For many small businesses, most of all new small businesses, the past several months have been a whirlwind. For Impact Sports Lab, which is owned by Lynnfield’s Ian Carrera and opened in January, it’s been an interesting ride.
“Anytime I tell anybody that we opened in January, I get the familiar ‘wow, talk about bad timing’ jokes and things like that, but we’re just going through this like everyone else,” said Carrera. “We’re all in this together, and we had to adapt to the changing times quickly.”
Impact Sports Lab is a youth sports performance center, but even that doesn’t accurately describe the amount of work athletes do there. The center’s mission statement — “Developing Smarter Athletes” — might not even fully explain it.
“We do a lot with the athletes who come here, and it’s not just physically working out,” said Carrera. “For younger athletes who are still developing, you have to approach things in a different way. There are ways to work with these athletes to make sure they don’t get burnt out or suffer what I call ‘preventative injuries.'”
While traveling internationally for soccer with his son Chase — a 12-year-old who has roughly 50,000 followers on Instagram and who has played at a number of European soccer academies — Carrera noticed how the European academies developed their youth athletes and figured there was a way he could bring that home to the United States.
“Obviously as a training facility one of the key aspects of our work is helping these athletes get better physically, but that’s far from all we do here,” said Carrera. “We also help these athletes academically, incorporating academic coaching a few times a week so kids can come here and do their schoolwork before starting their physical work. The third aspect of what we do is the mental aspect. You can be a great athlete, but the mental part of the game is what can put you over the edge. So we really do try to take a fully holistic approach where we blend everything together to try and make these athletes the very best they can be.”
But Chase, who works out at the Woburn facility multiple times a week, isn’t the only Lynnfield athlete working out there. Some of the many athletes who have come through the doors including brothers Clayton and Cooper Marengi and recent St. John’s Prep graduate Anthony Fagan. All three players came to the center in order to keep themselves ready for what they hope to be their upcoming college football seasons — the Marengis at Endicott College and Fagan at Stonehill College.
“The Marengis are great and they came to the facility looking to stay ready for football, and they’ve been here for about a month and they come in about three times a week,” said Carrera. “They have such great work ethic and really do a great job when they’re here.
“Anthony is a friend of Clayton’s and he reached out after hearing good things, and he’s been coming consistently as well,” Carrera added.
Carrera also points out that the center has trained athletes from all sports, including football, soccer, hockey, baseball and many others. It’s not about what sport you play, says Carrera, it’s about being the best athlete you can be.
“Our goal here isn’t necessarily to make you a professional athlete or something like that,” said Carrera. “Our goal is to have our athletes who are here working out now at 15, 16, 17 years old look back in 10 years when they’re working at a hospital or a law firm or something and say, ‘hey, Impact Sports Lab really helped me make the best of myself.'”
The new era of COVID-19 has brought in some new protocols, but nothing drastically different from what the center was already doing. The training sessions are done in groups of no more than six athletes, and many online workouts and classes are also offered for those who are still not willing to come back to the physical facility.
In addition to hosting athletes at the center, Impact Sports Lab has also partnered with the Lynnfield Parks and Recreation Department to offer summer programs to kids. While COVID-19 put a stop to the partnership initially, Impact Sports Lab has been able to welcome those kids who signed up through the recreation department.
“It’s been great to be involved with them, we know them very well and we were really looking forward to all the programs before COVID hit,” said Carrera. “But luckily we’ve been able to get in touch with all the kids who signed up through the rec department and we’ve been able to have them come to the facility for their programs.”
