The Oamaru personal trainer and nutritionist opened the pilot programme with 20 high school students in years 11, 12 and 13 at the start of this year but has since opened it up to take on more athletes.
"It started as just a senior sports academy just to give kids an opportunity to learn how to train properly, get some skills around strength and conditioning, what to do in the gym, nutrition support, mental skills support and some goal setting.
"We’ve got 15 returning from the pilot and within three days we filled the spots for the next one."
Most recently, she has created a programme for years 7 and 8 pupils as well as 9 and 10.
"The idea is they start there and move through each programme so by the time they get to that senior sport academy age group they’ve got a really good base and foundation."
It has grown so much that Melissa’s husband, Craig, will be coaching fulltime starting next year, allowing her to continue working on her business, Melissa Smith Total Wellbeing.
"I’ve got other areas of my business that I want to grow as well so I can focus on more nutrition support and Craig can take the lead on all the youth academy and youth development work."
Craig will finish up as St Kevin’s College deputy principal at the end of the school year. He has an extensive sporting background as a former Otago Volts cricketer and representative rugby player.
The goal of the academy was to teach the athletes to "fuel themselves properly for everyday life", Melissa said, "which would then obviously translate into being able to perform better in their sports as well.
"Kids are really under-fuelling. They’re doing a lot of sport, way more sport than they used to, but not actually eating properly or training to support what they’re doing."
Each athlete receives a gym programme and attends open gyms sessions.
However, the support the athletes receive does not stop there.
"We do online one-on-ones just to check in and see how they’re going," Melissa said.
"They also fill out some wellbeing forms as well to see how their sleep is and to understand that wider kind of lifestyle support that they need.
"Then I do nutrition support. I’ll have a theme for the month that we’re focusing on. I’ll develop a resource for them and they have to read about that and learn about that and apply it."
She has also brought in guest speakers such as Dylan Ross, a mental skills coach who worked with the Highlanders.
The fitness testing they have been doing has been a hit with the athletes due to their equipment. They use force mats and timing gates to get accurate data which makes tracking progress easier.
