Ellie Kormis
ALTIS Director of Education
The Altis Internship Experience
Coach Mike Boykin is mid-way through a year-long, full-time Internship with Altis. A recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Mike formerly served as a volunteer assistant coach with the women’s sprints, hurdles, and multi-events under the tutelage of Nate Davis and Ed Nuttycombe. Prior to joining Altis, Mike interned with various teams at UW-Madison, Quinnipiac University, and Northeastern University....
Apprentice Coach Program – January 2015 highlights
Last week saw a truly global edition of the Apprentice Coach Program take place - with coaches from South Africa, Wales, Holland and the USA sharing in a week of gold standard interaction and coach education. As always, our visiting coaches spent the first part of the day trackside, before moving onto our partner facility - EXOS - to continue...
Altis embraces cutting edge Sports Genetics research
Following on the heels of another excellent Apprentice Coach Program (hopefully you followed along on our Twitter feed for live tweets throughout the week) we are very excited to soon be welcoming Dr Jeremy Koenig - CEO of sports genetics company Athletigen - to Altis. Interest in sports genetics has soared in the last couple of years (most probably due...
Coach Chidi Enyia on Acceleration development
Chidi Enyia is a sprints Coach at Altis. He made the move to Phoenix in September 2014 following a successful term at Southern Illinois University, where he served as a Sprints Coach for four seasons. In this article, Coach Enyia introduces how acceleration is taught at Altis - beginning with block setup. “While exploring the important qualities necessary for success...
Dan Pfaff on competition-time coaching
Last July, on a decidedly damp summer afternoon in Glasgow during the 20th Commonwealth Games, Coach Pfaff and I were sat in an apartment overlooking Hampden Park Stadium. Whilst listening to the nearby roar of the crowd as a home town girl clenched gold, Dan and I had been chatting about the Scottish weather and relative merits of local coffee...
Highlights from the inaugural Performance Therapy Program
Early December saw the long-awaited inaugural Altis Performance Therapy Program take place. Delivered primarily by our Medical Director Dr Gerry Ramogida, this Program has been almost 20 years in the making. As defined by the founder of this concept - our Education Director - Dan Pfaff, Performance Therapy is “an integrated process, whereby medical expertise combines with athlete-coach feedback loops...
History in the making
Today Altis athletes Elana Meyers Taylor and Kaillie Humphries will make history as they become the first females to compete in a World Cup bobsled race against men in Calgary, Canada. Traditionally, only men have been allowed to compete in four-man bobsled events; but - following FIBT approval to make four-man bobsled gender-neutral in September - two-time Olympic gold medalist...
Inaugral Performance Therapy Program launches this weekend
This weekend, Altis is excited to host the very first Performance Therapy Program. Hosted by our Medical Director Dr Gerry Ramogida and our Education Director Dan Pfaff, this Program promises to be a one-of-a-kind opportunity. It is the philosophy of Altis that only with true integration of medical and coaching services, can the athlete experience be optimized. This is the...
A week of shared wisdom – November’s ACP in summary
Following the resounding success of the October ACP in partnership with EXOS, November’s ACP followed swiftly on with a high standard to follow. It didn’t disappoint. Apprentice Coaches saw guest lecturers Brett Bartholomew (EXOS), Andy O’Brien (Hockey S&C Coach who works with Sydney Crosby, among others), Buddy Morris (Head Coach of Physical Preparation with the Arizona Cardinals), and Dr Jeremy...
Highlights from October’s Apprentice Coach Program
Last week saw the continuation of our very popular Apprentice Coach Program (ACP). What began last winter as an interactive, real-world shadowing and discussion week has now morphed into perhaps the best coaching education event in the sport. While the practical observation and interaction and the end-of-day organic discussions with Coach Dan Pfaff remain the highlight of the Program, we...