Athlete adjusts to virtual training
Brock soccer goalkeeper Spagnolo prepares for final season with online workouts
Reporters aren’t the only people who benefit from scoops.
Just ask Marilena Spagnolo. Italian Ice Cream, a restaurant on Victoria Avenue in Niagara Falls, recently reopened and began offering curbside service. That meant Spagnolo, the goalkeeper for the Brock University women’s soccer team, was back working part-time as was Cass Stripe, a co-worker and, by happy coincidence, her teammate on the Badgers.
“Since I’ve been back to work, I have come in contact with Cass. So, now that I kind of have that contact, this morning we worked out together,” Spagnolo said in a phone interview from her home in St. Catharines.
Stripe visited Spagnolo’s house and the two trained together on a nearby hill while maintaining physical distancing.
“It was nice to be able to do it with a teammate, because that way we can push each other. There is always someone there to encourage you,” Spagnolo said. “But, by myself, it’s a little bit harder.”
When COVID-19 closed the university, off-season training for athletes returning for another year of varsity sports continued remotely.
While Spagnolo praises the “phenomenal job” Brock Sports Performance (BSP) strength and conditioning coach Vicki Bendus did creating a program that can be followed with equipment readily available at home, the adjustment to virtual training was anything but easy.
“It’s just the environment that’s a little bit difficult. I associate home with relaxation, homework, just school types of things,” Spagnolo said. “For me to do soccer here, to try to do it at home, it interferes with how I think of it.
“But I still put my mind to like, ‘OK, we have a season to prepare for.’ It’s my last year, as well, so I want to train and have that mental state that, ‘I’m doing this. We’re going to have to do this at home no matter what.’ ”
Training remotely “when no one else is looking” requires a lot of selfdiscipline.
“It’s what you put in when people are not watching is what you get out of it,” she said. “When the season comes, I want to be prepared for my team. I want to show them I did the work and helped them out.”
Spagnolo, who is preparing for her fifth and final year of eligibility, is also receiving position-specific training. Her goalkeeping coaches posted videos on Facebook that outline training exercises she can do on her own.
“They require no equipment, just footwork and this and that, handeye co-ordination, which I’ve been doing,” Spagnolo said.
Sometimes her parents help her, though she stops short of asking them to direct balls at her.
“Let’s just say my genes come from my dad’s side, but they don’t come from my parents exactly, they’re not the best at helping with soccer, throwing and kicking the ball at me,” she said diplomatically.
Classes were cancelled March 15 during exams and final assignments. Spagnolo was completing five courses at the time. “I remember I was very busy for two weeks,” she recalled with a chuckle.
“It was a little frustrating because I’ve never done an online class and so to switch from in-class, face-toface to online was difficult,” Spagnolo added.
“I needed to discipline myself to get the work done, just focus on it. But of course I’m at home so I’m like, ‘Oh, I can do it a little bit later.’ ”
Looking at a screen for hours on end gave her headaches.
“I was very disciplined to get what I needed to get done within the last week of March and the first week of April, because that’s when all my assignments and exams were,” Spagnolo said. “But my head was killing me. I never experienced that type of pain before, so it was just a switch to relax.”
Spagnolo, who graduated from Sir Winston Churchill after transferring from the former West Park Secondary School after Grade 9, intends to play out her eligibility even if she has to sit out a year.
“If our season doesn’t happen, I do plan to take a master’s — hopefully, I will get in — so I’m going to save my year of eligibility to train but health comes first,” she said.
“I’d rather everyone be healthy and get this under control before trying to jump back into things and you see a decline again.”
COVID-19 forced BSP staff to become “extra creative” in keeping student-athletes in peak condition through virtual workouts.
“We have our athletes exercise with things they may not have (been) considered to be exercise equipment, such as backpacks, soup cans, couches, towels, or even the staircases in their homes,” BSP coach Dave McDowell said. Coaches use TeamBuildr, an online strength and conditioning software, to send daily workouts and videos to athletes. An app tracks each athlete’s individual exercises, including reps and time.
“Creating home or body weight focused programs is something we’ve had to use in the past, but not on this scale or for this length of time,” Bendus said. “Normally, programs like these are for young athletes with a low training age, or a short-term solution if a player has limited gym access, is travelling or injured.”
“I needed to discipline myself to get the work done, just focus on it. But, of course, I’m at home so I’m like, ‘Oh, I can do it a little bit later.’”
MARILENA SPAGNOLO BROCK UNIVERSITY STUDENT-ATHLETE