By By ERIKA PICKLES / Niles Daily Star
NILES – Being an athlete most of his life, former Niles resident Nick Tonkin had been very analytical in his personal approach to sports since he graduated from Brandywine High School in 1996.
"I noticed that there was a need in the area of tracking and analyzing athletes and non athletes for performance," Tonkin said. "I wanted to, in a sense, engineer a person by running tests on them and tracking the progress of their training programs."
His bright idea was soon put into gear, and Tonkin started Engineered Athletes.
Engineered Athletics and Fitness is dedicated to enhancing individual and team athletic performance and fitness by analyzing, recording and tracking key athletic characteristics.
Some of the testing includes body fat testing, standardized athletic testing, which is a test for teams strengths and weaknesses, and other tests which include training zones for optimal fat loss and ways to monitor improvement.
Tonkin's broad athletic and academic background brings a refreshingly new approach to athletic testing and development.
As a former Bobcat, Tonkin was very involved in high school sports, although he said football was his best.
"I played with an awesome group of guys my four years and ended up going 9-0 my senior year and making the playoffs for the first time in the school's history. I'm pretty sure that no one else has gone 9-0 since that 95-96 season that I played in," Tonkin said.
After graduation, Tonkin attended Michigan Technological University, where he earned a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering as well as an American Fitness Professionals and Associates (AFPA) certification.
His athletic background in college consists of one year playing collegiate football at a NAIA Division II school and three years of competitive bodybuilding with the NANBF and NPC.
"I want people to know that I'm not in the business of training people myself. I'm in the business of testing people and providing the information to the clients, athletes and coaches," Tonkin said. "The coaches can still coach and the trainers at the gym can still train. I'm not interested in taking that away from them. I'm interested in giving them more information so that they can do their job better."
Tonkin encourages coaches or health clubs in the area to contact him for more information.
Tonkin recently conducted body fat testing at the Lakeland Health Club and would love to do more work for area athletes in this area.
If anyone would like more information about how Tonkin can help them, please visit his website at www.engineeredathletics.com