Athlete during COVID-19
Can you take any more zoom classes and online trainings?
By Zuriel Z Lozano
When the pandemic COVID-19 stared everything went on virtual mode. Virtual training was helpful for a minute but quickly it became annoying for many people. Training videos and virtual courses became repetitive & boring.
In fact, a number of training videos were all the same exact trainings but different people doing it.
There was a number of youth soccer club coaches & “private” trainers doing virtual training just enough where they could justify their paycheck. But in some cases, they had NO REAL content to talk about. We know this because kids talk!!
In addition, many athlete’s fitness level and skill declined drastically during COVID-19. You can only kick or throw the ball against the wall for so long before you get tired of doing the same drills. Furthermore, many athletes gain weight and lost all motivation to train.
The big lesson
However, the biggest lesson during this COVID-19 Pandemic is that sports is not learned in theory, you learn and master a sport such as soccer, by actually playing and getting real training.
We live in a society that everything is OVER-EXPLAINED and drills/exercises have to be done to perfection. But after of this VIRTUAL training it is time to think about a new training methodology.
“There is NO substitute for training and playing actual games.”
When this blog was written, we are slowly opening up around the country from this long quarantine. However, this is not going to be “business as usual”.
In fact from this moment forward, the WORLD is never going to be the same. But they way you train and play the sport will not change much.
Unfortunately, many soccer coaches and sport programs will continue to have the same approach in fitness, tactical and skill training as normal. However, it is very likely they will get the same results they received while doing virtual training.
Making a comeback from an injury, surgery recovery or COVID-19 quarantine, is not only going to be physically challenging but much tougher mentally.
It will take a powerful mental state of mind to simply pick up where you left off. As result, the athlete’s mindset is going to be the biggest factor in making a comeback.
Coming back
Virtual training is great idea but this is only a temporary solution. Athletes who did very little to stay in shape during an injury or quarantine will have to have a sensible plan in order to reach peak performance. They must be aware of the different kinds of psychological baggages they will face.
For example, frustration, anger, sadness or even feeling like giving up (not necessarily in this order). The problem with these psychological & emotional baggages is that it can hurt any athlete even if this athlete claims s/he trained constantly and stayed in shape.
Therefore, is very important to understand that training your body (fitness), technical skill is vital but you must be prepared mentally to be able to make a real comeback. However, the mental part is something that many coaches an athletes simply talk about it but there is no real CONTENT to see results.
Conclusion
Even professional athletes have slow starts when coming back from long lay offs, they understand that it takes time to recover.
But for many amateur athletes or even amateur coaches they believe is just a matter of picking up where you left off. But their emphasis is on the physical and technical aspects. In the mean time, the Psychological part which is the most important area of an athlete, is completely ignored.
As results, you will see many athletes training for many hours and for long periods but continue to be very frustrated which in turn will slow down their improvement for a while…Train your mind now!!.
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