Turning Student Athletes into Stars

David Barbour, head coach for the NJSA04 Highland Fusion, a girl’s soccer club, is a tiger when it comes to supporting his team.

So when David wanted to give the team even more of a competitive edge, he turned to Virtua’s Center for Athletic Performance Program (CAP) to ramp up their game. He liked CAP’s well-rounded approach—emphasizing performance assessment, training, sports nutrition and one-on-one consultation.

“The girls do a lot of speed, endurance and strength-training exercises under the supervision of a degreed fitness specialist. You can see the dramatic effects on the field,” says David. “The team’s overall power and explosiveness are unmatched compared to our opponents.”

The program is backed by all of Virtua’s resources. A fitness specialist is the point person for the athletes and a conduit to Virtua’s physicians and physiatrists, surgeons and dietitians.

The squad loves the program and looks forward to the training sessions. They even train at Virtua’s Health and Wellness Center in Washington Township twice a week in the off-season to build their overall strength and endurance.

The results speak for themselves: The Fusion is the 2013 US Club NJ State Cup Champions. They also recently won the prestigious Jefferson Cup and the PDA Girls College Showcase. Currently, the team is ranked sixth in the nation.

“I hope our competition never finds out about Virtua’s CAP program,” David adds jokingly.

Updated July 16, 2018