December 31, 2020

Staying fit and healthy should be your biggest focus during COVID-19, so our Associate Head of Performance Services, Paul Talty, and National Performance Pathway Manager, Andrew Reid have assembled this guide.

Exercise & Fitness

Stay active to stay well. That means exercising at home or outdoors, within 5km of your house – see training options below for details and check out our 21 Day May Challenge

This period away from the pool and full training is an opportunity to focus on areas of weakness like Mobility, Rehab and Exercise for leisure and fun

Fuelling

It is important that you fuel in line with your daily needs.

Remember:

Reduced physical activity = reduced energy requirements

A typical teenager should follow the ‘Moderate Training’ plate guidelines during periods of reduced training demands

It is also important to maintain the following:

Eat 3 main meals per day – breakfast, lunch and dinner
Maintain overall protein intake
Utilise smaller portion sizes
Choose lower calorie snack options - e.g fruit, yoghurt, hummus & crackers, popcorn

Cardiovascular Training

These can be completed as either long extensive workouts, or fartlek style (long extensive interspersed with short bursts of higher intensity work)

Walking/running or a combination of both

Build up volume/intensity slowly if you do not run regularly
Choose an alternative option if previous injury prevents you from running

Cycling

If cycling outdoors, ensure you wear appropriate clothing and adhere to the rules of the road
A turbo trainer would allow you to set up a stationary bike at your house

Circuit Training

Using a combination of running on the spot, skipping, jumping jacks, mountain climbers and burpees you can create an aerobic workout at home
An example circuit starts with 15s work & 30s rest with 1-minute rest between rounds repeating these 3 to 5 times – progress by increasing the work period

Strength/Muscular Endurance Training

Choose 1-2 exercises from each section, and complete 3-5 rounds, with 1-2 minutes rest between each round: Click each exercise for video guide, or click here for our playlist of ALL exercises.

Core:

Plank (30 seconds)

Dead Bug (30 seconds)

Bird Dog (20 seconds)

Legs:

Lunge with twist (20 reps, alternating legs)

1 Leg Romanian Deadlift (6-10 reps per leg)

Glute Bridges (12-20 reps)

Chest/Shoulders:

Press ups (8-15 reps)

Bench Dips (8-12 reps)

Inverted Push ups (4-8 reps)

Back:

TRX Row (8-12 reps)

Seated Banded Row (8-12 reps)

Chin ups (6-10 reps)

Please key an eye on all our social channels for more help with dealing with Covid-19. Our team are here to impart as much knowledge as they can to ensure we all stay safe, healthy and well during this time.

And if you need a pep talk to get going, please look back at National Senior Swim Team Head Coach Ben Higson's words of advice. Invaluable.

Learn From Others

Our Stay In, Stay Well Webinar Series is now available on demand on YouTube. This series spoke to Sport Ireland Sports Institute experts about Maintaining That Champion Mindset, nutrition, and also dry-land exercises - they even include practical sessions.

Take a look back at our #WePlay episodes, where we spoke to elite athletes about how they are coping during the pandemic. These were recorded during April and May, so are worth reliving to remember what that was like.

We also have a whole playlist of Stay At Home Workouts from our Performance Services team.

Gain Swimspiration

Please make time to switch off and remember why you love the water. Tune in to ourSwimming Short Films playlist on YouTube, or get some swimspiration from our Swimming Movie list.

If you need some no-screen time, we've also got some ideas for swimming books to read.