It’s the business of body and it’s making a difference

A single split-second shift and a life change.  We see this… on our highways, in a classroom, in a playground, on a jobsite.

When Matt Goreski was 25, he chose to play the final game of his Arena Football League contract, before playing his first game as a Hamilton Roughrider.  A split second injury ended his football career.  This moral decision changed his life.

Eight years later, Matt Goreski hasn’t played on a Grey Cup winning team; he has drilled his energies in a new direction as he works with athletes—mostly young athletes–to achieve their goals.

It takes a special person to make this kind of switch, to re-shape goals so that the dreams of a young athlete become the daily work goals of another.  Matt’s that kind of person.

With his business, Kinetic Excellence, (www.kineticexcellence.com) in its eighth year, Matt can see the results of his decision.  And he’s building a stable of clients whose sport goals are paying off for them.

Hugo Lopez, a York Region athlete trained by Matt since he was 15 years old, hits the field as an Edmonton Eskimo this year.

A couple of Matt’s ‘clients’ are in the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association).  An Orillia student, now at University of Toronto, is a gifted sprinter and hurdler with her eye on Olympic Games.  He’s been training Ultimate Fighting champ Carlos Newton into his comeback.  In fact, Kinetic Excellence has a few mixed martial arts fighters on its roster right now.

If it’s not a football field giving Matt his drive, what is it?  “I get motivated by athletic success and its opportunity,” says this athlete.  “Anybody who comes to me and wants to get better… that’s what drives me today.”

Matt’s been running hockey camps in Sweden since 2007 with real success.  And his first York Region camp offers two weeks of intense training this year and four weeks in 2012.

That’s why the Kinetic Excellence two-week camps, KEProPerformance, are going to shift gears for two types of athletes during July.  Centred at the Magna Sports Centre in Newmarket (now, this incredible centre is a story all on its own), the camps offer accommodation at nearby Seneca Campus, wholesome foods prepared by a nutrition chef, and world-class coaches for both hockey players and figure skaters.

Matt has pulled together 12 to 15 figure skaters, all international class champions, who will benefit from international skating technical specialists as well as strength and conditioning, plyometrics, mental conditioning sessions.  Coaches from Estonia and Russia will round out the camp team.

While the figure skaters are focussed, 30 hockey players will be working on other ice surfaces at the centre.  A professional Swedish goalie, a few OHL (Ontario Hockey League) players, the captain of the Belgium Olympic team, players from California, Florida, Calgary, Barrie, Owen Sound, University of Illinois, and women from Cree First Nation in Northern Quebec promise a geographic and cultural blend.

While he does rehabilitation work (a senior with chronic issues of balance, mobility and people with chronic multiple herniations who learn to tune their bodies), Matt’s true calling is with young athletes.  He’s developed strategic alliances with many facilities so he’s able to work with athletes in a number of locations… real corporate symbiosis.

Where do his clients come from?  “Referral, mostly.  One football player sends me others.  Especially in hockey, if I get to the right people, it passes like wildfire.”

As Matt looks back on the past eight years and ahead to the rest of his sports therapy/career life, that critical injury before his first CFL football game, sits like a beacon for him.

“I get motivated by opportunity and athletic success,” he says.  And he’s doing just that!

Thanks, Matt.