NORTHAMPTON — Leila Markosian and her Northampton teammates followed recently appointed coach Ryan Davis not to the indoor track, but to a dark classroom.
He instructed them to sit down and pressed play on his phone. A woman’s voice emanated from a wireless speaker and calmly explained to them how to relax their minds and bodies. She spoke about harnessing the power of their minds and why they should be confident because of the amount of work they’d already done.
“We found out later it was a recording of his mother because she’s the hypnotist in the Davis Method conglomeration,” Markosian said.
Ryan Davis started the Davis Method last September. He began coaching the Northampton indoor track team last season and stayed with the Blue Devils through outdoor track and this cross country season.
The Davis Method refers to the business Ryan runs with his wife, Julia, and mother, Robin, and Ryan’s athletic philosophy for coaching and training.
In a brick and mortar sense, the Davis Method operates out of an office in a large, white building at 245 Russell Street in Hadley. It recently moved from a smaller white building, situated between its current home and Route 9. The new office contains a gym for Ryan to train clients’ bodies, room for Robin to ease their minds with hypnosis and space for Julia to help them recover with massage.
“The Davis Method is a group of practitioners looking to increase your holistic wealth from mind, body and soul. We attack from all different angles,” Ryan said. “The idea is that if we get somebody in the building we can help somebody in their entire life, not just in one aspect.”
The organization operates under a motto that guides it and Ryan: live intentionally and do everything deliberately.
“When you wake up in the morning you have reason for what you’re doing,” Ryan said. “There’s a physical, mental and spiritual answer for all of those things.”
Davis and the program — program in a broad sense, every client’s plan is tailored individually — are focused on helping people improve.
Ryan has been a trainer his entire professional life, just not always working with human bodies.
After graduating from UMass in 2013, Ryan worked at Apple in California for two years training new hires on the technology.
“I found that I loved training and I loved triathlons, but I didn’t love training at Apple,” Ryan said.
That brought the South Hadley native back to western Massachusetts. He volunteered coaching with the UMass triathlon team, which he previously competed for and still works with, and the South Hadley track and field team while working on his personal trainer’s license.
“As he was kind of realizing he wanted to be a personal trainer coincided when I was finishing up my (massage therapy) licensure,” Julia said. “So we’re like, ‘let’s just do it.’ We started combining the two of those things, and his mother had already had a side business going on, so then it just made a lot of sense.”
It made even more sense for Ryan to apply his method to his high school coaching, even if it took the Blue Devils time to understand.
“I think the team as a whole was apprehensive going into it. Like, this is practice time, why are we spending 20 minutes just sitting in the dark and thinking?” Markosian said. “I think that a lot of people saw there’s no harm in doing that and if we have more resources and more ways to calm ourselves before races, then why not try that?”
Evelyn Burke became a believer partway through the indoor track season in January. She had been running two events all season, but Ryan decided to put her in just the mile with a goal of run faster than 5 minutes, 30 seconds.
“So I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to make the time. I tried to stay really focused on being confident with myself, which is something that Davis had really emphasized and not listening to negative self talk,” Burke said. “I ran really fast, and I felt like that was a big thing for me.”
The Blue Devils haven’t gone 7-0 this cross country just by wishing and willing, though. Ryan lays out targeted training plans that vary based on runners ability and fitness but rarely change.
“It’s nice to have that kind of predictability,” Northampton senior Mairead Blatner said.
He’s brought the Blue Devils to the weight room to increase dynamic strength and flexibility, and decrease injuries through Olympic lifting. Ryan encourages massages, from Julia or someone else, to aid recovery and stretching.
“He also coaches on the college level and has his own personal clients where he does similar things and sees consistent results,” Markosian said. “That’s a testament to its efficacy.”
The Blue Devils accepted Ryan’s method because they trust him. This is the third consecutive season (cross country, outdoor track indoor track) Davis has been coaching Northampton runners.
“We’ve had a whole bunch of coaches over our time here, so Davis has been relatively consistent,” Northampton senior Evelyn Burke said. “I think that trust has really helped.”
The postseason starts Saturday with the PVIAC Championships at Stanley Park (3 p.m. girls varsity, 3:40 boys varsity). The Western Massachusetts Division 1 and 2 Championships will be held Nov. 13 at Stanley Park.