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Akao (right) is shown working with some high school athletes – noting Amplify offers the “complete package” when it comes to strength and conditioning.
A pair of businesses recently came together to broaden the training opportunities available for athletes in Derby and the surrounding area.
DHS grad (and 2020 Athletic Hall of Fame inductee) Dave Sanders had the facility, and Wichita’s Amplify Training had the regimen, officially joining forces this year to enhance the services offered at Sanders’ D3 Training headquarters at 6720 S. Oliver.
Sanders opened the facility back in 2021 to offer a place for local summer baseball teams to practice, including one he coached. From there, Sanders – a six-year MLB veteran – got into baseball training with D3. Primarily, the former White Sox hurler works with pitchers and now has 60 athletes coming in and out of the facility.
Knowing his training was very specific, Sanders jumped at the opportunity to partner with Amplify Training.
“We offer more strength and conditioning, speed and agility, sports performance [training] for athletes,” said head trainer David Akao. “It’s basically all athletes. We work with volleyball, basketball and now baseball. We kind of tapped into that demographic here.”
“I personally saw a need for adding strength, speed and agility, and some of the more performance training into what we’re doing that’s baseball specific,” Sanders said. “We were missing out on a big chunk of the training by only focusing on pitching skills and hitting skills.”
Amplify launched in Wichita in 2020 before adding services at Wichita Hoops in Bel Aire and now expanding to the D3 facility in Derby. With some recently completed upgrades (i.e., newly-installed turf), Amplify is set to start hosting sessions with athletes at the new Derby location in 2023.
The training partners are also working on an app to create tailored, on demand workouts – for pitching/arm mechanics, strength conditioning, agility, etc. – for outside of group sessions.
Akao (right) is shown working with some high school athletes – noting Amplify offers the “complete package” when it comes to strength and conditioning.
COURTESY
While services are offered to all age ranges, Akao noted Amplify typically works with high school athletes – with Derby providing a large potential pool of clientele.
“I think Derby’s kind of an untapped market when it comes to sports performance,” Akao said. “There’s loads of talent here with Derby High School and then the surrounding areas of Mulvane and Rose Hill. There’s not really a sports performance gym in Wichita that we’re aware of, so we can just impact a lot of lives here and help these athletes get to where they want to be.”
Sanders spoke to that, noting many Derby baseball players currently drive to West Wichita for training.
With Amplify, Akao noted the business is bringing the college strength and conditioning model to the private sector. Giving nutrition advice on top of the training services, he noted it is the “complete package” for athletes.
Akao said Amplify Training has been working with some groups (by appointment) in Derby and Mulvane since late 2022 and is now set to relocate those sessions to the D3 facility starting in 2023.
Knowing the training he went through personally, Sanders sees this new partnership and expansion of training services as a major benefit to local athletes.
“There is an enormous difference between the way I trained growing up and the way kids are training right now. What Amplify and myself have the ability to bring to the table for those athletes is just night and day difference between what I did,” Sanders said. “I think we want to impact the community and the athletes more than anything.”
