My back blew out about a decade ago. Easily the bottoming out of my life. Couldn't sit. Couldn't stand. Could barely function. And easily worst of all, I couldn't afford any of that, needing to work, to write, even to travel.
Frank Velasquez, the Pirates' head strength and conditioning coach at the time, always had the answer: Find a place, any place in which I could perform the needed rehab, and make it feel like home.
So there we'd be at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, atop the stairwell leading to the visiting clubhouse, and he'd point to the top step and instruct me to do two dozen calf-dips. Or he'd offer up one of the players' rubber mats for me to drop and hold a plank for a full two minutes. Or he'd illustrate water-based workouts I could do in any hotel pool, large or small.
It was a success. A year later, in large part because of the strengthening of muscles in around the injury, my back was 100 percent. And it's been that way ever since.
Frank's now the director of sports performance at Allegheny Health Network, moving there after nine years with the Pirates and continuing a lifetime of instructing and advising athletes. And yet, his reflexive reply when I asked him last night how athletes could possibly maintain themselves through the ongoing coronavirus lapse was all of two telling words:
"Good question."
Yeah, aren't they all right about now?
But predictably, he kept coming with an answer.
"The biggest component these ballplayers and other athletes are missing due to this untimely break are live reps," Frank continued. "Pitchers can keep their arms going by long-tossing and throwing their sides, along with running and light strength work. Position players will take ground balls, play catch, run strides, short sprints and baserunning drills to keep their legs in running shape. And they'll look to strength-train a little more."
The challenges in each sport, of course, are very different. But pitchers, at least as I'd imagine, will face the greatest challenge. Arms can't just be fully built up, as they'd been with a couple weeks left in spring training, then shut off and then flipped back on like a light switch. That's risking the pitcher's health, possibly his career, and that's not hyperbole.
Now imagine the challenges of our only in-season sport, meaning the one that requires someone to lay out a full sheet of frozen H2O to fully train.
Better yet, check this out from Alexi Pianosi, one of the Penguins' strength and conditioning coaches, put out by the team yesterday:
Social distancing can be hard, but our strength and conditioning team is here to help! Stay tuned for more videos with updates on how to stay healthy and active from home. pic.twitter.com/Q8LGiJvdRm
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) March 18, 2020
Now, hockey players themselves will attest that there's no such thing as a dry-land substitute for skating and all that's involved in sustaining both the strength and agility of those muscles. For all the innovations in exercise equipment, one can't simulate stopping on a dime to spray Braden Holtby in the final minute of the third period of Game 7. And never mind the special rigors involved in goaltending, where the groins are stretched to extremes comparable to those of gymnasts.
But now, with Bradenton all but abandoned and Cranberry closed -- the Pirates were advised to leave Florida earlier this week, and the Penguins and all NHL players were instructed to self-quarantine for two weeks -- all that's left is someone's back yard. For now, anyway. Before long, it might be just the living room.
What then?
"Lots of major-league athletes have home gyms," Velasquez said. "I've had a couple players reach out to me earlier this week to help them put together home gyms."
The common ingredients, he'd clarify:
• 1/2 rack for squatting
• Bar or hex bar
• Plate weights
• Dumbbells plus rack
• Kettle bells
• Adjustable bench
• Exercise ball
• Foam rolls
• Medicine balls
• Resistance bands
Hm. No mention of endless nachos and extended Netflix binges.
The last item on the last, those wonderful durable elastics one can apply to all parts of the body, is another that Frank recommended I stuff into my small luggage a few years ago. The bands are the darlings of the conditioning world in large part because they're so flexible for usage but also because they're so easy to take around.
"You're using your own body weight to train," Frank explained.
Right. And it can be pulled off in a hallway.
Oversight isn't an issue, either. Both of Pittsburgh's active teams, I'm told, are getting guidance directly from the teams' respective staffs on how to maintain and monitor their training, only it's being done electronically. I'm further told that the Pirates and Penguins have both sought highly specific inventories of available workout equipment, then tailoring programs to what's already there because it's no picnic buying new stuff right about now.
