{"id":885,"date":"2020-03-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/reports\/covid-19-how-sport-is-helping-its-athletes-and-coaches\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:12:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:12:21","slug":"covid-19-how-sport-is-helping-its-athletes-and-coaches","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/covid-19-how-sport-is-helping-its-athletes-and-coaches\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19: How Sport is Helping its Athletes and Coaches"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n Mar 23, 2020 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

COVID-19: How Sport is Helping its Athletes and Coaches<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Coaching & Development<\/a>, Human Performance<\/a>, Leadership & Culture<\/a> <\/div>\n
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We explore approaches in MLB, European rugby, tennis and beyond.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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\u201cA lot of coaches will be looking at other people on salaries and saying \u2018you\u2019re alright at this time and we\u2019re struggling to feed our families\u2019,\u201d says one participant.<\/h4>\n
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By John Portch<\/h6>\n

The theme of this members-only Leaders Performance Institute Virtual Roundtable had been preparing athletes for major competitions.<\/p>\n

The roundtables are private, but while we are unable to precisely identify individuals we can at least offer this flavour of their contributions.<\/p>\n

The topic had inspired an assortment of head coaches, performance practitioners and psychology professionals to sign up, share, and discuss their approaches to big games across sports as diverse as Major League Baseball, tennis, European rugby, international cricket and college soccer.<\/p>\n

Yet the worsening coronavirus pandemic ensures that each of those sports has ground to a halt. Major competitions have been cancelled, or at the very least postponed, but, beyond the empty arenas and inactive athletes, livelihoods are at stake, as this participant, a head of coach development in tennis, illustrates. \u201cMy focus has shifted to supporting the coaches at this time in as an effective and empathetic way as possible,\u201d he continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoaches are part of teams and if they\u2019re not self-employed they\u2019re safe, but a lot of them are employed by players and if they\u2019re not travelling they\u2019re not earning and it\u2019s going to be a pretty tough time for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

His point resonated across the call. Every participant is engaged in making provisions despite the innumerable unknowns. Here, the Leaders Performance Institute explores some of the approaches taken in the immediate aftermath of elite sport going on indefinite hiatus.<\/p>\n

Daily communication between athletes and staff<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

Daily communication is proving essential in Major League Baseball, where the combined number of major league players and those usually turning out for affiliates can exceed 280 at any given organisation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe communicate about what we know to be factual, even if that\u2019s changing every five minutes, as we all know,\u201d said a senior director of health and performance who works in an MLB clubhouse.<\/p>\n

He then explains his club\u2019s wider approach at the outset of the shutdown: \u201cWe divided the players between our staff; we set a rubric, a shared document that we can all edit, illustrating questions that we can be asking players.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is proving particularly useful given that players are not only dispersed across the States but the wider world, with many choosing to return to their homelands.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re seeing each player\u2019s individual scenarios. Some players have a gym that they built inside of their house and some players have literally no equipment whatsoever; some players have baseballs at their house and some players don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to have a consistent set of questions from which we can aggregate that data and any of our staff can see it; we have a really holistic dataset going: a nutritionist asking questions or a mental skills expert asking questions, our field staff, our manager etc.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019re trying to build individualised programmes around each player\u2019s situation and that\u2019s obviously a huge task with each of them having unique scenarios in different states and different countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

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We\u2019re seeing each player\u2019s individual scenarios. We\u2019re trying to have a consistent set of questions from which we can aggregate that data and any of our staff can see it; we have a really holistic dataset going: a nutritionist asking questions or a mental skills expert asking questions, our field staff, our manager etc.<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Video calls have proven invaluable. \u201cOne of the ideas we had was keeping our players seeing each other face to face and the community-shared inspiration was a video platform through which players can share creative ideas and videos of them finding ways to work out at home; filling up buckets of water and using those as weights to train; whatever the video is so that players can learn from each other in really challenging times.\u201d<\/p>\n

A similar approach has been adopted with younger players in tennis. \u201cI know that our S&C staff is sending videos of workouts that don\u2019t require a lot of machines or plates or advanced equipment and trying engage them with that,\u201d said a mental skills specialist who works for a national governing body.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re making sure that we\u2019re talking to our players every day, communicating what their plans are, making sure that they have a plan, that they are set up and safe,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

