Sports Side by Side

Already one of the top strength and conditioning specialist in all of British Columbia, Tammy Kovaluk had a dream to be one of the best in the States and she chose Tucson as the launching pad for those dreams.

No stranger to Arizona, Tammy attained her M.Sc. in Kinesiology in Mesa and did some market research on what was available in the Phoenix area. She found the area was saturated with companies dedicated to sport performance conditioning due to the professional sports teams in the Valley so she turned to Tucson where she found the opportunity she was looking for.

“I had bigger dreams and I felt I could accomplish them in Tucson, ” Tammy explained. “The Tucson market has very little offerings in what I specialize in. I work with sport movement based on what the athlete needs.”

Rather than just working on building muscle or just concentrating on increasing speed, Tammy visits athletes on their home “turf” so to speak to get an idea of what the athlete may need to work on to increase all levels of performance.

She had worked as the National Football Academies Canada strength and speed coach and with the Nanaimo Pirates of the British Columbia Premier Baseball League as well as several high school football and baseball teams in Canada.

She misses her athletes back home the most but is slowly building a clientele at her northwest location at 5150 N. La Cholla, across the street from the Sporting Chance facility.

Called, “RISE Sport Performance Training, ” the facility opened in March and she is waving all start-up fees through the summer months. There are two levels available, “perform and maintain” is $149 a moth and “perform and excel” is only $199 a month with unlimited visits to her gym.

Tammy is also hoping to build on her own personal sport as an obstacle racer. Unlike the obstacle races depicted on television, her competition is based on the more difficult military style of races such as