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Picture this: a professional sportsperson, down to the wire, balancing between a win or loss. While their athletic ability can take them across the line, it is more than pure skill that can sway a performance.

Psychology Today explains; “your values will influence your decisions related to your relationships, career and other activities you engage in”.

Values determine behaviour. And it is a combination of skill and values, which, when incorporated regularly into training, shine through at moments like this.

Values are important in every part of life, they drive behaviours and this is one of the principles being taught in the Athlete Development Program (ADP), which is well underway at both campuses of St Stephen’s School in partnership with Athletic Institute.

A key aspect of the ADP program is understanding and displaying the Athletic Institute values of Respect, Integrity, Grit, Trust and Teamwork, which have worked for so many successful athletes before them.

These intrinsic values are far more important to develop than the extrinsic motivators many athletes solely focus on and interconnect seamlessly with St Stephen’s School’s values of Faith, Learning, Service, Care, and Community.

“Our values are written on the wall of our facility. It is the first thing you see when you view our website and the first thing we mention to every new member who walks through our doors,” Athletic Institute owner Corey Green said.

“I have seen many great athletes fail to achieve their dreams because they did not possess the values needed to carry them through and understand that achieving something truly special is about understanding the process of getting better.

“Failures and setback are a given at some point throughout their athletic career; how you view that setback can make or break the next 10 years.

“For us, it is an opportunity to learn and grow, for others it can be all too hard.Our aim is to provide students with the tools needed to continue to evolve as humans and athletes.”

One recent exercise the ADP students took part in to showcase the values was a trust fall exercise where “the kids learnt to trust themselves and their teammates,” Mr Green said.

“They were taught how to clean up and put away the equipment to showcase the value of respecting one’s environment, with the added homework of tidying the table and loading the dishwasher when they got home!”

Carramar Year 7 ADP student Eishan Patel is really enjoying the program so far after taking part in training at the AI facility and familiarising himself with all the added extras to enhance performance.

“I think the program is brilliant,” he said. “The mobile app is so cool because it has all the exercises on it, and you can see how well you are doing. We have been given so many interesting exercises to help me with my sport and the coaches are amazing. I enjoy the fun games during warm up and I loved training in a real gym! We are already prepared for the next lesson, and I can’t wait.”

The ADP offers a robust and comprehensive program to identify and develop athletic potential.

It is delivered through practical training sessions to develop the five main Biomotor abilities of the human system including strength, power, mobility, endurance, and coordination.

Throughout the year the ADP students will participate in a variety of sessions including strength training, altitude training, skill development and exciting workshops and seminars with professional athletes including AFL Premiership player Mark Hutchings and Connor West. They will also hear from AI members who have gone on to achieve great success in their sport.