Jovan Reina – Soccer Success Journey

Jovan Reina: Building Strength, Explosiveness, and a Future in Professional Soccer

Jovan Reina’s journey in soccer is a story of ambition, growth, and embracing new challenges. At just 16 years old, Jovan has already taken a major step in his soccer career, moving from Toronto, Ontario, to Spain after being scouted during a tournament in Dallas. Having played soccer since the age of four with Woodbridge Strikers, he is now competing in Spain’s professional academy environment, where he continues to challenge himself against higher levels of competition.

Video Chapters

00:00 Meet Jovan Reina — Intro & Soccer in Spain
00:20 From Toronto to Spain — The Scouting Story
00:57 Training Before LPS — What Was Missing
01:34 Finding LPS & First Impressions
02:09 Seeing Results — Strength, Mobility & Power
02:31 How LPS Changed His Training Mentality
03:10 The Mental Shift — Confidence & Pushing Limits
03:48 Injury Prevention & Understanding His Body
04:06 Biggest Gains: Strength, Power Per Stride
04:38 Coaches Clance & Wayne — The “Why” Behind Everything
05:53 What “Dominating” Means on the Pitch
06:42 Goals: Preseason, Goals & a Pro Contract
07:10 LPS in One Sentence — Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

From Toronto to Spain: Pursuing Professional Soccer

Jovan Reina’s soccer journey took a major turn when he and his brother were scouted during a tournament in Dallas and invited to Spain for a one-week trial. After experiencing the higher level of competition and professional academy environment, they decided to pursue the opportunity. Now in his third season in Spain, Jovan continues to develop his game and compete against high-level players.

Finding a New Approach to Training

Before joining LPS Athletic, Jovan followed a traditional gym routine alongside his regular soccer training. With demanding schedules that sometimes included two training sessions a day, he often avoided training his legs too much to keep them fresh for the pitch.

After researching performance training facilities, Jovan discovered LPS and was drawn to its high-energy environment, experienced coaches, and unique approach to athletic development. From heavy lifting to sprint training, he found a new way to prepare his body for the demands of competitive soccer.

Building Strength, Speed, and Explosiveness

Through consistent training at LPS, Jovan has improved his strength, hip and ankle mobility, and ability to generate power. He has also learned Olympic lifts such as cleans and snatches, along with resisted sprint training to develop speed and explosiveness.

These changes have transformed the way he approaches leg training. Jovan believes that becoming stronger helps him generate more power with every stride and move more efficiently on the pitch, while his improved conditioning helps him handle demanding training schedules.

Understanding His Body and Developing Confidence

One of the biggest changes in Jovan’s training has been learning the purpose behind each exercise. Coaches Clance and Wayne explain how movements contribute to strength, mobility, and power, helping him train with greater intention.

Jovan has also developed a stronger appreciation for proper warm-ups and injury prevention. Beyond the physical benefits, the intensity of LPS’s 10 AM Master Sessions has helped him build discipline, confidence, and a mindset focused on embracing challenges.

The Road Ahead

As Jovan prepares to return to Spain, his goals are to dominate preseason, score more goals, create assists, and contribute as much as possible to his team. Ultimately, he hopes to earn an offer for a professional contract and continue progressing in his soccer career.

Reflection on the Journey

Jovan Reina’s experience shows how the right training environment and a willingness to try something new can help an athlete reach the next level. Through improved strength, mobility, and explosiveness, he is preparing himself for the physical demands of professional soccer.

For Jovan, the lesson is simple: Step out of your comfort zone, embrace the challenge, and keep working toward your goals.

>> Watch more of our athlete success stories here.

TRANSCRIPTION:

 My name’s Jovan Reina. I’m 16 years old, and I play soccer in Spain. I’m from Toronto, Ontario, and I moved to Spain when I was 14 years old. I’ve been playing, or I started playing soccer at four years old with Woodbridge Strikers my whole life. And yeah, I moved to Spain when I was 14, and since then it’s been a great experience.

So how me and my brother ended up in Spain was we were in Dallas playing a tournament, and some scouts were watching and they wanted us, so they called us over to Spain for a one-week trial. We went for a one-week trial, and we liked it there. We enjoyed it. We saw the competition was much better than here, in our opinions.

And yeah, then we started playing there for one season. We went back the next season, and this is my third season going back. So yeah, overall, it’s just been a great experience, you know. You get to play a bunch of different professional, professional academies, professional environment, professional coaches.

Like, yeah, it’s just much better in my opinion. So my training before I came to LPS was just a normal gym schedule. I would say I would go train with my team normally, and then after, outside, we would do a team session with gym, and then I would also do extra gym sessions by myself working on upper body core, a little bit of legs, but nothing, nothing crazy because the legs are the most important part in football.

But once I came to LPS, it l- it was different. It changed. I don’t know. I wouldn’t train legs as much in the gym when I was over there because I felt like I needed my legs more fresh for all the training sessions we have cause there’s days where we have two, two training sessions in one day. So I feel like I needed my legs more fresh so I can run more, you know, stuff like that.

