Juma Fit’s Kids’ Performance Academy Preparing Young Athletes For Competition and Socialization By Tara DeLorenzo
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n an effort to help inspire confidence in kids, Juma Fit has launched its Kids’ Performance Academy, a program open to kids ages 8-18 that focuses on training to help them enhance performance and socialize. Juma Fit’s Kids’ Performance Academy launched in October 2021, and it is a sports-specific functional training that includes speed training, agility training, strength training (depending on age) and plyometric training with the help of the program mentor StaiSean, a track and field coach in Bergen County and professional DJ. The program takes place Mondays and Wednesdays after school in specified group classes that are set up by age. “Basically, it’s so you can elevate young athletes by incorporating moves they use in their sports and making them more agile or faster or make the movements they make on the court make sense for their bodies,” Gia Alvarez, owner and founder of Juma Fit, said. As a mom herself, Alvarez saw a need for a program 18
like this for her own kids. She also was asked by other parents for ways to improve their kids’ athletic performance, and so the Kids’ Performance Academy was started. The first step to setting it up was finding the right trainer. “My trainers here and I are moms, and we’re fun but a lot of times kids would not want a mom there. I have clients I specifically work with that want to work with me or my other trainers, but for these kids, they want someone fun and cool. So, the first thing to do was find the right person, which we did with StaiSean. He’s been absolutely amazing,” Alvarez said. StaiSean Lyew is a professional DJ and music lover, as well as a former track athlete at Syracuse University. In addition to DJing, he serves as the track and field coach at the Academy of Holy Angels, and has coached dozens of all league, all county, all state and all-American athletes. He was also selected as coach of the year in Bergen County in 2017.
