Oneonta native Alexis Davis is filling a need among the area’s athletic population.
Davis, 38, launched Performance Athletics about six months ago, though she said the idea was years in the making.
“The biggest inspiration was the need in the area,” she said. “Throughout my career as an athletic trainer and working with athletes, I felt one of the weakest areas was sports-specific rehab, and it’s one of the biggest needs for athletes and athletic populations, to not only get back to their performance level, but prevent further injuries from happening.
“I spent a lot of time studying that on my own and trying to hone that skill set and knowledge,” Davis continued. “Over the past few years, I think, throughout the sports-medicine community, people have seen that need more, and it’s become prevalent in large, metropolitan areas, but not in small rural areas like Otsego County. I was getting really tired of seeing these young athletes falling through the cracks and I wanted to take care of them, I wanted to catch them.”
Before Performance Athletics, Davis said, she worked as an athletic trainer for Bassett Health Care.
“My primary responsibility was going around to area high schools and seeing high school athletes when they had injuries and doing evaluations and triaging them with minor rehabilitative exercises or referrals to orthopedists,” she said. “But it didn’t fulfill the need for the more significant injuries and certainly for athletes who have had surgery and needed to come back and needed advanced sports rehabilitation. My time at Bassett kind of helped create this idea, because it was working with some of our sports-medicine doctors at Bassett and our mutually seeing this need sparked my program, so I was doing it a little bit on the side, but wasn’t able to do it full time. Bassett still has this program of athletic trainers, but it wasn’t what I, after a while, felt like I wanted to do; I wanted to do more of the sports rehab side of things.”
Through Performance Athletics, Davis said, she offers “general strength and conditioning, sports-specific or performance training, injury prevention and rehabilitation programs, movement screening analysis and running gait analysis” from the Y Specialty Fitness at FoxCare (previously Healthlinks).
“I offer several different packages of bundles or sessions or monthly subscriptions, depending on the individual’s needs,” she said. “I try to tailor stuff to what each individual person needs. And I’ve been very fortunate that, when the YMCA came in and kept the fitness center open, they were very positive about keeping a partnership with me and allowing me to utilize their space, because it is pretty much the perfect space to use. It’s been very mutually beneficial.”
Davis, who is accepting new patients, said clients have been enthusiastic.
“The general response has been really positive,” she said. “The biggest fear starting a venture like this is, ‘are people going to see the value or the need?’ And, so far, that has been an overwhelming ‘yes.’ I expected things to start slow and gradually grow and that hasn’t been the case; it was immediate need from so many people, right off the bat.
“Geographically, I would say (clients represent) mostly Oneonta, Cooperstown area,” Davis continued. “In terms of demographics, I would say probably 50% of my population right now are youth-level athletes — middle school, high school and college. My youngest client right now is 12, then I also have the other 50% made up of adults who are very athletically active; maybe they participate in roller derby, jiu jitsu, or they have physically demanding jobs like law enforcement or dancers, and a few people who are over the age of 40 who have some general, physical health issues or conditions and they know that strength training is going to improve their overall lifestyle and keep them healthy long-term, but they don’t know how to do it and need some guidance.”
That enthusiasm, Davis said, is reciprocal.
“I’ve been an athletic trainer for 16 years and a strength and conditioning specialist for over 10 years and, honestly, (what keeps me invested) is the patients and the athletes,” she said. “I love working with that population.”
Davis said she hopes to continue strengthening not only clients, but her program and its reach.
“Short term, I would say in the next six months or so, I’d like to create some group projects for local athletes, whether that is group training or team training, but partnering with some of the local sports teams and clubs — soccer, wrestling, basketball and baseball,” she said. “Long term, I would love to grow and collaborate with some of the other sports-medicine and health care people in the area, and maybe create a whole facility that could become a one-stop shop for physical therapy, rehab, sports training and sports performance and give all the area athletes and athletic populations the high-quality care that they need and they deserve. Just because we’re in a rural area doesn’t mean we don’t deserve quality care.”
For more information or to book a consult, contact alexis.davis@performanceatheltics.org, follow @performance.athletics on Instagram or find “Performance Athletics” on Facebook.