Hyperice for the Win
I have been calling this past week at home my "Sports Parent Rehab Program"
Last week, I spent five days in the chlorine tank at the FAST Aquatic Center in Ocala, Florida, where thousands of parents and families, coaches, volunteers, and officials gathered to support young athletes from over 95 YMCAs competing at the YMCA National Long Course Championships.
It was exhausting. It was emotional. It was extraordinary.
And I would do it again tomorrow.
This was a big one for him. Five days of long-course racing at the end of a summer he had worked so hard to qualify for and be ready to represent his new team. So, in true Pool family fashion, we overprepared.
We packed one entire bag for the trip with Hyperice gear (the massage gun, the X2 shoulder system, his Normatec Elite compression boots), a Magic Bullet blender, and his specific nutrition preferences (Skratch Labs drink mix, Clif Bloks, Honey Stinger Waffles, and assorted other items). He recovered from a big injury earlier in the year and put in the hours upon hours of work, so if we were going to Ocala for five days of championship swimming, we were going to treat it as it should be treated: FIVE DAYS OF CHAMPIONSHIP SWIMMING!
We arrived at the Courtyard Marriott on Monday and set up camp to be ready for the first events Tuesday morning.
He got “the big bed.” I got the pullout couch.
We unpacked, hit the nearby Publix for the other essentials, and then I set up an athlete’s table in the room with all the essentials for the week. It looked less like a hotel room and more like a small performance lab for a healthy NIL athlete run by someone with no sleep and no budget discipline.
Every morning, I was up at 5:00 a.m. I would tiptoe to the bathroom, get my running gear on, guzzle down my IM8, grab a bar, and slip out unnoticed for a run.
That was my time to clear my head, catch up with mom back home, and run out the butterflies.
Then I came back, made smoothies, got breakfast together, packed snacks, checked the schedule, checked it again, and started getting him ready for the day.
He had a better plan.
He would sit on the bed, work through his summer reading, watch terrible TV, and cycle through the Normatec boots and the X2 shoulder system.
Monday evening, we arrived at FAST for a team warm-up session. I walked towards the stairs up to the stands and saw something that stopped me.
This is cool. Is this part of the facility, or is it here for the meet?
Then, at the top of the stairs, on the concourse under the stands. There it was.
Hyperice had set up a full recovery station on the concourse.
Row of chairs. Normatec boots. Products to try. Products to buy. A legitimate recovery experience in the middle of the YMCA National swim meet.
Not a professional event. Not a college championship. A youth swim meet with athletes 18 and under, and Hyperice was treating it like the big time.
The photo I took of the empty chairs was the last time I saw them empty. For the rest of the meet, the recovery space was full. Athletes were in line. Coaches were using it. Officials were using it. Parents were using it. I watched people walk away carrying newly purchased Hyperice gear.
That is what good event activation looks like.
It is not a logo on a banner or someone handing out a free sticker. It is showing up with something people need, in the moment they need it.
I caught up with Grant Geisler, who was running the Hyperice program, and we had a great conversation. We also shared some appreciation for Jess Miller, who recently left the company and, I’m sure, played a role in deciding that this was a great place for Hyperice to have a presence.
I was already a Hyperice customer. I swear by the products. My son swears by the products. But seeing the company show up in Ocala at YMCA Nationals and give young athletes the same kind of recovery experience typically reserved for professionals or more well-known events gave me a new level of respect for the brand.
The swim meet is over. We made it home (a whole other story about a brand - goes by AA - that is on the opposite side of the brand respect spectrum). The pullout couch is behind me.
My ‘Sports Parent Rehab Program’ is very much underway, wearing MY Normatec compression boots!
