In the summer of 2022, JJ Valencia joined the program as the Director of Baseball Performance. In this role, Valencia will oversee all aspects of strength and conditioning in the program in addition to serving as a performance coach for the players specializing in areas such as sleep, nutrition, stress, and time management.
A college baseball player and eventual graduate of the University of Dubuque, Valencia was an assistant strength and conditioning coach in the athletic department even while he was still on the baseball team. He also worked in the strength and conditioning department at the University of Colorado. Most notably, he spent time at Push Performance, a baseball-specific development gym in Arizona, where he helped train numerous professional baseball players. This experience blended with his passion for strength and conditioning makes Valencia one of the top baseball-specific strength coaches in the country.
Prior to completing his school at the University of Dubuque, Valencia played junior college baseball in the state of Washington. His sophomore season was spent at Skagit Valley, JC. He spent his freshman season at Lower Columbia JC, where he first connected with Coach Eddie Smith, the head coach at LCJC. Smith had high praise for Valencia upon his hiring, noting the importance of Valencia’s role in building the program, “Strength and conditioning is an area that our program finds to be a critical part of our player development. Valencia comes to Utah Valley highly recommended by some of the top strength and conditioning coaches in baseball. He will lead our daily strength and conditioning program in addition to being a great resource for our players in areas such as nutrition and overall performance.”
