ETS Performance set to open Mankato location in June

MANKATO, Minn. (KEYC) — Adam Thielen and Ryan Carter are well known in southern Minnesota, not only for their prolific careers with the Minnesota State Mavericks football and men’s hockey teams, but also for their success as professional athletes in the NFL and NHL

For Thielen, the wideout has put together an impressive career with the Minnesota Vikings and a resume that includes two seasons of more than 1,000 receiving yards, two Pro Bowl appearances and a total of 25 receiving touchdowns in six years.

All that success comes with countless hours of work at his specialized training facility.

“I met Ryan Englebert and started with ETS pretty much right after my college days before my first combine. I’ve been bought in ever since," Thielen said.

The Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, native has trained at ETS Performance for a number of years now and has tailor-made plans for each offseason with workouts that provide results that he notices on game day.

“I can feel that on the field and I can feel myself getting in and out of my breaks faster," stated Thielen. "I feel more explosive, I feel stronger in the right areas that help me become a better athlete first, and football player second.”

This sort of specialized training is also something Carter sought during his NHL career, which began with the Anaheim Ducks in 2006, saw him win the 2007 Stanley Cup and ended when he retired in 2017.

“Everything I thought I knew, [well it] turns out I didn’t. Then I started a journey on figuring out the best way to train my body. Five years into my professional playing career, I was fatigued with the way I was training," Carter said. “I run into Thielen and Ryan Englebert at ETS, and Thomas Vanek (a former NHL player who spent two seasons as Carter’s teammate on the Minnesota Wild) actually was the one that said to try this out. Before I got through my evaluation, I could see that there was a ton of deficiencies in my body and the way I’d been training.”

”We want to treat every athlete as an individual, not specifically because of a sport they play, because a lot of times what you need to work can correlate with what someone else may not work on with a different sport. The biggest thing is making sure they have an evaluation, and we have a plan that we can tailor exactly to their needs," Englebert added.

Now, Englebert and the former Minnesota State Mankato talents, along with former Minnesota State running back T.J. Schraufnagel, are bringing the unique ETS formula to Mankato.

“When you’re there for college [at MSU Mankato], you embrace that community. You go to high school football and basketball games, you hear about the different sports that are having success in the high school level," explained Thielen. “It’s cool to bring this resource to them that I wish I had growing up. I can’t imagine having that resource at that age. That’s why we’re excited to bring this to Mankato and hopefully benefit a lot of kids, but not only as an athlete, but as a person as well.”

”I’ve had some injuries, and I don’t think I always trained my body the right way, and, because of that, I live with some of those injuries. If I can give back to the community, the young athletes and say ‘this is what I’ve learned from my playing days and I think you can learn from it too.," Carter explained.

The facility is currently scheduled to open June 1 and will be located at the back of the Minnesota Valley Action Council building on North Victory Drive.

Carter and Schraufnagel will be co-owners of the Mankato location.

To celebrate the opening of the new facility in Mankato, ETS Performance will be offering a free month of training to the first 50 people who send an email to mankato@etsperformance.com and request an athlete evaluation.

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