Advertisement

Olympic athletes' crazy COVID quarantine training methods

From swimming in a kiddie pool to rock climbing in the kitchen, Team USA Olympians reveal their creative training techniques while quarantined during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Video Transcript

ALLYSON FELIX: Training during quarantine was just absolutely crazy. I was literally training in the streets around my house. My coach came, he marked off the distances. And so I was sprinting through my neighborhood, and my neighbors were just kind of confused, wondering what was going on.

Some of my neighbors who have very young kids, they were out there cheering a little bit, which was actually really cool. And then when I was running through some of the streets of LA, you know, some of the cyclists and stuff would be cheering me on. So it was actually really cool when you're out there by yourself, to get like this little push from the community.

ANITA ALVAREZ: We're used to training seven hours a day in the pool, and maybe one hour, two hours on land. Obviously, all pools had closed and our team kind of switched over to Zoom training five hours a day on land together. And that was like, for us, going from water sport athletes to land athletes was like, fish out of water. I mean, it was really hard and just different.

I had actually ordered a baby pool from Amazon. That was kind of just for fun. But I got to do a few little things in there.

- How many athletes can say they've been training in an abandoned Macy's? What has that experience been?

GINNY FUCHS: Yeah, that was very interesting. You know they still had the shoe racks and everything, and the checkout counter-- no machines or anything. But yeah. That was interesting.

During the pandemic you have to make things work and we did. And the whole USA boxing staff set it up really well and organized. And it was actually a really good month long camp. It was interesting. And now I can say that I did a whole training camp out of the Macy's department store.

BROOKE RABOUTOU: Very, very lucky during this past year, because I do actually have a climbing wall in my basement that my dad built for like my-- for Christmas when I was 10. So I was able to train on that. Getting creative, climbing around the house, it wasn't necessarily training, but more a way to show people that they can stay entertained during these hard times and find ways to enjoy their sport.

RYAN CROUSER: The theme of 2020 was what do we have available. Now, I was at Home Depot buying plywood to build my own portable shot put ring. And I just kept that in the back of my truck, and would go to the elementary school behind my house and throw off the sidewalk onto this empty lot.

Med ball is a big part of the throwing, just developing rotational power and strength. And so I've been doing my med ball workouts underneath the bridge into the concrete supports. It's definitely been a lot of improvising, but I've enjoyed the challenge.