Where in the Valley you can catch the Eagles’ all-time scoring leader this weekend – lehighvalleylive.com

St. Luke’s University Health Network invites the public to the grand opening Saturday of its St. Luke’s Fitness & Sports Performance Center in Allentown.

The 30,000-square-foot training space at 702 Union Blvd., formerly the Pig Pen Fun Bar, features artificial turf fields for sports-specific skill training for everything from soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, baseball, softball and football, to adult fitness, tactical fitness and more, according to St. Luke’s.

The grand opening is scheduled noon to 4 p.m., and Philadelphia Eagles Hall-of-Fame kicker David Akers is expected to attend. Akers is an investor with developer Terry Bender in the facility, which St. Luke’s will operate through a lease, officials said when they announced the new center in May.

Akers, a six-time NFL Pro Bowl kicker and current professional water skier living in Nashville, Tennessee, is the Eagles’ all-time scoring leader with 1,323 points during 12 seasons from 1999 to 2010. Saturday, he is slated to lead a metabolic conditioning class at 1:30 p.m. for adults alongside fitness expert John Graham, senior network administrator of St. Luke’s Fitness and Sports Performance.

“Metabolic training is an excellent way for adults to advance their fitness in a class … targeting cardio-fitness improvement, muscular strength and endurance, fat-burning metabolism, and lean body mass enhancement,” Graham said in a news release.

Other activities throughout the afternoon include giveaways, raffle prize drawings, refreshments and an appearance by Lehigh Valley IronPigs mascots Ferrous and FeFe, as well as:

• Interactive sports clinics for youth athletes of all ages with participating sports clubs including Headstrong Lacrosse, Lehigh Valley United Soccer Club, Perfect Touch Soccer, Scott Cooperman’s Baseball Group and Marajoka Field Hockey Club.
• Advice for runners on how to go fast from Easton’s own middle-distance runner and Olympic hopeful Chanelle Price.
• Information on St. Luke’s new Empower with Power, a strength-training program for young women.

St. Luke’s this week also introduced 2020 Olympic Games hopeful Jillian Seamon as an athletic trainer at the new Union Boulevard St. Luke’s Fitness & Sports Performance Center.

Seamon, 29, originally from Hazleton, Pennsylvania, won gold medals last month in Tramelan, Switzerland at the international 49th Challenge 201, an approved Olympic Qualification event hosted by the International Weightlifting Federation. She won the snatch (93 kilograms), clean-and-jerk (114 kilos) and total (207 kilos) for the 71-kilogram weight class, according to St. Luke’s.

“I got introduced to the weight room when I was in college, and I could see the effects it had on me getting stronger, improving my performance and my ability to stay healthy,” the University of Delaware graduate said in a news release. “As an athletic trainer, my philosophy is to implement programs for injury prevention and rehabilitation.

“Even when athletes are young, the idea is to strengthen their bodies so they can handle the loads placed on them in competition. We do that with strength training, pre-hab and rehab; it’s all one continuum.”

Along with helping to open the new training center in Allentown, next up in weightlifting for Seamon is the national championship competition at the American Open scheduled Dec. 5-8 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.