Major Sports Training, Teaching Facility Coming To South County Trail

A mild winter has been great for site work taking place on land just south of the on South County Trail. Finalization of a building design and a groundbreaking are planned for March. It will be May of 2013 before the 57,000-square-foot building is finished.

When complete, Poliquin Performance will house a 20,000-square-foot gym, big enough to include two 40-yard tracks. The rest of the building will house classroom and training areas, plus a 5,000-square-foot shipping and receiving warehouse.

Currently Poliquin is located in the mill complex at the foot of Division Street with a 5,000-square-foot gym, 2,000 square feet of classrooms, 3,000 square feet of office space, plus a shipping and receiving area for their supplements.

Recently they added Poliquin Natural Solutions, a European supplement distribution company that ships to the 27 countries in the European Union.

The company has 25 employees with plans to add another 10 when they move to the new building.

Charles Poliquin was in the national athlete training system in Canada at the Calgary Olympic Center before moving to the U.S. some 14 years ago, founding Poliquin Performance in Phoenix in 2001. 

Because of his background and methods he began to attract trainers, top-tier athletes and the general public and he added an educational component to his strength-coaching regimen.

Caroleen Jones, Poliquin’s chief operating officer, said she and Poliquin decided to change their focus a few years ago, concentrating their effort on education for coaches and trainers. In 2006 they moved to Rhode Island. Initially working out of Jones’s home in North Kingstown, Poliquin began to share his techniques  worldwide through programs he developed.

That approach worked, and the business moved to a bigger space in North Kingstown’s Scrabbletown, followed by the move to the mill building in January 2009.

Jones says they have a five-level certification program, with nothing else like it available. 

“When you get to level five,” she says, “you can coach Olympic athletes. There are now certified P.I.C.P. coaches in over 50 countries and a record number of level five Master strength coaches." 

The program draws coaches and trainers from some 14 countries in addition to the United States, and that has an impact on the local economy which is expected to grow. Poliquin has worked out arrangements with the nearby Extended Stay and Springhill Suites motels for their participants. Springhill Suites even hauls people back and forth to classes in their van.

Today Poliquin caters to coaches and trainers, but with a bigger building they will offer strength-training programs to other interested clientele.