Category: safety

TIPS for opening Gyms during COVID-19

A round table hosted by John Min, USECA Video Chairman.

A NEW challenge for each Club. This is a brainstorming session.

The BIG recommendation is not to rush. Come back slowly and safely. We have a new, unexpected meso-cycle in our training year which precedes another Preparation Phase. Slow return to the Gym after weeks of lockout.

Steve Arkell:

  • Inviting back Competitive first, staggering training times
  • Check for temperature of athletes on arrival (this is not foolproof)
  • About 4 people / 1000 sq feet
  • Kids in each rotation group will stay as far apart as possible. Apparatus groups will switch at the same time, in order to keep distance.
  • Take this COVID-19 opportunity for super keen gymnasts to find a better life / gymnastics balance.
  • When skills are eventually introduced, use tumbling trampolines, pits, soft surfaces. Don’t rush.
  • Coaches will wear masks.
  • Coaches will be tested just before coming back to the Gym.
  • Coaches and gymnasts should be challenged to progress with LESS spotting, even on Bars. Slide mats rather than hand spot. (Spotting belts might make a return to popularity.)
  • Adding new RECORDS bulletin board for fitness tests. This will be the focus at first, not skills.

Craig Zappa:

  • Anything you did not like about your old program, should be banished now. This is a great opportunity to reinvent your program. A fresh start.
  • High priority is to STOP the keenest athletes from overdoing it on getting back to the Gym. Injury is a worry after weeks out.
  • Advise athletes that anticipated J.O. move ups are on hold, for now
  • This ‘forced rest’ is an opportunity to fully heal old injuries
  • Watch themselves on video (Mental Training)
  • Reassuring the parents will be a high priority.
  • His club uses a ‘fogging machine’ to disinfect. It takes 10 minutes. He’ll do it 2-3 times / day.
  • Might delay the calendar of competitions for the 2021 season. Don’t rush.
  • Assign one gymnast / Beam for all of each rotation
  • Craig would like to have clear masks for coaches.
  • Craig will allow very few parents into the Gym. Other clubs will simply ask parents not to enter the Gym.

Mary Wright:

  • Time to focus on cooperation. Coaches and athletes working together to get back to peak training form.
  • Be smart. Rebuild confidence progressively
  • Conditioning first after a few weeks away
  • General strength before specific
  • Flexibility improvement phase
  • Aerobic base
  • Work ‘shapes‘ before movements
  • Time at home is a chance for gymnasts to make Dream Boards and set goals / objectives
  • Training would progressively advance to BASICS without rush. Up to 2 hours / day to start.
  • If this limited training goes on for months, planned goals for 2021 will have to be modified.

Olivia Estes:

  • Has been working on personal development of athletes while at home. Generosity. Team supporting one another.
  • Has been using a combination of big group Zoom meetings. Smaller meetings in private Facebook groups.
  • To start … will likely only allow top 12 athletes to use the pit
  • Equipment will be cleaned ongoing during workout
  • Coaches only work with ONE group of kids. If anyone tests positive, those coaches and kids will be out of the Gym.
  • Plans on minimum spotting. Only the very top gymnasts will be spotted. And not for the first 8 weeks or so after return.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

disinfecting the Gym with a FOGGER

UPDATE – After posting this I stopped by our local cleaning supply store to ask the experts there what they thought about disinfecting sports facilities. 

They told me foggers were expensive. And would, instead, recommend frequent physical wipe-downs of high use areas and places where people reach with their hands. 

____ original post:

For years Craig Zappa has been using a fogger to disinfect the Gym. He plans to do so even more often on reopening ENA Paramus in New Jersey, a State hard hit by COVID-19.

Craig uses QD64 Surface Sanitizer and Deodorizer with a fogger like this …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Those products are not available right now. And there’s no telling how long it will take for the supply chain to catch up.

Delta Airlines does something like this on their planes.

 

South Korean National Team starts again May 11th

South Korea has done a fantastic job managing COVID-19 after a terrible start.

Gymnasts were asked to leave the National Training Centre March 27th.

According to the KSOC, about 360 athletes and coaches in nine sports, including gymnastics, table tennis, boxing, fencing and badminton, will report back during the week of May 11.

