The Loyalty Newsletter

A Big Fall for Loyalty Athletes

It's been a big fall for Loyalty athletes: a state championship and two of the Metro Conference's top softball honors. Before we get into the training talk, here's who earned some headlines.

Zoey Harnly & Sophia Rohrs

2026 Class B State Champions · Gretna Softball

Zoey and Sophia brought home the 2026 Class B state championship with Gretna, and made sure to throw up the Loyalty sign with the trophy. Congrats, ladies!

Jules Severson

Metro Conference Pitcher of the Year · Millard North Softball

Jules earned the Metro Conference's top pitching honor this season. Congrats, Jules!

Logan Urban

Metro Conference Freshman of the Year · Millard West Softball

Logan, a shortstop, earned the Metro Conference's top freshman honor in her first varsity season. Huge congrats, Logan!

Here's something I tell every family who walks through our doors:

Strength and conditioning isn't one more activity competing with games, skill work, and exposure for a limited number of hours. It's the foundation everything else sits on. Skip it, and you're not saving time. You're borrowing it, at interest, from your kid's ceiling and their health.

I don't say that lightly. Between myself and my family, eleven of us have played Division I sports or higher — and I've personally been in the room training a number of them, start to finish, from the earliest stages through their college careers. This isn't theory for me. I've watched the kids who built a real strength foundation early, and I've watched the ones who skipped it because a game or a showcase felt more urgent that week. The gap between those two paths shows up later, and it's not small.

Here's a number worth sitting with: researchers at Loyola University tracked over 1,200 young athletes and found that kids who play a single sport more hours per week than their age — a 12-year-old logging 13+ hours a week, for example — are 70% more likely to suffer a serious overuse injury than other kinds of injuries. Not "a little more likely." Seventy percent.

That's not a scare tactic. It's a measurement. And it's exactly the kind of injury a strength foundation is built to prevent.

One thing to do this month: if you don't already know how many hours a week your athlete is training and playing across everything — practices, games, lessons, open gym — add it up. Compare it to their age. If it's close or over, that's worth a conversation, not a panic.

What happens when training stops:

Strength holds for about two weeks, then starts sliding. By four weeks off, real, measurable strength loss shows up — and the longer the break goes, the faster it accelerates.
Speed and power go first, and they go fast. The fast-twitch muscle fibers that make an athlete quick and explosive start shrinking within weeks of stepping away — faster than raw strength fades.
Conditioning disappears quicker than anything else. Aerobic capacity can drop roughly 6% in just two weeks off, and up to 15–20% by four weeks.
The heart adjusts almost immediately. Blood volume — how efficiently oxygen gets to working muscles — can start dropping within 48 hours of the last training session.
None of it comes back as fast as it left. Rebuilding lost strength and conditioning almost always takes longer than it took to lose it.
The riskiest moment isn't the time off — it's the return. Jumping back into full-speed games and practices on a body that's already lost some of its protection is exactly when soft-tissue injuries spike.

Coming This Winter: LAI, The Loyalty Athletic Index

LAI measures physical and skill separately, reads them together, and shows exactly what to work on next. Every athlete is compared against real Nebraska players who went on to play in college.

LAI Athlete Showcases: a full physical and skill evaluation with a report showing where your athlete stands and what to work on next.
Year-round checkpoints: re-tests before club season, during summer recruiting and after the high school season.
Recruiting consultations: one-on-one time with Quentin to build an honest plan for the next level.

Our promise: we'll tell you the truth, even when it isn't the biggest offer.

Want your athlete in first? Send us a message or ask any Loyalty coach.

A Big Fall for Loyalty Athletes

Zoey Harnly & Sophia Rohrs

Jules Severson

Logan Urban

Here's something I tell every family who walks through our doors:

Strength and conditioning isn't one more activity competing with games, skill work, and exposure for a limited number of hours. It's the foundation everything else sits on. Skip it, and you're not saving time. You're borrowing it, at interest, from your kid's ceiling and their health.

That's not a scare tactic. It's a measurement. And it's exactly the kind of injury a strength foundation is built to prevent.

One thing to do this month: if you don't already know how many hours a week your athlete is training and playing across everything — practices, games, lessons, open gym — add it up. Compare it to their age. If it's close or over, that's worth a conversation, not a panic.

What happens when training stops:

Strength holds for about two weeks, then starts sliding. By four weeks off, real, measurable strength loss shows up — and the longer the break goes, the faster it accelerates.

Speed and power go first, and they go fast. The fast-twitch muscle fibers that make an athlete quick and explosive start shrinking within weeks of stepping away — faster than raw strength fades.

Conditioning disappears quicker than anything else. Aerobic capacity can drop roughly 6% in just two weeks off, and up to 15–20% by four weeks.

The heart adjusts almost immediately. Blood volume — how efficiently oxygen gets to working muscles — can start dropping within 48 hours of the last training session.

None of it comes back as fast as it left. Rebuilding lost strength and conditioning almost always takes longer than it took to lose it.

The riskiest moment isn't the time off — it's the return. Jumping back into full-speed games and practices on a body that's already lost some of its protection is exactly when soft-tissue injuries spike.

Coming This Winter: LAI, The Loyalty Athletic Index

Omaha mastery aaa hockey

Millard west baseball

Schedule Appointment

Keep your athlete training all year.

A Big Fall for Loyalty Athletes

Zoey Harnly & Sophia Rohrs

Jules Severson

Logan Urban

Here's something I tell every family who walks through our doors:

Strength and conditioning isn't one more activity competing with games, skill work, and exposure for a limited number of hours. It's the foundation everything else sits on. Skip it, and you're not saving time. You're borrowing it, at interest, from your kid's ceiling and their health.

That's not a scare tactic. It's a measurement. And it's exactly the kind of injury a strength foundation is built to prevent.

One thing to do this month: if you don't already know how many hours a week your athlete is training and playing across everything — practices, games, lessons, open gym — add it up. Compare it to their age. If it's close or over, that's worth a conversation, not a panic.

What happens when training stops:

Strength holds for about two weeks, then starts sliding. By four weeks off, real, measurable strength loss shows up — and the longer the break goes, the faster it accelerates.

Speed and power go first, and they go fast. The fast-twitch muscle fibers that make an athlete quick and explosive start shrinking within weeks of stepping away — faster than raw strength fades.

Conditioning disappears quicker than anything else. Aerobic capacity can drop roughly 6% in just two weeks off, and up to 15–20% by four weeks.

The heart adjusts almost immediately. Blood volume — how efficiently oxygen gets to working muscles — can start dropping within 48 hours of the last training session.

None of it comes back as fast as it left. Rebuilding lost strength and conditioning almost always takes longer than it took to lose it.

The riskiest moment isn't the time off — it's the return. Jumping back into full-speed games and practices on a body that's already lost some of its protection is exactly when soft-tissue injuries spike.

Coming This Winter: LAI, The Loyalty Athletic Index

Omaha mastery aaa hockey

Millard west baseball

Schedule Appointment