{"id":15241,"date":"2025-12-14T00:27:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T07:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-youth-athletic-performance-program-expands-to-prepare-athletes-for-college\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:46:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:46:43","slug":"cortez-youth-athletic-performance-program-expands-to-prepare-athletes-for-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-youth-athletic-performance-program-expands-to-prepare-athletes-for-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez Youth Athletic Performance program expands to prepare athletes for college"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kendall
Kendall Chavez concentrates while in the middle of reps at Cortez\u2019s Youth Athletic Performance program at Mountain Range Fitness. (Jarrod Wyatt\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Young athletes in Montezuma County looking to boost strength and advance in their sport train at the Youth Athletic Performance program at Mountain Range Fitness in Cortez.<\/p>\n

Known as YAP Training, the program has grown from a Mountain Range Fitness side project into a multisite operation with a custom mobile app serving athletes locally and nationwide.<\/p>\n

The program launched two years ago by Jarrod Wyatt and his former Colorado Mesa University football teammate, Jeremy Harrison. Wyatt said some of the inspiration for YAP came during COVID-19, when school sports were limited and athletes needed other options to stay in shape.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a lot of kids that started coming in during that time frame, and I really enjoyed it,\u201d Wyatt said.<\/p>\n

Wyatt coached football for 13 years, stopping this year. He noted that strength training was a big part of the team\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the defense coordinator and strength coach at Mancos, and we went to four semifinals in a row,\u201d Wyatt said. \u201cWe won a state championship, and a lot of that success came from the work and everything that we put in the weight room.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Hawk
Hawk Overton lifts with the help of a friend as a spotter as part of Cortez\u2019s YAP Training program. (Jarrod Wyatt\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

YAP now operates in Cortez and Grand Junction, and a third location will open in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, where Harrison lives, in spring 2026. At Mountain Range Fitness, about 45 athletes participate regularly.<\/p>\n

The Grand Junction location opened Oct. 13 and serves about 30 athletes.<\/p>\n

An additional 15 athletes nationwide use the program\u2019s app, YAPtraining, available on Apple and Google platforms. The app lets athletes follow YAP programming and log performance metrics anywhere.<\/p>\n

Wyatt explained that while endurance athletes and football players have different performance demands, all athletes benefit from improved strength, explosiveness, mobility and resilience.<\/p>\n

\u201cEighty to 90% of the training is going to look the same,\u201d he said. \u201cThat other 10 to 20% is to meet the specific demands of the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Cortez, group sessions run Monday through Thursday at 6 a.m. or 4:30 p.m. during the school year. Athletes with flexible schedules may train at other times.<\/p>\n

Former participants who have gone on to play collegiate sports include Teya Yeomans, now on Montana State University\u2019s Division I volleyball team, and Wyatt\u2019s son Kaiden Wyatt, a freshman football player at Colorado Mesa University.<\/p>\n

\"Eli
Eli Kop smiles while being coached through some weightlifting exercises at Cortez\u2019s YAP Training Program. (Jarrod Wyatt\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWhen she (Yeomans) first went up there, her strength coach was impressed that her background in strength training was more advanced than a lot of incoming freshmen. She was prepared,\u201d Wyatt said. \u201cMy oldest son, who\u2019s playing football at Colorado Mesa, prides himself on being one of the stronger freshmen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wyatt said he wants Cortez athletes to have access to training common in bigger cities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat can we bring back to Cortez, Colorado that helps our athletes? My goal is to expose these athletes to something that I was never exposed to. You hear that of a lot of former athletes, just going, \u2018Man, I wish I had this when I was young,\u2019 and that\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to accomplish,\u201d Wyatt said.<\/p>\n

Wyatt said athletes aiming for college competition should prepare early by building strength and conditioning skills, since programs often require it before arrival.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s get ahead of the curve. Let\u2019s be ready,\u201d he said. \u201cOur good athletes \u2026 tend to be a big fish in a little pond in our area, but when you go to college \u2026 they\u2019re a dime a dozen. Everybody\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n

The program serves athletes starting at age 10 with exercises scaled by age and experience. Younger athletes focus on body-weight movements; older athletes use weight equipment.<\/p>\n

Families can register at www.yaptraining.com<\/a> or visit Mountain Range Fitness. Prospective athletes may attend one or two sessions to see if the program is a good fit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cortez\u2019s branch of the program is located at Mountain Range Fitness<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,155,28,60,29,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15241"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19554,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15241\/revisions\/19554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15241"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}