Michael Johnson opens performance training center in McKinney (with photo gallery and interview audio)

by Erin Rice , Laura Seewoester

Michael Johnson, five-time Olympic gold medalist, you may have heard of him, will open his world-class training facility this Monday, with an open house on Saturday. Set in McKinney in the Craig Ranch area, the Michael Johnson Performance Center (MJPC) is meant to train youth, professional, and elite athletes to reach their full athletic potential.

After taking the press tour, let me at least make this statement: this place is amazing. The MJPC puts most college training facilities to shame with what it has to offer. At the moment, one can break the center up into three basic components, the training facilities, the physical therapy room, and the Nike Sensory Sport Training room.

The main training area is composed of a strength training facility featuring top of the line Nautilus equipment, set up so that up to six athletes can train during a single session. Right next to the strength training section, there is a multi-use synthetic turf training field, a.k.a. field turf, alongside a 60-yard sprint track made with MJ's preferred materials, a poured surface (what does that mean, you ask, click for an example). In addition there is a hardwood half basketball/volleyball court that can be extended to a full basketball court if needed for certain activities. By the end of the year a full outdoor track and football/soccer facility will be built alongside the indoor performance center.

Now those are cool, but the following are even cooler still. In the same building as the training facilities, there is the Peak Physical Therapy Clinic complete with elliptical training equipment, therapy benches, and a whole host of torture devices, I mean, physical therapy implements. The purpose of the PPT clinic is to help the athlete heal more efficiently and safely, so they can spend less time injured. As Jon Poe, who heads the clinic, pointed out during media day, having the clinic on-site means that as soon as the athlete experiences an injury, they can seek treatment. The clinic will also be able to identify an athlete's underlying physical dysfunctions that may lead to injuries, to head them off before they happen.

Finally, and this is the most impressive part of the facility, is the Nike Sensory Sports Training room. Looking like something straight out of Brave New World, the Nike SST center is a circuit training room that specializes in the eye and the mind. Upon entering a training program at the MJPC, every athlete will go through a seven-part test to assess their visual acuity, reaction time, and eye-body coordination. With the exception of the Nike's own training center, McKinney is the only other site in the country to house the SST testing and training facilities.

All three components of the MJPC will work in conjunction to improve the basic athletic skills of speed, strength, agility, and stamina.

So far there are three full-time trainers on staff, and no, Michael Johnson is not one of the trainers. MJ states that his role as President of the performance center will be to support his employees and the athletes. To handle the actual training, he brought on teaching-minded trainers, such as Lance Walker, Director of Performance Training and Sports Medicine. Walker's philosophy on coaching is not to become "idiots with a whistles and stopwatches" but actual teachers. The goal of the entire center is to teach the young athletes coming through its programs how to train and become better athletes, not just to train for tests that play no role in their specific sport.

As a former athlete, and someone who ran through the training session led by Lance Walker (which, by the way, watching media people, no matter how athletic, train alongside middle and high school kids, is a pretty hilarious spectacle), it's pretty clear that these guys have the right idea. All the training methods employed mirror things that I did in strength and conditioning as a college athlete. Now younger athletes can learn these training principles much sooner in their sports careers, meaning that they can identify strengths and weaknesses earlier, learn how to train to preserve the body and avoid injury, and just learn a healthier lifestyle. It's pretty safe to assume we all wish we had something like what when we were younger athletes.

For more information on specific training programs and packages, check out the MJPC website at www.michaeljohnsonperformance.com.