Social Distancing Fitness Training
Updated: Jun 30, 2020
6/27/2020
Hello everyone. In my previous posting, I spoke about meeting with me via Zoom to ensure we practice social distancing while ensuring you receive quality sessions.
Hopefully, you all have been doing your respective training during this pandemic. The problem that people are finding is where or how. 'Where' does play an important role as you want to feel that you are gaining muscle or speed or staying fit and up to par for your sport or desired healthy lifestyle. With that, as long as you practice social distancing, you can still go outside and do your fitness training. It is time to get creative with your training tools. In the gyms, you have free weights or cable weights. You can create weights with rocks, tree logs, cases of water, cases of soda, etc. You just need weight to train the muscles. I hesitate to say that you have to go primitive, but you pretty much are. Think about the athletic performance of Nancy Kerrigan, Dan Marino, and Michael Jordan. They did have the technology of today, but they still outperformed their competitors.
Group training. You and your friends can still do this. Stretching requires you to be apart. As you run, you can distance yourself while running side by side or in a line. Calisthenics can be done in groups because you are normally distancing yourself. For those that are normally in a gym for training, getting outside will have a different feel, but you will still get the same results with the same warmup exercises, stretches, and workout.
Cones and markers. Rocks, shirts, and spare shoes. When I was growing up we used shoes and old gloves to play baseball in the field; a grass field enclosed by a barbed-wire fence. Here, we used what was available to make bases. We did not have foul lines or baselines, because we knew to run to the base without going out of the way to avoid being tagged out. This is the same for your speed and agility training. You know the speed and agility drill, so mock the setup and get started. If you are alone, you will have to have the intrinsic motivation to work hard. The inner desire to be the best is not taught or coached; it is self-made by your desire to be the best or reach a goal. If you are with a mate, you can motivate each other with the added tool of a mate pushing you to go faster and harder. Extrinsic motivators like this are a great tool to make you push yourself.
While keeping the group small as per the CDC guidance and local guidance, mix up the group as well. In practice, the team works together. You build each other's ability to get better by working hard and giving a verbal positive talk. Do the same now. The JV player wants to be as good as you, the Varsity player. Help them get better. They can follow your guidance and build themselves up to be stronger and better. The JV player can hold you accountable for your actions as well. They will be pushing to get better. They will be watching you because you are the better athlete so they will see your skill and technique and hold you accountable for ensuring you do your complete routine without cutting corners.
A few weeks ago I spoke with a parent whose child has appeared to lose some traction on the diamond. I told the parent that there are two possibilities; time off and fear of the virus. All of this downtime is wreaking havoc on your health. It is easy to get lost in video games and Netflix. Now that society is slowly opening up, people are getting out and exercising. This is good, it is just the time to remember that your body has been sedentary so it has lost some level of mobility. Take a few weeks and rebuild the skill from the ground up. It will feel like a setback, but it is going to ensure your muscles can handle the workload. Your mindset going into this new style of training has to be that you are rebuilding.
In closing, remember to sanitize everything after your workout. Right now there is a fear that everything is contaminated. There is no harm in taking precautions. Many people are not going to want to touch your workout gear; this is okay, they are just taking precautions. Be creative, social distance with mates, and sanitize your gear.
Have a great summer and a great workout! I will see you soon on the battlefield!