More on Mihlfeld

Posted by Coley Ward on Friday June 09th 2006, 3:43 pm, filed in News reel

Big Thanks go out to Paul, who spent his lunchbreak researching Chris Mihlfeld and his career as a major league trainer. Here it is:

1998 – Albert Pujols enrolls in Maple Woods Community College, a junior college in Kansas City and plays for Chris Mihlfeld, who is the head coach. June 1998 – Mihlfeld is hired for the summer as head strength and conditioning coach for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ Class A organization in the Gulf Coast League. (The first person suspended for steroids in MLB, Alex Sanchez, played for this team in 1998.)

January 1999 – Mihlfeld resigns from Maple Woods to become the minor league strength and conditioning coordinator for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

2003 – Mihlfeld joins the Kansas City Royals as the strength and conditioning coordinator, leaving his job as the minor league strength and conditioning coordinator for the Dodgers.

October 4, 2004: The Kansas City Royals announce the resignation of Chris Mihlfeld, strength and conditioning coordinator. Andy Kettler assumes the role upon Mihlfeld’s departure.

January 20, 2005: In an article in the Kansas City Star, Mike Sweeney discusses his decision to stay in Kansas City and not attend the team’s mini-camp in Arizona. Instead, Sweeney chooses to work on his bad back with Chris Mihlfeld, who had already left the organization a few months earlier to start his own independent training and fitness facility in Pleasant Valley, MO, called Millhouse AEP.

January, 2006: Both Mike Sweeney and Albert Pujols hold clinics on separate occasions at Millhouse AEP.

Finally, here’s a graf from a May 26, 2006 article that appeared in The Sporting News, which includes a quote from Mihlfeld on Pujols’ dedication to proper nutrition:

Though steroids suspicions and controversies have embroiled some of the game’s biggest stars–including Mark McGwire–Pujols spends time each off season teaching hitting clinics at Mihlfeld’s facility north of Kansas City in Pleasant Valley, Mo., and preaching the value of nutrition over chemicals. He is cautious with his body’s intake. Rather than hire a personal chef, Pujols asks Deidre to cook his meals. She researches on the Internet the best ways to feed her husband. “That’s big with Albert,” Mihlfeld says. “He wants to make kids understand there is a right way. There is a lot of temptation out there. He wants instruction based on nutrition and strength and conditioning.