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Home » Fitness » Olympics 2020: What does the lockdown mean for the fitness of athletes? – The Telegraph

Couldlockdown actually prove beneficial?

Eager to put a positive spin on the situation, many elite sportspeople have suggested they are using the lockdown period to improve elements of their physiology they would not normally have the time to focus on. What they might lose in one area of training, they might gain elsewhere.

Bradshaw says: When it first started I thought there was no way I could gain anything from it, but actually I feel like Ive done a really good job of staying fit, getting strong and doing things that I wouldnt necessarily do.

Im useless at cardio or endurance but the only thing you can do thats inclusive for everyone is cardio, so every week my group has been doing some sort of cardio competition. The first one involved push-ups, burpees and squats. I suck at it so bad, but because Ive been doing it Im actually a lot fitter and definitely stronger than I ever have been.

Rebecca Robinson, sports and exercise medicine consultant at the Centre for Health and Human Performance, has worked closely with British Canoeing and GB Boxing during the lockdown period and says the extra time can be used wisely.

The Olympic cycle is a four-year cycle so now its about extending that out for a greater period of time, she says. In some ways there are some positives to be gained from that - there are some background areas that we can focus on more as we extend out that cycle.

For some, we get a little bit of an extra chance to step back and look a bit more globally around that athlete to improve things for them.

For athletes of Olympic standard, the uncertainty is one of the toughest things to deal with as they attempt to maintain a level of fitness and remain flexible to a vastly changing environment, all while having little concept of when their next competition might come.

In the long term, the problems should be minimal, with the rearranged Olympics in the summer of 2021 still some time off. But there are certainly short-term issues to returning to competition.

Having only been able to train on tarmac during lockdown, Olympic and world 800m finalist Lynsey Sharp says she would need around a month in spikes on the track before racing again. Tackling a more technical discipline like pole vaulting, Bradshaw estimates around two months.

Robinson also says the return to normal training will need to be carefully monitored after lockdown eases.

One of the areas we are planning for is where people have been training in an unusual environment and working differently to normal, she says. We have to look very carefully at their physical conditioning to make sure we dont get people picking up injuries when transferring back into the normal environment.

Its hard to put a number on the length of time it takes for that transition back, but it would certainly be a number of weeks to return to a normal training regime, keeping a close on things physiologically, and then returning to a competition phase.

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Olympics 2020: What does the lockdown mean for the fitness of athletes? - The Telegraph

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Home » Fitness » Olympics 2020: What does the lockdown mean for the fitness of athletes? – The Telegraph