However, being at LPS, I feel like when we first came, we did a couple sessions, and right away our legs were sore And then after we started coming in the second week, and we started getting used to it more, and getting used to it more, and we did it four times a week, and yeah, our legs feel, our legs feel much better, and yeah, less sore.

I feel like I can last much longer in the pitch, and I feel like LPS changed my way of thinking and changed my way of working on my legs. Because before I used to basically just do maybe lunges with weight, back squat with l- with weight. But now, you know, I’m doing, like, cleans, uh, snatches, like, different stuff like that to work with your legs and, like, I’ve never experienced that before.

But yeah. I heard about LPS, uh, through research. I got some feedback saying I needed to get more explosive and faster. So we did some research online, finding out, and then we came in here. We did the testing o- over here, and we saw the environment that they had. We, we, we liked it. We thought it was different, but we wanted to try something new, you know?

I feel like the music, all the people screaming, the 10:00 AM vibes, like, all the, the master session, clients screaming at people, just the, the, the high intensity, the big weights, like, all that stuff, I just thought it was new. Obviously, it was something, it was something different, something I’d never seen before, but I was not scared to try the new, the new challenge.

I was, I was excited to embrace the new challenge. When I was researching, I thought it would just be a normal speed training thing, where they run on treadmills, you know, try and make you faster like that. But no, it’s like much more weights, and then after the weights, you do sprint sessions with, with pulling weight, nor- uh, normal runs without weight.

So I feel like it tricks your mind a little bit, and it helps. It works. Well, so I researched about some other places, but I don’t know what it was, but we just went with LPS, and we came in for the testing, and we liked it from there, so then we just stuck with it. There wasn’t really a time where I was hesitant, because I like to embrace new challenges.

I like to be different than other people, you know? So we came in here, we saw it was new, and we heard that it worked, so we came to try it out, and I feel like it’s working. I think the coaches understand, uh, explaining the why behind every exercise that we do helps you understand what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.

For example, the hip snatch, it works with mobility, power, speed, all of that stuff. And Clance, one day he explained it, and ever since doing it, I feel like I do it differently now. I try doing it m- with more power, with more speed, and trying to unlock that mobility, that hip and ankle mobility. I do feel like I Understand my body more because before I feel like I would just go to the gym sometimes not even warm up or, you know, and that could lead to big injuries.

And Clance always says here that warming up is very, very important so you don’t get injuries, and how all these workouts, they prevent injuries as well, making you stronger so, so you’re less injury prone. Some of the biggest gains that I’ve seen has been my strength and my mobility. I feel like my ankle mobility and hip mobility have incur- improved a lot, as well as my strength, because when I first came here, I wasn’t lifting the weights that I’m lifting now.

So, I feel like lifting more weight and putting more pressure on the legs will help me generate more power on the pitch. Because per stride, per, per step, I’ll be able to generate more power, as well as the sprints that we do after the sessions with the weight. I feel like if you pull more weight, when you don’t have the weight on you, you’ll be able to move quicker, move more fluid.

I think my mentality has changed in a different way. I feel like I approach things differently because, like, I haven’t really tried anything like this before and approaching it with a good mentality and a positive attitude, I think helped us a lot. And now I feel like when approaching new things, I’ll approach them with more confidence now, with more, more pride.

I feel like just getting up in the morning every day and coming to the 10:00 AMs, 10:00 AM sessions, it’s like you have to get up in the morning, you have to come to the master session, everyone’s screaming and loud music, lifting heavy weights. I think that’s just, like, helped me, like, push through.

You know what I mean? I feel like, um, the coaches at LPS help a lot with what you’re doing because of course they have a lot of experience. And I feel like both Clance and Wayne are two big influences in, uh, what we’re doing. They’re always pushing you to p- put heavier weight, of course, with always being safe.

So I haven’t really had any coaches like this at LPS. I’ve had other coaches in private training with the ball, with, with soccer, soccer-wise, but I haven’t really had, like, a weight, weight training coach before, so it’s been a new thing, but I really like the way that they do things around here, and I’ll definitely continue to come.

I feel like dominating means stepping on the pitch, and there’s no opponent that can compete with me. So I’m coming on the pitch and, like, even if you play for the best team, like, I’m coming to eat your spot. You know what I mean? Like, just like that, yeah. What I would tell another athlete if they’re on the fence about coming to LPS is that if they don’t come, that they’re missing out.

So my goals for when I’m, when I return to Spain is to kill the preseason, get through the preseason, and then score a lot of goals in the season, get a lot of assists, help my team, of course, as much as I can. And then hopefully at the end of the season, get an offer to sign a professional contract there, and we move from there, yeah.

If I had to sum up, um, my LPS experience in one sentence or a phrase, it would be, you have to step out of your comfort zone.