VSP Highlight: America Ninja Warrior – Emily Gardiner
This week’s VSP Spotlight shines on VSP athlete & intern Emily Gardiner! Emily is a long-term velocity athlete and has recently joined our team as a performance & social media intern! We want you all to get to know her a little bit more & are excited to highlight her successes in both her athletic development and journey as a young leader in sports.
Let’s dive in!
Who is Emily?
Emily, a recent graduate of Fox Lane H.S., is an incoming freshman at The University of Tampa. But well before her commitment to a college, she has been killing it as a Ninja Warrior!
Emily started off her athletic career in gymnastics, diving, & cheerleading before switching over to ninja athletics. She currently trains at Stamford Ninja Academy & has had quite the start to her career.
Has anyone seen the T.V show & competition American Ninja Warrior?
Emily’s Accolades
Emily was first invited to compete on American Ninja Warrior for season 15. At the time, she was only 16 years old! As a rookie, she made it all the way to the Las Vegas National Finals & since then she has competed on two other seasons of American Ninja Warrior! As a young, vibrant, female competitor she has become a fan favorite for her high energy, commitment to elite sports performance training & intense obstacle completion.
Since starting Ninja competitions, Emily has been able to use her skills to partake in competitions all over the country & world. So, the beginning of her career has been eventful to say the least.
Emily’s Internship
When Emily reached out to us here at VSP in search of an internship, we were thrilled as we thought she would make a fantastic intern!
Coming off an ankle injury, one of her main goals was to gain knowledge on how to advance performance coming off a rehabilitation program. In addition, her secondary goal was to understand how professional & college athletes prepare and advance their bodies through structured strength training and performance programming.
We were able to have Emily shadow in on sessions with some of our coaches in RTPP sessions, private sessions with some of our professional athletes, & shadow and partake in our college summer group. All of these different & individual situations allowed Emily to grasp all the concepts that surrounded her initial inquiries of athletic development.
What she learned & advice she would give to perspective athletes
When we sat down with Emily to reflect on her internship we asked her two questions. 1. We asked her to think of one main takeaway that she learned that surprised her & 2. one word of advice she would give prospective athletes after working on the development side of sports performance training.
- “I was honestly shocked how much effort the coaches at VSP put into athlete programming. It was honestly really eye opening to see how individual the programming is to each athlete. I originally thought it was much more generalized, and I didn’t realize how specific it all is.” – Emily Gardiner
- “My word of advice would be – Fear ruins more opportunities than failure does. My Ninja coach told me that when I was 12 & started competing. Years later, I repeated that to myself on the stage right before my American Ninja Warrior run. That would be my advice to prospective athletes.” – Emily Gardiner
What’s Next?
As Emily goes off to college she is going to continue to train & compete in ninja. So keep your eyes out for future seasons of American Ninja Warrior & other worldwide competitions!
Whether it’s through continued speed training, strength building, or refining technique, her focus on athletic development will remain at the core of her training.
We are excited to continue watching Emily thrive & can’t wait to continue being part of her development!
Keep it up Em!
Written By:
Jake Lebovitch – Assistant Director of Performance & Content Manager
