How are Sporting KC players staying in shape? Their gym was delivered to them
Inside a $75 million training center, the gym is absent of players and virtually vacant of equipment. You might even think at a glance that Pinnacle, Sporting Kansas City’s two-year-old complex, is undergoing some sort of remodeling.
But a couple of weeks ago, director of sports performance Joey Harty helped load equipment into a cargo van that made door-to-door deliveries across the city.
Ilie Sanchez got weights and a bench. Johnny Russell wanted an exercise bike. Other players asked for mats, foam rollers or kettlebells.
With the coronavirus halting Major League Soccer through at least May 10 and preventing players from attending group training sessions or even going to the gym at Pinnacle, Pinnacle has now come to them.
“We’re trying to figure out a new normal,” Harty said. “There’s a lot that goes into it. We’re doing the best we can to ride the wave.”
Sporting KC has designed daily workouts for every player, providing them options in some cases based on the equipment they have. Not everyone received the same shipment. Not everyone has the space for it, either.
Sanchez moved an exercise bike into his garage. His car’s new parking spot? The street.
But each player’s personal circumstance offers perspective to the new professional one.
“This is a very difficult time. It’s a sad situation — not just for athletes but also for everybody,” said Sanchez, whose family remains in lockdown in Spain. “I am just trying to put it my head that this is going to be a long time where we will have to adjust our lives and especially our work lives. If you think of it like that, everything is going to be easier to do.”
Russell spent his offseason in Scotland, late to preseason after having his second kid in late January. He also has a daughter who turned 3 last week. His wife returned to the United States just a couple of weeks before the country placed restrictions on travelers from Scotland, where their extended families remain.
It’s a lot of change to process simultaneously. In that sense, the workouts offer a sense of normalcy.
Kind of.
“Whenever the kids allow it,” Russell said when asked the timing of his workouts. “I get in a little cycling in the morning, while my son naps and my daughter is watching TV.”
It’s not light work.
Harty, along with the coaches and training staff, initially planned a workout program for an announced 30-day hiatus. A day later, they learned the break would be longer, two months or more, and they sketched blueprints for small-group workouts at Pinnacle. A couple more days later, those were scratched, too.
Now, Harty is approaching the situation in three-week blocks— two weeks of loading, one week of restorative work. And then repeat.
The days are designed to mimic training sessions. A typical Monday after a weekend game is light, so those workouts remain of the lowest intensity, perhaps only a jog. On Tuesday, the high-intensity day, there are sprints, which players can do in parking lots or empty fields, coupled with lower body lifts and plyometric circuit work for power. On Wednesday, the assignments are standing mobility and calisthenic movements paired with upper body workouts and hard aerobic runs or cycling. Thursdays are recovery days, which could entail a leisurely bike ride, a walk or an online yoga class. Friday is a return to longer sprints with some deceleration runs mixed in. On Saturday, the object is to imitate game days, so workouts include high-volume runs, along with upper-body work.
“We’ll maintain that for as long as we need to,” Harty said. “If we can get guys to maintain 60-70-80% of where they were, I think we’d be winning.”
Sporting KC forward Daniel Salloi said the most difficult adjustment is boredom. He misses the competition of training sessions. Misses the companionship during long runs.
Others felt similar. So Harty has already made an accommodation. He’s hosting group workouts through video conference calls, leading the sessions and allowing players to cycle through exercises together.
This is the best for which they can hope. Because through all of this, there is one glaring thing that can not be replicated.
Soccer fitness.
It’s a term Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes has often used to distinguish the difference between a base of endurance and preparation for the requirements of a soccer game — cutting, turning abruptly, stopping, starting and contracting certain muscles to strike a soccer ball.
That will come only with training. Vermes and Harty both estimated it will require three or four weeks of practice before MLS teams are physically ready for games.
“We’re giving all the guys individual programs that keep their base of fitness that they’ve accumulated in the preseason,” Vermes said. “What they’re not going to have is the general soccer fitness. Typically what happens, even after guys work out in the offseason, that first week of preseason, the guys are really sore, just a general soreness in all of their body as they get back into the routine of training. There’s a lot of things you can do all on your own. But you can’t simulate a 1v1 (situation) or 5v5 or 11v11.”
This story was originally published March 30, 2020 at 10:01 AM with the headline "How are Sporting KC players staying in shape? Their gym was delivered to them."