Lauren Mittleman
Staff Writer
The Mira Costa boys soccer team works on their strength and stamina at a new gym, Gate 14, in El Segundo, now that Fisher Gym is closed due to construction.
Gate 14 is owned by Alfred Brown, the head coach of the boys varsity soccer team. Brown founded the gym last May with lifelong friend and former Mira Costa soccer player Ediz Basol. Since then, Brown and Basol have turned their small gym community into an atmosphere where people of all fitness levels can come and push themselves to set new goals to live a healthier lifestyle, Brown said.
“It was a no brainer to bring the soccer team into the gym,” Brown said. “As a former Mira Costa High School player myself, I knew that any edge we could get on the competition would then help us succeed.”
Due to the demolition of Fisher Gym, Costa’s sports teams no longer have access to its equipment and resources, according to Brown. The teams are searching for other ways to practice and stay in shape so they won’t fall behind and can have a successful season, Brown said. Brown hopes that the boys soccer players will become stronger so that the team is a physical threat to every team that they come across this season.
“We go to his gym a lot just so we can be the best program out there,” sophomore goalkeeper Joe Stazkow said. “Even if we don’t like it, it’s a really good experience for us to have.”
Many of the training protocols at Gate 14 that the Costa boys soccer team use are from Brown’s own personal workout routine, which Brown adopted when he played rugby at Princeton University. One of these training protocols is known as composite training, which integrates aerobic, anaerobic, strength and isometric exercises into one complete workout.
“[I] realized very quickly that the main key to success at that age was fitness,” Brown said. “Nine times out of ten, the fitter team was the team that won our games.”
Brown creates workout programs at Gate 14 that mimic the fast paced game play the team will face on the field. These programs allow the players to advance their speed, agility and stamina on the field.
“More than anything, Gate 14 gives our players a psychological edge,” Brown said. “They know that no other team works even remotely as hard as they do in the gym, and they can carry that confidence out onto the field.”
Since the 2014-15 season, Costa’s boys varsity soccer team’s national ranking has consistently improved each year. In last year’s season, the Mustangs were ranked 166th in the nation, a huge improvement upon their 545th place ranking in the 2014-15 season.
“[The training] is brutal, so not a lot of kids like it, but I think practicing there does help us as a team and as a whole and makes us a lot better,” Stazkow said. “We can outplay almost every single team that we play, so we are a lot better than most teams because of [the training].”
Leave a Reply