ABOUT US

In 1986, exercise physiologist John Frappier traveled with the U.S. National Team to the Soviet Union as part of the Goodwill Games gymnastics delegation. Following the Games, he joined several international sports scientists to learn about the Russians innovative approach and training concepts they were using to push the thresholds of human performance. Upon his return, he began work on applying these concepts of neuromuscular training through careful research and input from a team of sports medicine professionals, athletic trainers, and elite coaches. Frappier’s methods started to become known, attracting professional athletes to North Dakota to train with him during their off-season.

In 1990, Frappier was confident enough in his innovative approach to an athlete’s development that he and several local orthopedic doctors formed Acceleration Products. Frappier recognized that every athlete was moving through a difference phase of development and that each sport and position required different movement mechanics. Wanting to make sure he had each athlete’s development and training progression calculated, he would write-out every work-out through the entire training block balancing muscle demand, workload, and movement mechanics with a periodization cycle. The advance preparation allowed Frappier to train athletes in groups of five, with each athlete completing a different work-out based on their individual plan. This was a deviation from one-on-one training that allowed for scale and team-training where every athlete followed the same work-out. Frappier’s approach provided every athlete with the right workout every time they trained. The body of work expanded with the more athletes he trained, and he started to see patterns in the training protocols that allowed him to scale his individualized approach to each athlete’s development.

The weight training equipment Frappier was using was inadequate for the athletes he was training, so he started to improvise and eventually started designing and making his own performance training equipment. Beginning with the High-Speed Treadmill for sprinting and teaching running mechanics, which would travel up to 30 miles per hour at a 40% grade. Sure, the athletes may have had swim lessons, tennis lessons or piano lessons, but they had never had a running lesson until they stepped on Frappier’s Super Treadmill. Frappier’s ability to ‘teach speed’ created a demand for his training from athletes looking for a competitive advantage and the exercise scientists interested in learning to apply his practices.

Additional specialize equipment followed, as did the request for replicating his approach to athlete development. Frappier added an education curriculum that would both teach and validate his training methods as he sold his equipment and training protocols to hospital systems which would incorporate his training into a physical therapy space. With other like-minded sports scientists’ help, athletes continued to improve performance and the training protocols continued to be expanded and refined. Working with serval hospital systems and their Physical Therapists, Frappier developed a return-to-play program that would train athletes who had sustained an ACL injury, orthopedic surgery and completed their 20 sessions of PT. The Bridge training program for lower extremities safety bridged the training time between completing a PT script and returning to competition.

In 2007, former elite swimmer turned professional triathlete, Charlie Graves, stepped in as CEO, investing in his passion for athlete development. His prior executive leadership experience helped him rebrand the company as Athletic Republic and updated the business model to franchising. Building on Frappier’s proprietary equipment, the expanding volume of individualized small-group training protocols, a curriculum to teach trainers how to utilize the training system, Graves added new marketing campaigns and operating systems to improve each training center’s performance. He would expand the training programs beyond the teen audience to included performance training for youth athletes, Adult Fitness, Personal Training, and Endurance Training to serve a different audience in every day-part.

One of Athletic Republic’s core values is ‘We are Always Improving’. The application of technology to the training business has been on-going and permeates all aspects of the business. The KPI (Key Performance Indicator) dashboard provides owners and operators with a real time perspective of their center’s performance and priorities. The online scheduling system has an integrated POS and reporting system that feeds into the KPI dashboard. An integrated CRM system manages customer leads and business reputation, while evaluating marketing efficiency. The athlete management system tracks an athlete’s development as they work to improve, speed, power, agility, strength, and stamina. The video feedback system helps trainers teach running mechanics and the digital data collection system allows the trainers to collect and analyze power output data. The athletes performance data is shared with each athlete and they are also able to filter the data to see how they stand against their peers inside their training center as well as rank across the county.

Athletic Republic is celebrating it’s 35-year anniversary and the training of more than 2 million athletes in its 65 training centers in the U.S. Japan and Australia. The legacy of success in helping every athlete achieve their goals is based on …

→ Our teaching techniques are based on sound biomechanical principles for the purpose of reducing injury risk, enhancing movement efficiency, and optimizing performance.

→ We apply an understanding of metabolic, muscular, and neurological systems when determining the volume, intensity, and duration of workouts to maximize performance while avoiding overtraining and injury.

→ Our protocols were designed based on the results of peer-reviewed research studies and the universally accepted principles of training theory and methodology, applied to real-world athletes in our centers, and modified for each athlete to produce the best results.

The franchise system has expanded with owners who are passionate about helping athletes in their communities by following a training system that gains results for both athlete and business owner.

Chief Executive Officer

Chief Operating Officer

Business + Franchise Development Manager

VP of Sports Performance Training

When you train with Athletic Republic, you’ll learn the skill of sprinting through immediate feedback from a performance coach and visual feedback from the mirror and the AR Vision system. We improve your running mechanics by improving stride length and frequency, knee drive, hip position, and arm swing. The result is a more fluid, powerful, and efficient running form. In other words, speed.

Science says POWER = FORCE x VELOCITY. The more force you produce and the faster you do it, the more you separate yourself from other athletes on the playing field. Athletic Republic focuses on optimizing each athlete’s ability to produce power. The treadmill, plyometric, and strength protocols are designed to enhance the function of specific neuromuscular pathways while eliciting coordination strategies that result in improved power output. We also measure and address any asymmetry in strength and power output to improve efficiency and reduce the chance of injury.

Agility hinges on your ability to control your center of gravity in all situations, including making quicker cuts and turns, maneuvering in traffic, and separating from your opponent. Dynamic stability means maintaining control of your body while under physical stress, delivering power in all directions and stability under all situations. We focus much of our training on the hip girdle, the area from which much of an athlete’s ability to accelerate, decelerate, and maintain control originates. The result is not only a better performance, but a greater resistance to injury.

We TEST athletes to establish a performance baseline and identify areas for improvement; this data is used to create a personalized training program. At the end of a training series we test the athlete to measure gains and adjust training.

We TEACH the fundamental and functional movement skills required to excel at a sport or specific position.

We TRAIN the athlete with the most scientifically proven programs using our proprietary equipment, individualized training protocols, and video analysis technology to provide every athlete with an experience designed to deliver improved game-day performance.

Then we TRACK all athlete performance data, videos, training sessions, and trainer notes, which are stored and accessed through the athlete’s digital locker, while gaining access the database for peer comparison and performance / predictive analytics.