With the world at a stand­still due to the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, all pro­fes­sions have been af­fect­ed. Ath­letes (all sports­men and sports­women) have like­wise been stopped in their tracks as all sports ground to a halt. The un­cer­tain­ty of when sport will restart would cause anx­i­ety and some con­fu­sion as to how ath­letes should main­tain them­selves. It re­quires at­ten­tion to both the phys­i­cal state and the men­tal state.

Phys­i­cal de­con­di­tion­ing is as much a pos­si­bil­i­ty as men­tal ex­haus­tion. Those who were bank­ing on sports schol­ar­ships, for ex­am­ple, may feel for­lorn as they can­not dis­play their tal­ent to be as­sessed.

It is im­por­tant to un­der­stand that this is a glob­al predica­ment and all ath­letes are in the same boat.

Where­as there was some clar­i­ty as to the sta­tus of crick­et in the West In­dies (some com­pe­ti­tions had been called off and oth­ers post­poned un­til lat­er in the year), un­til the re­cent post­pone­ment of the Olympics, there were many com­pe­ti­tions that had been put on hold and some whose fate had not been de­cid­ed. Any un­cer­tain­ty, es­pe­cial­ly as to when a com­pe­ti­tion is set to take place, af­fects the train­ing of the ath­lete. An ath­lete can main­tain fit­ness or de­lay peak­ing on the ba­sis of the sit­u­a­tion that ob­tains. But he or she can­not af­ford to de­con­di­tion.

Fit­ness

Those in the mid­dle of com­pe­ti­tions that have been put on hold, they must en­sure that their fit­ness is main­tained at its cur­rent lev­el. And that refers to all as­pects of fit­ness; body com­po­si­tion, strength, flex­i­bil­i­ty, aer­o­bic and anaer­o­bic fit­ness, car­dio­vas­cu­lar en­durance, agili­ty and sport spe­cif­ic drills. Yet, with gyms closed, these have to be ad­dressed at home or in open grounds and in less crowd­ed ar­eas, in­clud­ing beach­es.

With a re­duc­tion in some of the ac­tiv­i­ties, a check on di­et and hy­dra­tion is need­ed. Less en­er­gy ex­pen­di­ture may re­quire less in­take; flu­id re­quire­ments will drop if one is not out in the sun. Gym ex­er­cis­es like weight lift­ing, leg ex­ten­sions and curls, etc can be re­placed by home ex­er­cis­es util­is­ing body weight, push-ups, seat­ed squats, ab­dom­i­nal crunch­es, etc. The use of free weights on the an­kles to do leg ex­ten­sions and leg curls while seat­ed on a ta­ble can sub­sti­tute for some gym equip­ment.

Equal­ly im­por­tant is main­tain­ing sport spe­cif­ic skills; spot throws to a bats­man, bowl­ing against a wall, shoot­ing a foot­ball against a wall, shoot­ing net­balls or bas­ket­balls in­to a ring, hit­ting a ball with a rac­quet against a wall etc., are all ways of main­tain­ing hand eye co­or­di­na­tion and rhythm.

Those prepar­ing for an event may be in the fi­nal stages pay­ing at­ten­tion to tech­nique and strat­e­gy, hav­ing got­ten the heavy train­ing done al­ready. They now need to go in­to a “hold­ing pat­tern” by go­ing back to get­ting or keep­ing the body tuned, and de­lay­ing the skill based and ex­plo­sive phas­es. In track and field, it may mean main­tain­ing a slight­ly heav­ier work load and gym-based ex­er­cis­es. For the T20 crick­eter prepar­ing for say the IPL, a lot of at­ten­tion now would now have to be paid to per­fect­ing run scor­ing shots (scoops, re­verse sweeps, etc.) and pow­er hit­ting of six­es. They may need to add ba­sic run­ning and ex­tra gym work for a bit longer.

Coach­es will have to sub­sti­tute di­rect con­tact with re­mote com­mu­ni­ca­tion to set up and guide in­di­vid­u­alised pro­grammes, train­ing sched­ules, etc. Now is a good time for video analy­sis by both the ath­lete and their coach­es, to pay at­ten­tion to tech­niques - the fin­er side of per­for­mance.

Men­tal De­mands

Per­haps more dif­fi­cult is the man­age­ment of one’s men­tal state. Arousal may be at a peak for those in com­pe­ti­tion and an­tic­i­pa­tion peaked in those with im­pend­ing com­pe­ti­tions. Both of these need to be re­duced. Not all ath­letes pos­sess the abil­i­ty to switch on and off at will. Re­lax­ation tech­niques have to be em­ployed by those who can­not switch on and off at will. This will re­quire the sup­port of coach­es, fam­i­ly mem­bers and sports psy­chol­o­gists.

With more time on their hands, ath­letes can eas­i­ly slip in­to states of anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion. Struc­tur­ing the day for pe­ri­ods of phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty must be com­ple­ment­ed with struc­tured pe­ri­ods of men­tal ac­tiv­i­ty; pe­ri­ods of re­lax­ation such as watch­ing a movie or play­ing video games, as well as pe­ri­ods al­lo­cat­ed for de­vel­op­ing skills that will as­sist in sports when they do re­sume.

Im­ager is an­oth­er crit­i­cal method when op­ti­mal train­ing is not pos­si­ble. An ath­lete can re­play set as­pects of their sports (shoot­ing for a net­baller, start­ing out of the blocks for a sprint­er, etc) and break down each as­pect in their mind. They re­play it in slow mo­tion. Stud­ies have shown that in do­ing so, the same ar­eas of the brain are ac­ti­vat­ed as when do­ing the ac­tu­al ac­tiv­i­ty it­self and that im­proves per­for­mance. This can be done in­di­vid­u­al­ly, or coach­es can do it as a group ses­sion (with every­one con­nect­ed by phone).

It is im­por­tant that this pe­ri­od be used pro­duc­tive­ly in as­pects of sport that an ath­lete may not have pre­vi­ous­ly paid at­ten­tion. It is crit­i­cal for all to main­tain phys­i­cal and men­tal fit­ness. It is easy to slip out and much hard­er to re­cov­er.

Here’s hop­ing for ear­ly re­turn to nor­mal­cy.

Dr Ak­shai Mans­ingh is the Dean of The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ Fac­ul­ty of Sport.