calls his Surgical-Athletes — dentists, surgeons and healthcare workers whose occupation loads their bodies the way a sport does.
With golfers that work is TPI-informed — looking at how the swing is loading the body, then using ELDOA and myofascial stretching to give back the range the swing takes away.
Sport is problem solving with your body. Every sport asks its own version of the question — sprint faster, throw harder, hold a position longer. Training answers it, and every answer leaves a mark. My job is both halves.
Phillip takes a maximum of 30 to 40 athletes at a time. Every athlete's programming is written and overseen by him; support staff assist with coaching sessions under his direction.
Track record
Athletes currently training with Phillip compete for Texas A&M, Clemson and Rice. Others have competed in the NFL, at elite levels of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and at Olympic and World Championship level for eleven nations. The flags in the gym are the athletes who have trained here.
How it runs
- FormatsOne-on-one, semi-private, or group. Training packages are available.
- FrequencyAs often as you want to train. Some athletes train year-round; others come in for the summer or off-season only.
- In-seasonYes. In-season training and recovery, with Phillip coordinating with your primary event coach to ensure program synergy.
- Remote programmingAvailable, and has been for years. Athletes who leave for school or travel to compete stay on program.
- TravelPhillip travels to major competitions with athletes when it is needed.
- TestingCombine and showcase numbers are coached and improved, not just measured — the 40-yard dash and 10-yard split, flying 10s, the pro agility 5-10-5 and its variants, the L-drill, the 60-yard dash used at baseball and softball showcases, kneeling and seated med-ball tosses, vertical jump and standing long jump. Pro day preparation on request.
- RecoveryMyofascial stretching and ELDOA, with the goal of teaching you how your sport is changing your anatomy and how to put yourself back together.
- NutritionReferred to a registered dietitian rather than guessed at in-house.
The ones everyone else gave up on
This is where Phillip has done his best work — athletes written off as broken or injury-prone, brought back to full training capacity and back to competing at a high level.
Phillip will coordinate with your physical therapist and/or athletic trainer to provide you with training that will help bring you back to form. This is training, not medical care — we work alongside your clinical team, never in place of it.
The first session
Every athlete starts the same way, professional or high school.
Training history and injury history. What you are actually trying to do. Then a movement assessment to find out where you are right now — not where a program assumes you are. The plan comes after that.
For parents
- Is my kid good enough for this?
- Yes. The goal of the youth side is not only to develop athletes — it is to teach kids to be the healthiest version of themselves at every stage of life. Be better than you were yesterday. Prospects at every level, D1 through NAIA, train here.
- How old do they need to be?
- This track is for high school athletes and up.
- Where do sessions happen, and who takes them there?
- Lifting, conditioning and reinforcement work happen at Brazos Valley Barbell. Speed work — acceleration, max velocity and speed endurance — happens at Veteran's Park, five minutes from the gym, where athletes meet Phillip at the field. Bad weather moves that session indoors to BVB or reschedules it.
- Will you talk to their high school coach?
- Yes, always, if the coach is willing. It takes a village.
- Do you help with recruiting?
- Not in the sense of contacting college coaches on your athlete's behalf — that is not the lane. Phillip does track their numbers and film their practices, but as a teaching tool for the athlete.
- Waivers and medical clearance?
- Required, and handled through RhinoFit at signup.
- Can I watch?
- Yes.
- What does it cost?
- It depends on the format and how often they train, so it starts with a conversation. Request an evaluation and we will go from there.
Start with an evaluation
Every athlete begins with an in-person consultation and movement assessment — training history, injury history, goals, and a movement screen to find out where you actually are.
Request an Athlete Evaluation