“We’ll try to minimize contact among athletes in different sports in order to prevent infection within the training center,” a KSOC official said. “They’ll only be allowed to spend time in their training facilities and residence.”

S. Korean athletes to be tested for coronavirus before returning to training center

 

IDEAS on reopening Gymnastics Clubs

If and when you can reopen, it would be best to start with Competitive.

Phase in other groups over time.

One club plans to use a Wall-Mounted Infrared Forehead Thermometer Non-Contact Digital Temperature Thermometer with Fever Alarm to allow entry.

That’s not foolproof, of course. Some positives don’t have fever.

Chalk Bucket forum is compiling suggestions.

Here are a few:

  • Initial opening with small groups of 10 or less
  • Following social distancing guidelines (6+ feet) with stations / drills
  • Wiping down equipment after each use
  • Masks (entering and exiting the Gym)
  • Hand sanitizing before each event
  • Starting up with basics and conditioning so there will be no need to spot
  • Each athlete will have their own chalk block kept in a Ziploc bag
  • Each athlete will have their own spray bottle for water
  • Cameras with login for parents to watch from outside the facility
  • Stagger workout times
  • Stagger break times (or if practice short enough no break to limit congregating)
  • One way traffic as much as possible
  • Nightly equipment cleaning of high touch surfaces such as tables, chairs, doorknobs, light switches, countertops, handles, desks, phones, keyboards, toilets, faucets, sinks with EPA registered household disinfectant per CDC guidance
Wearing masks to prevent the H1N1 influenza virus at the venue of the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Japan September 11, 2009.

Jamie Dantzscher interview

One of GymCastic’s best yet. 

Jamie Dantzscher was a 2000 Olympic medalist, at the end of the darkest era of USA Gymnastics in my opinion.

She went on to a fantastic career at UCLA. One of the greats of all time. She led UCLA to 3 NCAA Championships in four years.

But we know Jamie best as one of the most vocal critics of the Karoli years. And her February 2017 60 Minutes interview alongside  Jeanette Antolin and Jessica Howard accusing the USAG criminal doctor.

What makes this interview so winning is Jamie’s blunt honesty. Down to earth. Saying what she thinks.

I was totally won over. Let’s all wish Jamie Dantzscher well.

You can listen online or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

IT’S JAMIE DANTZSCHER YOU GUYS

Belgium WAG resume training

Valentina Rodionenko said the team should go back to Round Lake and be quarantined there, so that they would be able to train.

She cited the example of the Chinese national team that kept training … throughout the quarantine ….

Some other national teams (at least partially) kept training and some are gradually returning to the gyms now. For example, the Belgian WAG team has been allowed to resume training recently. …

At the moment, however, Round Lake is serving as a quarantine center for Russian athletes who were evacuated from abroad.

The Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin said that next week, the Ministry will be discussing plans for elite athletes to start training but did not commit to any specific date and said that quarantine limitations would have to be lifted first.

gymnovosti

watch Sarah Thirkell’s COVID-19 story

Sarah is a dedicated Canadian teen gymnast locked out of the Gym by COVID-19.

She’s an aspiring film maker too.

In this powerful and personal video Sarah tells “it‘s OK not be OK right now“.

Keep moving forward.

A lot of us can relate.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Sarah created this video for a series of short documentaries inspired by experience with the COVID-19 pandemic. Alone together.

NCAA sports after COVID-19

American institutions of higher learning are all deciding on when and how to reopen. Some may not be open in September.

What does that mean for College sport?

They’re scrambling to make up for lost money. The University of Cincinnati ended its men’s soccer program, and St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas, announced last week it was cutting men’s and women’s golf and tennis, along with men’s soccer.  …

Students are weary of online classes, but colleges can’t say whether they’ll open in fall 2020

Right now we don’t know.  😕

Greg Marsden linked to a letter from the Intercollegiate Coach Association Coalition (ICAC) opposing a request by the Group of Five Commissioners to allow conferences and schools to cut the number of sports sponsored to be considered for Division I status.

Mike Burns and Heather Perry signed on behalf of NCAA Gymnastics.