"Every player's individual needs are being tended to," Ben Cherington, the Pirates' GM, told us Monday in a conference call from Bradenton.
“We’re trying to do everything we can under difficult circumstances to try and stay prepared,” Mike Sullivan told Canada's Sportsnet TV network Wednesday night. “I know our strength coaches have had personal conversations with every guy and taken an inventory of what they have at their disposal in their homes and then building individual programs for these guys that they can continue to do on a daily basis to try to stay fit and keep themselves ready in the event that we get on the other side of this. We’re doing what we can to stay ready, but obviously the priority here is on the health and well being of everybody first and foremost.”
No doubt.
Which leads into the final worry I raised with Frank: Both Major League Baseball and the NHL have outlined highly tentative schedules that would allow for roughly two weeks of ... training camps, I guess, for lack of a better term. The former was ramping up for a long summer season, and the latter was ramping up for the unrivaled rigors of the Stanley Cup playoffs. So that strikes me peripherally as being highly ambitious. Particularly, to repeat for pitchers.
"I think some time period is needed, for sure," Frank replied. "You have hockey at the point of playoffs and baseball entering the start, but both need this time rather than just jumping in cold turkey. Two weeks is enough time if they're doing what they need to do during this break to reduce the risk of injuring players."
And what'll it look like when they're back?
"The quality of play may suffer a smidge, but I think the fans will he jonesing for competitive sports so badly they wont care."
Now there's a universally accurate prognosis.
***premium***
• For the record, I don't share any of the above in any context that compares the athletes' plight to those of people who'll potentially be afflicted to the virus. I mean, I hope that'd be obvious, but hey, it's a sensitive time.
• Between the three leagues we cover -- NFL, NHL, MLB -- only one player so far has tested positive, someone still unidentified from the Senators, but the back story's telling as to why there'll likely be many more.
A study of this case conducted in Kingston, Ontario, showed that this player likely was infected during Ottawa's early-March trip to California. On March 7, the Senators skated at SAP Center in one of three games made after Santa Clara County officials had recommended canceling everything. They then played on back-to-back nights in Anaheim and Los Angeles, shortly after the Staples Center hosted an NBA game in which the Brooklyn Nets played the Lakers ... then Tuesday had four players test positive.
Same night that member of the Senators got word of his test.
• This, by the way, is why I believe we won't see sports in front of empty stadiums and arenas. The first time an athlete's infected, the doors will slam back shut again.
• Ideas for adjusting seasons are everywhere, but there isn't a worse one anywhere -- and it's apparently being seriously discussed -- than baseball conducting playoffs in neutral sites that either have roofs or are in warmer climes.
Shorten. The. Season.
Not a soul anywhere will care about the difference between 162 games and 140 or 120 or even 100.
• I will literally fight anyone who criticizes the NFL for continuing with business through this time. And if you haven't picked up on any of that yet, it's something along these lines:
Must agree that free agency amid all this is tone deaf.
— Sam Farmer (@LATimesfarmer) March 16, 2020
Right. Because it'll come as some wild revelation to Americans that NFL players make a lot of money. Also because it's not important that people's spirits stay up in what likely will be a period of fear, anxiety, depression.
Ugh.
• While not many were looking, the Pitt basketball program watched two guards who'd played a ton, Trey McGowens and Ryan Murphy, set off to transferring. Not being mean to either young man, but that'll be a positive for Jeff Capel. He needs guards who can see the floor, distribute, defend and shoot a little. Those two did the latter occasionally, the rest not at all.
The scholarships can be put to better use.
• Temps are rising into the mid-60s today. Do all the requisite social distancing, be smart ... but smile and savor it.
• And if that doesn't work, this pic was snapped by subscriber Terry Haines in Cincinnati and sent my way yesterday:
TERRY HAINES / FOR DKPSHa! Knew that'd do the trick!