Speaker 1 (00:00): What’s going on. Welcome to the next level athletics sports training podcast. Where we help you navigate the athlete training world. I’m your host, Josh Jackson. And I’m here with Alex Fisher. Oh yeah. We’re going to have a fun one today. We’re going to talk a little bit about navigating COVID as an athlete. So obviously navigating COVID is something for athletes we’ve never had to deal with. So it’s all new. Every circumstance, every scenario is a brand new situation. So it’s pretty strange and it’s pretty weird. And it’s hard to know what to do because we don’t have any reference from what’s happened in the past. So we’re going to talk a little bit about like, how to deal with going on quarantine, which happens to a lot of people. Um, even not even being back in school or anything yet, and not even having sports yet, depending on where you live, everything is different here in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
We do have some school we’re switching back to online right now, but a lot of kids get quarantined for like a two week period, which is absolutely insane. I can’t imagine just say, Hey, you’re telling for two weeks nothing to do, especially as an athlete, you don’t get to go to practice for athlete training. Like if you get quarantined and your team still practices, you have to go two weeks without like, I dunno if you’re fighting for a spot that sucks, like insane. I know for myself in high school, like I was competing for a spot and because I was late to getting into everything and if I didn’t have that time, it would be, it’s hard to prove yourself or feel ready when you don’t have that opportunity, I guess, pretty strange. But if you are on quarantine, we’ll start with that as our topic, um, find ways that you can still get work in.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
So, because you’re on quarantine, doesn’t mean you stay home when you do nothing, do athlete training. Even if you have COVID, you don’t have symptoms. That doesn’t mean you don’t do anything. That doesn’t mean you just stay still as an athlete, you always need to be working, always needed to be pushing and getting as much athlete training in as possible. So whether that’s at home workouts, whether that’s a basketball goal in your backyard, whether it’s going on a run, whatever it may be, stay active. Especially at times like these. I mean, one of the worst things you can do is not be in shape. You have nothing else to do, do athlete training you know? So like make sure you’re in shape and ready to go. Even if you can’t work on the specific skills, if you’re soccer, basketball, and you can’t work on shooting dribbling, whatever it may be work on the conditioning level, make sure you’re prepped and ready to go. So that way, when you are back in clear, you’re good to go. I mean, did you see, like, what are your feelings on all of the COVID stuff? It’s crazy. It’s weird to me. It’s hard to even fathom for him.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
It’s pretty crazy. I can’t really imagine how different it is being in sports nowadays as a kid, because I remember in, when I was going through school, you’re going for a spot like Josh was saying, and every day you’re with the person you’re going against trying to better yourself, get in that position. And you had the whole team, all of the equipment, everything you needed to get better. And then now a lot of the time you don’t have any of the athlete training equipment to better yourself. So you have to figure out your own way to better your game, your to get that spot. And it’s going to be, it’s a big challenge, figuring out what you need to do, not just by yourself, but
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I mean, that’s a, yeah, I didn’t even thought about that point of like your schools and your team are equipped to give you everything you need to be successful. And really when we think about it, I would say most people aren’t equipped themselves to be successful in that sport without the coach, the team or whatever. I mean, I’ve been a lot of people are, but if you all use basketball, cause it’s close to home for me, if you don’t have ball handling drills, ready to go shooting drills, ready to go, like do a scenario where you’re playing against yourself, one-on-one with the imagination to do that or strength training or athlete training or whatever. It may be even the sports training or athlete training like we do here. If you’re not equipped to do that stuff on your own, you should be. And more like it’s relating it to a business cause we’ve lived through this. Like if you’re not prepared for everything, if you’re not prepared for online training for all of this stuff, then stuff happens. And you’re kind of at the mercy of the world when that happens and same with athletes, something happens. And if you’re not prepared, then you’re at the will of whoever says you get to go back and do it.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah. I mean, I can kind of feel like almost an athlete, just not on the sports team. Like when COVID hit, I was working out every day, six, seven days a week at the gym just to lift and help myself get better. And then I found out we’re going on quarantine and the gym’s closed. And I had to figure out my own way to get workouts in, but I didn’t have any equipment in my house. Cause I relied on the gyms being open and other stuff like that. So like the athletes relying on the school, providing athlete training and everything, it’s something that I never even thought about it myself, but it’s going to be a big difference of having your own equipment or finding out ways to make your own at home equipment and stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
For sure. I mean, it definitely makes you, um, self equip. You have to be ready to go, especially for circumstances like this. So even though this is a very, uh, very, uh, I guess not common circumstance, we don’t know if this stuff will happen in the future or anything, but even when it comes to your own personal sickness or anything being ready at all times, which is what you should be as an athlete. But this just takes it into a bigger scenario. You have to be ready all the time. I had a kid come in, he was training all throughout COVID and he was asking me for workouts and I was sending him workouts. And then right, once everything started opening up, we had a kid come in and his mom was like, yeah, he hasn’t been training all through. COVID like he’s out of shape and stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
And this kid was a good athlete. He was like, he was one of the higher level guys, but he hadn’t done any training. And then they had tryouts in like two weeks. And so it’s like, okay, that’s not good. You’re not in shape. And if soccer too. So like you’re looking at high level soccer, lots of running, lots of athlete training, lots of cardio have to be in shape and this guy hadn’t done what he needed to do over COVID and he wasn’t ready. Whereas this other kid just messaged me, Hey, can I get workout taken? I get this. I sent him all kinds of stuff and he was ready. So they said practice in two weeks. He’s like, awesome. I already know I’m in shape now. I just need to keep fine tuning all of my skills. So