So far the sport has witnessed the cancellation of tournaments including Indian Wells, while the French Open has been postponed until September. It remains to be seen how many more competitions will be impacted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re engaging our community with webinars and really trying to create an opportunity of education through this and now that people have more time spending more time talking about different areas of tennis and sports science.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yes, that means activating the camera. \u201cWe\u2019re using Skype for Business for our team but we actually make them activate their video cameras so we can actually see everybody and look into their eyes,\u201d says a college head coach who doubles up as coach development specialist. \u201cWe\u2019re going to prioritise that.\u201d<\/p>\n

On that front, student-athletes in the States have not only seen their seasons cancelled but their entire curricula. The approach adopted by the college-based sports psychologist on the call is to take a ramped approach to scaling challenges for student-athletes. \u201cBut to start,\u201d she says, \u201cwe\u2019re trying to start with low stakes, sending out podcasts or some short activities that they can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Setting goals<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

Game readiness is a universal concern, with no return dates set in stone for most sports and leagues, and others all but certain that official dates will be revised. \u201cIt\u2019s really important for the players to keep focused,\u201d says the head of coach development in tennis who spoke above. \u201cAll they can work towards are the timelines given. At the moment the tour is suspended until the second week of June so they\u2019ve got to work towards that, which is the grass court season but, in the backs of their minds, they\u2019re probably thinking for sure that\u2019s going to be cancelled as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, as a high performance programme manager involved in cricket points out: \u201cThe one thing that stands out is to maintain a purpose. Until something is cancelled, the players and staff must continue to work on the basis that it will happen.<\/p>\n

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The one thing that stands out is to maintain a purpose. Until something is cancelled, the players and staff must continue to work on the basis that it will happen.<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve found here that when the players do feel uncertain or they\u2019re not actually doing what they\u2019re working towards then things can drop off; less purpose, less intensity,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

Cricket, like any sport that relies on space and equipment, is forced to be creative at this time. \u201cWe have certainly got some challenges because being able to practise your cricket skills you do need a very specific facility. That may not be available to some people so communication is key, getting people assembled may not happen as frequent as it used to but, when they are, we need to make sure that when they\u2019re able to do the work that it\u2019s done well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Social media and WhatsApp are vital tools<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

European rugby, which includes heartlands in Italy and France, two of the continent\u2019s most-affected nations at the time of writing, was one of the first sports to shut down earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe planning is an incredibly difficult one; when are we going to start again? Certainty is something that we\u2019re desperate for, there\u2019s a thirst for it at the moment,\u201d says a head coach at one of Europe\u2019s most renowned clubs.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, we don\u2019t know when the league is going to restart; we should plan for when it\u2019s going to start, we should plan for how we\u2019re going to get our preparations done in as short a period of time as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then delves into his team\u2019s use of social media. \u201cOn the social side, this is big for me, we\u2019ve taken the hashtag #stayconnected when we\u2019re not connected; taking the performance side of things, in team sports, in rugby it\u2019s a massive part, staying together and supporting each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

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On the social side we\u2019ve taken the hashtag #stayconnected when we\u2019re not connected.<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n

WhatsApp has proven invaluable too. \u201cWe\u2019ve set up a separate WhatsApp group; it\u2019s all the same people that would be in our normal WhatsApp group but it\u2019s led by one of our medical performance guys. Culturally, he is brilliant to have around and he\u2019s called it \u2018Quaran-team\u2019, which I thought was a really good idea.<\/p>\n

As for what Quaran-team entails: \u201cWe\u2019re going to have all sorts of challenges, none of them rugby-related. So they\u2019re all going to be building with LEGO, having weekly bingo; these will be individual things that the guys will think up. It allows people to be based around the world but at the same time stay connected.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s important from staring at society at the moment, where we\u2019re all disparate and we\u2019re all separated from people. And if we can in any way stay connected through this period it\u2019s going to be really helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

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What does the modern coach need to know?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We tackle this question in our latest Performance Special Report. Download Coachmaker: What the Modern Coach Needs to Know<\/em>, which features sports organisations as diverse as Ulster Rugby<\/strong>, the Geelong Cats<\/strong>, Minnesota Timberwolves<\/strong> and US Special Operations<\/strong> discussing personal development, creating performance environments, recruitment and using data in smarter ways.<\/p>\n