Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — It should come as no surprise that Nick Savage is doing just fine with regard to his own personal training regimen. Like most everyone else at the University Athletic Association, the director of football strength and conditioning has been holed up at home going on two weeks now, but the work — and the working out — hasn't stopped.  
 
The Griffin-Oakley Strength & Conditioning Complex in the stadium's south end zone (all 25,000 square feet of it) has been shuttered since March 13, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, so Savage has turned to his personal dumb bell sets, bands and other equipment, as well as heavy doses of pushups, squats, lunges and runs through the neighborhood for cardio.     
 
"One thing about strength coaches," Savage said. "We always find a way." 
 
Such is life right here, right now, but there's another thing about strength coaches in these altogether different times. They have to find a way to train their student-athletes remotely — more than 500 of them at Florida — while the nation (and the world) figures out and waits out the coronavirus pandemic. No one can say just when, but the time will come for collegiate sports to resume and it's up to the UF strength-and-conditioning directors and coordinators to have their athletes in the best shape possible to be ready to hit the fields, courts, pools and tracks full speed ahead. 
 
Per NCAA rules, any film review or instruction with teams is not permitted at this time, but coaches and strength/conditioning staff are allowed daily interaction with regard to team activities, as well as communication with student-athletes to check on their well-being. The interaction does not, however, allow for monitoring physical activities, such as remotely watching or directing workouts. In other words, no virtual coaching.

Every team has to have a plan.
 
 

"Obviously, with the disruptions of local gyms and the stay-home mandates we're really having to revert back to our basic physical education roots," said Paul Chandler, director of UF's Olympic sports. "So you're talking about simple movements that are very, very practical and still very good. Obviously, it's going to affect performance until we can get back to what we do, but we can all get some good work done in the interim."
 
The stoppage impacts the various sports different ways. Chandler, for example, oversees baseball and softball, so his athletes (like track and field, lacrosse, tennis and golf) were interrupted in the middle of their regular seasons. The players were all in peak condition. That's a big difference from, say, the fall sports — football, volleyball and soccer — that were gearing up for the meat of their pivotal offseason programs. 
 
Take football. 
 
When Coach Dan Mullen met and broke the news to his players two weeks ago that UF's facilities were closing down, he did so by hammering home a message of personal responsibility. From there, Savage and his assistants took charge by issuing a detailed "Gator At Home Training" program that leaves no stone (or muscle group) unturned. Savage assigned each member of the football strength staff position groups in which they are in contact with a couple times a week. Savage, meanwhile, touches base with each group weekly. Sometimes the conversations are personal, other times motivational, all times beneficial.
 
The programs are laid out in detail and include hyperlinks to a private YouTube channel that shows a member of the UF staff demonstrating each drill, should the athletes need a review. 
 
They begin with a rigorous warmup, then move on to a series of full-body drills that emphasize volume, intensity and frequency. Given the current lockdown circumstances (and unless told otherwise individually), it is assumed most of the athletes have access only to floor space or open areas and have just their body weight to work with. That's where time under tension comes in, with a lot of three- and five-second pauses on each repetition.   
 
"If done appropriately and with intensity, I'm not going to say you're going to get way stronger, but you're going to be able to come back in the weight room and be able to pick up where you left off. I believe that," Savage said. "Right now, I want to keep the body strong. I want to keep the energy system fired up. Conditioning. Flexibility. Mobility. Strength training. We call it a comprehensive program, from the football skill all the way down to stretching. They basically have to take care of their bodies accordingly, so that when they return they'll be ready to perform at a level to go win games."
 
All UF sports are doing some variation of these programs, based on their respective calendars. 
 
"None of it is ideal, but from an acuity standpoint it gets their brains and bodies moving as opposed to being sedentary," said Preston Greene, director for men's basketball, golf and tennis. "It's designed to get them physically fit and prepared, but there's a mental element to it. Being at home can be depressing. We want to get them off the couch." 
 
All the coaches are realists and understand there are obvious drawbacks. 
 
One bigger than others. 
 
"We can't coach them face to face," said associate director Matt DeLancey, who has volleyball, as well as Olympic sports under his purview, having trained multiple gold medal-winning Gators. "People fall into bad habits when they're not being coached, so there's going to be a certain amount of discipline that is lacking, but that's probably going to be true for everyone the country." 
 
No question. For every Florida offensive lineman who might be in angst about his offseason development, there is a defensive lineman at Georgia facing the same challenges. 
 
But the bigger challenges are to come 
 
"I think biggest of them all will be when this is all over and we're all set to dive back into this. The athletic community has to come together and be smart about making sure our workouts are as safe as they are productive," said Karin Werth, who heads up gymnastics, soccer, diving and women's golf. "As a [strength] community nation-wide, we're talking about how we can help the NCAA make smart decisions with the athletes in mind, and I think they'll listen to us, what with everything that's happened in the athletic world as far as kids being coached too hard. That will be the ultimate test, not just for strength coaches, but for the NCAA, administrators and everyone working together." 
 
As it relates to the present day, universities are on their own and putting such matters into the most qualified hands.  Ultimately, how these young men and women go about their business the next few weeks — or months — will determine just how they physically fare when competition resumes. That goes beyond the off-campus programs they've been issued. 
 
"Aside from the physical component of staying in shape, they need to take care of themselves," said Justin McClelland, who coordinates the strength programs for basketball and tennis on the women's side. "That mean's sleeping well, eating well, staying hydrated. It's all the stuff we talk about here — except they're not here. They need to take ownership of those things." 
 
Chandler used an appropriate analogy. 
 
"The same curve that we're all concerned about with the coronavirus, the spike and peaking, it's the same thing when it comes to de-training when you aren't able to push your body — there's another curve that drops off, so we want to flatten that curve out," he said. "When we're able to crank back up we can start building that curve back up and get our athletes ready for the seasons." 
 
Frankly, it won't be perfect, but what about the goings-on in the world is right now? The Gators are making the best out the situation, using expertise, ingenuity and a level of trust. 
 
Trust, as in a faith these athletes are doing the work.
 
"If it's real — by that, I mean, if we want to be the team we want to be — then yeah, I trust them," Savage said. "The art of coaching is being able to adapt to any situation, so what we're all trying to do as a staff is make things engaging and fun. I'll create contests. Who can do the most push-ups? Sit-ups? Body-weight squats? Now, give me your totals. If they didn't do a hundred of them, maybe they did 50. Something is better than nothing. That's our biggest thing right now. We have to get work in from a conditioning standpoint and there has to be some sort of activation every day."  For Savage, back at home, that meant pull-ups on a backyard tree branch last week. And guess what? 
 
Yep. It broke. 
 
"But I'll keep going higher and higher, if I have to, until I've got no more branches," he said. 
 
Strength coaches, after all, always find a way.