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, even if it’s something simple, it’s going to be a lot more effective doing something, just like having the athlete. Even if you don’t go as far as contacting a trainer or something like that, doing something on your own is going to be so much more beneficial than official than the, like our other athlete that didn’t do very much over quarantine and kind of just hung out. Maybe did a run or two every so often, but never put in training. Unlike our athletes, you could tell the difference between the guy that put in the work. Even if it wasn’t something strictly scheduled, it was something. And he was so much more ready to get back into work and back into soccer and where he should have been.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Okay. Even with the break, for sure, for sure. I mean doing your own stuff. I mean, Google’s the best tool in the world. Like if you’re not that you don’t know where to start, start at Google, start YouTube, like literally look up the simplest thing. Like basketball, dribbling, drills, basketball, shooting, drills, hockey, stick, drill. Like literally I promise you anything you answer, you ask it in terms of training for athletics. It’s there. I guarantee you could find like ping pong drills that you could do. Like everything is out.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Oh yeah. It’s, there’s so many DIY ways to do different drills. Even if you’re doing basketball drills and you don’t have a basketball, there are so many different things you can work on looking through YouTube to work on the skill, even if you don’t have the perfect equipment.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
For sure. For sure. There’s always something you can do. So I guess moral of that story is be prepared. If you go on quarantine, be prepared, contact people. If you’re right now playing sports and you’re not on quarantine and you go back to practice next time, ask your coach at school, Hey, what are some dribbling drills we can do? Or just take the drills that you’re doing currently at school and apply those, write them down, do whatever you need to do to be ready. So that way, when you go into quarantine, you’re ready to go. So the other flip side of that is, and this is where I have like a soft spot in my heart for these people is the people that are going into college in the recruitment process. They’re trying to get all this stuff done. Like if you’re a senior in high school right now, depending on where you live, you might not be getting any looks at all because you’re not getting any playtime.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
And for anybody that’s trying to break through, like I didn’t play start playing basketball to my junior year of high school. If COVID would have hit like the same scenario we have right now, I don’t think I would have been able to play in college because I wouldn’t have got the run that I wanted. I wouldn’t have had the film that I wanted and all of that stuff. So it’s a tough situation to be in, but just know you’re not the only one in this position. So now rather than our poor me, we got to think, how do we beat it? How do we get to where we need to be? So a few ideas that come to my mind, if you doing any scrimmages, any playing at all right now, record get some footage of it. Even if it’s a scrimmage, even if it’s not that legit, that’s okay, because that might be all you have.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And if that’s all you have, that’s better than nothing. If you can send a scrimmage footage, eh, who cares the circumstances, that’s great. Same with practice. If you can send practice footage of you playing, I mean the skill is skill. If you’re shooting and you have a guy guarding you and you make a contest at three, whether it’s at practice or in a game, you made the shot. So it’s still showing what you can do in your ability. Same with all sports. Like even if you’re practicing, you can show your ball control. You can show all of these little intricate details that coaches look for. Honestly, when they’re going in the recruitment process, I mean a big other thing is athleticism. How a lot of recruiting is based off athleticism. If you are a freak athlete, you can get spots for basketball, for football, for all that stuff, because it’s easy to teach skill work in comparison to teaching athleticism as a whole, which I mean, I would say whole recruitment process.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Find out what you can do, find out what you can show, what materials you can have, what camps you can play in, and then just start contacting coaches. Cause you know, they’re in a situation of not having an abundance of kids to choose from because of all the COVID stuff. So be smart, be resourceful. Use the tools that you have and again, use your resources, contact people, you know, cause those people might be connected to schools, the teams, to all kinds of stuff, use your resources, be ready. Um, as far as recruiting goes, quarantine goes, can you think of any other areas that are weird with COVID right now?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Not that I know of besides like our biggest point we started with is not being able to practice with our team because of having to be quarantine or COVID stuff like that. But as far as being recruited, I just, I don’t know much besides talking to people that, you know, that might be able to get in contact with coaches or just contacting college coaches, yourself, seeing if they have anything they would like you to do for recruitment. Because like Josh said, they don’t have much excess athletes coming in, sending videos in. So if you reach out to them, they’re more likely to reach out to you and tell you like, Hey, I want some more videos of you practicing by yourself or doing other things that they want to see instead of just kind of sitting by the sideline, not doing much reach out, push or put yourself out there and you’d be surprised how much you can get back out from college coaches. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
That’s a really good point too. I didn’t even think about that as coaches, what they want to see cause they haven’t navigated this before. So if you’re like, Hey coach, I like it too. This is to a college coach. Hey, I don’t really know what to send around. I don’t have a ton of game film and obviously we’re not playing sports right now. What, what would you want, what would mean something to you that I could send your way that would like help out in the recruiting, figure out what three coaches say and do that to every single coach, right? I mean there’s a lot of ways to navigate it. Um, we can go into a lot more detail on this, but if you do have any questions on things that you should do, even if you need training advice or if you need to get connected with somebody to give you soccer, hockey, any type of training that you’re going for, we can do that. So don’t hesitate to reach out if you’re interested, probably cut that one here. So I appreciate you all listening. So the next level athletics sports training podcast. Um, yeah. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time. Thanks a good one.
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