Strengthening the Sun
Analisse Rios ’08 is back in the game training some of the WNBA’s best.
It might only be 9 a.m., but it’s already been a long day for Analisse Rios ’08. As the head strength and conditioning coach for the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun, she travels with the team to away games. On this morning in late August, she had gotten in at 3 a.m. and grabbed a few hours of sleep after the team had taken on the Indiana Fever—and the formidable Caitlin Clark—in Indianapolis the previous evening.
“It’s crazy how the Caitlin Clark era has completely changed the WNBA. We’ve played in more sold-out arenas this season than ever in a WNBA season, and I love that for the athletes,” Rios says.
The Fever generated a bit more heat that August evening than the Sun, who lost by four points. But Rios was busy readying the team for their next game in D.C. that weekend against the Washington Mystics, which the Sun would win 96-85.
Being on the move has been a constant theme in Rios’s life. She grew up in Bolivia with two brothers and very active parents. “We would go to our high school on Sunday mornings and just kick the ball around, race each other on the track and do all sorts of things for hours,” she says.
Bolivia’s male-dominated soccer realm had no female soccer club teams when Rios was a teen, so, in an unprecedented move, she played on a boys’ team throughout high school. When she was 16, Bolivia formed a women’s national team and recruited her. For six years, Rios played all around South America, even flying from Connecticut to Argentina at one point to play in a tournament. At Conn, she she played on the women’s soccer team and ran track.
“I still see sports as fun, so that’s why I absolutely love my job,” she says.
Athletic training is a second career for Rios. She taught fifth and sixth grade for almost nine years, but she felt called back to sports, and in 2018, she decided to reach out to Conn’s Head Women’s Soccer Coach Norm Riker. “I just want to get back into it,” she told him. “Can I come in and help? I’ll come to practices, kick balls, pick up cones. Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do.”
Rios quickly realized the team could benefit from an official strength and conditioning program, so she started doing research and got certified as a personal trainer. She offered to write a program for the team to follow over the summer, and Riker gladly accepted. It paid off—the following season saw the team advance to the NCAA tournament, and Riker promoted Rios, who was then still teaching full-time, to assistant coach. When other Camel teams caught on, the College hired Rios as the full-time sports performance director.
“More and more colleges, professional teams and even high schools are investing in strength and conditioning. But seven years ago it was still an up-and-coming thing,” Rios says. “DIII teams didn’t require a strength and conditioning coach, and a lot of WNBA teams had no strength and conditioning coaches yet, either.”
Never one to do only one thing at a time, Rios also began working with Connecticut Sun athletes. She pulled double duty for four seasons, but in October 2023, the WNBA offered to bring her on full-time. While Rios considered continuing to do both, something had to give.
“I hadn’t had an off season for four years, because I went straight from all 10 to 15 sports that I worked with at Conn right into the Connecticut Sun season, and then there was an overlap where everyone was back on campus and I was still in season and traveling with the Sun. It was a lot,” Rios explains.
Her family life was also top of mind. Rios and her wife, Amy, have been married for 12 years and serve as foster parents—they currently have a foster son who is about 16 months old.
“I hated leaving Conn, because Conn has been a part of who I am since I came to the States in 2004, but I needed to do this for me, for my growth, for my family,” Rios says, adding that she still attends games whenever possible to cheer on the Camels.
With a better work-life balance, Rios has hit her stride with the Sun, training players and rehabbing injuries year-round. One of her proudest moments, she says, was watching Alyssa Thomas, whom she has worked with for five seasons, win Olympic gold in Paris with the U.S. Women’s Basketball team.
“She tore her Achilles tendon three seasons ago, and I did the rehab process with her,” Rios says. “She is the strongest, most athletic, most powerful person I’ve ever worked with. As a professional athlete, your body is your job, and I was with her at her lowest of lows with the injury, when she was literally learning how to walk again. And now, seeing her on the court is amazing.”