OUR guest contributor today is Julius Naranjo. Coach Julius is an ASCA Level 1 Strength and Conditioning coach and is a member of Rio Olympics Silver Medalist Hidilyn Diaz’s team. The team was in Malaysia’s National Training Center training camp before the virus hit.
“With the current pandemic, the weightlifting world has been put on hold. The Tokyo 2020 Olympics supposed to be held on July 24 to Aug. 9 was moved to July 23, 2021. At this moment, we have one more qualifying competition before next year’s Olympics, but this leaves us with uncertainty with all competitions being postponed indefinitely by the IWF (International Weightlifting Federation). At this very moment, we are doing everything we can to keep our momentum going, and to keep our strength in peak shape despite the circumstances.
Since gyms are closed, we have found creative ways to keep us physically active. We were able to obtain two kettlebells, a bamboo stick, water jugs and an assortment of resistance bands to aid in our daily workouts. Since we aren’t able to leave our Airbnb, we have been jogging in the indoor parking lot below the condominium to allow us to keep our body active and our mind at ease. Normally, weightlifters do not run for long distances, so we would run 3.2 kilometers at the most and do interval sprints to keep our heart rate up. After our jogging session, we would go back up to our unit and do our strength training, and on some days, we would do interval training with weights.
I believe it is essential for us to keep our bodies moving, and ease our minds by staying physically active. You don’t necessarily have to go to a gym to “get fit” or stay active. You can always allocate an hour or two of your day to just step outside of your house or on the balcony of your condominium unit to soak up the sun and get some fresh air. You can always try easy-to-do bodyweight movements with interval type training like Tabata, or items you have lying around the house to do movements such as squats, lunges and planks, deadlifts etc.
I know staying inside for long periods of time can really affect you mentally and physically, so I highly recommend doing the aforementioned to allow you to destress and improve your health.”
I hope the tools employed by elite athletes can help you in your journey to fitness and good health during the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ). Next week, our guest contributor will be writing about Mental Health during the ECQ. Stay tuned!