Published April 21, 2020
Student-athletes have a vigorous weekly strength and conditioning schedule, and that
has not changed with the onset of COVID-19 and strict stay-at-home measures. ULM’s
athletic trainers and strength and conditioning staff are working to ensure student-athletes
remain active and healthy during this public health crisis.
Athletic Training
ULM’s spring football game was scheduled for April 4, which would have been the culmination
of five weeks of football activities. Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, ULM athletics
transitioned Medical Services and Strength and Conditioning to an electronic format.
“The Strength and Conditioning staff created take-home workout packets for each sport,
but monitoring actions have been very interesting,” head athletic trainer J.D. Dunavant
said.
In addition to take-home packets, several sports have utilized the KONG IQ app that
allows medical services to send out a daily text asking about mood, sleep, stress
level, activity, and food intake. The app also allows the strength and conditioning
coaches to personalize workouts for different groups of athletes.
“Occasionally, we set up FaceTime or Zoom accounts to interact with students, which
really gets everyone excited because you get to see the kids,” Dunavant said. “We
have had some webinars regarding nutrition and diet, and student-athletes that are
working through mental health issues still have access to their outside therapist
through telemedicine.”
Although the therapy center is not open for general athletic medical care, there are
some student-athletes on campus that require post-surgical care. For those injured
athletes or athletes who are post-operative surgical cases that require rehabilitation,
The Orthopedic Clinic and ULM team physicians are providing telemedicine for athletes
that require follow-ups or care.
Strength and Conditioning
ULM strength and conditioning coaches have emailed workout plans to all student-athletes
to follow while at home. All speed and fitness work can be done using a street or
a field, which student-athletes should have access to where they reside.
ULM strength and conditioning is also in the process of uploading all workouts to
the KONG IQ app, which allows coaches to message them outside of texting/email and
track who checked in and did the workouts that are posted within the app. It also
provides the coaches with the ability to have the student-athletes complete a wellness
survey, so coaches may keep track of things such as mood, sleep, nutrition, and certain
things in their daily routine.
Ben Jacobs, director of strength and conditioning, said, “The biggest thing which
I think is very important for us to understand here is this is new territory for everyone
in terms of trying to keep our student-athletes ‘ready.’ I say ready in quotes as
we are not able to truly do the type of training that we are used to doing with our
student-athletes. As I stated above, right now, it is about health and fitness and
trying to make sure our student-athletes are maintaining lean mass, movement skills,
and mobility.”
“There is going to be detraining no matter what, if we can try and combat that as
much as we can we will be better off for it when they return to campus, especially
for teams, like football, that at some point are going to have to hit the ground running,”
said Jacobs.
Jacobs wants student-athletes to understand how to use this time wisely.
“’I don’t have time’ is not an excuse as all we have is time right now to stay on
top of our fitness/health, nutrition, sleep, and schoolwork,” said Jacobs.
Jacobs and his staff have been sending out emails with advice on how to make daily
schedules and routines, nutrition information, as well as ideas to take time throughout
the day for mental and physical growth outside of training and schoolwork.
“Being a mentor and helping our student-athletes grow is something we pride ourselves
on here at ULM, and it shouldn’t stop just because they aren’t here at the moment.
The main thing outside of all of this is that our student-athletes are staying safe,”
stated Jacobs.
