For three days a week this summer, Escambia County High School’s athletic programs come together and work on one thing — to get fit for the upcoming sports year.

From football to softball, those participating in the school’s sports teams focus on injury prevention, heat acclamation and ability enhancement, ECHS head football coach Royce Young said.

“We have two sessions a day,” Young said. “We have one a 8 a.m. and one at 4 p.m. The one in the afternoon is designed for those who have jobs or summer school. We want them working out together.

“The majority of them are here in the mornings,” he said. “Our weight program isn’t a football program; it’s all athletes.”

Young said female athletes work out in a separate weight room, adding that he’s had as many as 90 kids turn out for workouts.

“We average about 70,” he said. “We had to divide them into two groups — one lifting and the other outside conditioning.”

Young said each workout day includes benching, squats and power cleans inside, and then running outside. The athletes work out Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of each week.

“Those are the staples,” he said about the workouts. “Each day of the week we do one each. We’re trying to break the monotony. Those don’t change.

“Outside on Monday is what we call endurance day,” he said. “Every day, we start out with a good, long warm up period. Monday, what we’re trying to teach is long-distance conditioning. Tuesday is speed and agility day, where they do short bursts. Thursday is our sprint day.”

Young said workouts have gone well so far.

“It’s kind of two fold,” he said. “This is my third summer here. We had the best participation, effort, attitude we’ve had since we’ve been here. The negative side of that is that we’ve lost that many (approximately 12) students that were supposed to be football players. That’s not due to graduation. We graduated 11 seniors last year.

“Some have transferred schools, some aren’t playing due to trouble issues that makes them ineligible to play,” he said. “We couldn’t be more pleased with what we’re getting out of the guys we got here.”

Fall football and volleyball practice starts in less than a month for teams in the Alabama High School Athletic Association.

Young said the Blue Devils will be participating in a speed camp today, and are playing in a 7-on-7 in Flomaton.