Local trainers keep professional athletes in shape for their return.
Danny Arnold, above, and Justin Allen stay busy training pro athletes despite gym restrictions and social distancing
Danny Arnold has devoted more than a decade of his life to personally training NFL superstars, NBA sharpshooters, MLB pitchers, first-round draft picks, boxers and soccer players.
Two minutes into an interview, Plex’s owner finds a way for it to all make sense.
How he keeps training some of pro football’s biggest names while NFL facilities remain closed and America continues to adjust to modern life in 2020 with the coronavirus.
How he allows men and women in their athletic primes to feel safe and comfortable — and professionally distant — while still creating unique maximum-intensity workouts.
“The people that come here, they know it, so they understand it,” Arnold said this week at his Missouri City facility. “It’s the parents that are the most concerned. But I sum it up into this: My kids and my wife come in here four days a week. I would never put my kids in harm’s way.”
Keeping a full house clean
The front door keeps opening.
Athletes keep entering.
Plex again received national attention this week, when former Texans defender Jadeveon Clowney was shown working out in the Houston area.
Thursday morning, Arnold greeted reporters with a warm grin, then kept pushing ex-Texan Christian Covington through a sweat-drenched workout that was based around three simple but powerful tools: A thick rope, a huge tire and two crisscrossed dumbbells.
“(Arnold) wants to work those microscopic muscles. He wants to do everything,” said Covington, who played college ball at Rice, spent 2019 with the Dallas Cowboys and recently signed with Denver. “It’s that little degree, angle that allows you to dip a little bit more when you’re trying to work the edge.”
Arnold intentionally keeps his workout groups in small numbers. One group arrives at a set time, works out and exits. Another group follows.
But the domino-like fallout from the coronavirus has placed his new, next-door complex — which is set to feature a regulation-length football field, training hills and a wrap-around trail for families — on hold, as construction projects back up and permits are delayed.
“We submitted our stuff in December,” said Arnold, who is now eyeing a year-end completion to the new version of Plex. “We haven’t heard anything. Obviously, everything is frozen. Also on the construction side of things, we need a permit for the football field. We thought we were going to be able to do the football field and then you just don’t hear about it. You just don’t have access to all the things.”
He controls what he can control.
Regular cleaning and constant distancing. Connecting with high-level athletes via the oldfashioned power of word of mouth; convincing them that his facility can help them get through this unprecedented time.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott closed gyms across the state March 19 — they can reopen May 18 — but Plex has been able to stay open because it is classified as a training facility with physical therapy and health-care components and does not actively sell memberships, Arnold said.
“We’ve always cleaned equipment right after a person uses it. We tell players to bring multiple shirts — that’s a huge thing,” Arnold said. “We’re doing it with very little money. That’s where a lot of people think you have all this money. The truth is, no. We try to pour all of our money into our salaries of our staff, so we get the most qualified people in there.”
Preparing for sports’ return
Before Arnold returned to training, he pointed out a former Pro Bowl quarterback standing in the background.
Jeff Blake led East Carolina to an 11-1 record and No. 9 finish in the 1991 Associated Press Top 25 poll. He threw for 3,822 yards and 28 touchdowns while leading the Cincinnati Bengals in 1995 and played for seven NFL teams during a 14-year pro career.
Now, Blake physically trains and mentally prepares QBs.
He sees the same current reality as Arnold. Sports will return. When they do, they will wait for no one.
“The thing is, there’s no training once you get there. You’ve got to be ready to play,” Blake said. “If football season starts the first week of September, that’s the football season. So if you’re not ready condition-wise and strength-wise — ready to actually play the game — you’re not going to last long.”
The social media draw
On a warm Monday afternoon in Bellaire, Justin Allen was adjusting to his own new reality.
His phone kept buzzing. Athletes working out on the sidewalk and inside his All-En Sports facility kept calling out his name, requiring his personal attention. And in a world reeling from the endless negative spiral of the coronavirus, Allen was creating visible upbeat energy through athletic training.
“It’s been exciting. Being able to do something positive during a downtime like this,” Allen said. “Help the athletes — not only the athletes but the community. I feel like it’s been a great time to be able to come together. It feels like old times, man. We’ve been outside. It’s real.”
If you train James Harden, you draw attention.
If you train the Rockets superstar outdoors in a Houston park during the time of the coronavirus, you really draw attention.
“(Harden) reached out through a mutual friend,” Allen said. “He’d seen the work on social media.”
At two different facilities eight miles apart, Allen and Arnold basically said the same thing about the echoing effect of social media on high-level training. Blessing. And curse.
Allen: “A lot of it is not real, man. I don’t like social media, at all. But it has allowed me to come into my own.”
Arnold: “I see all these posts from trainers and players. When I’m looking at this, it looks cool. But I’m like, ‘What does that have to do with football?’ ”
Realizing dreams
Arnold is finding a way to do what he has done for more than a decade. When normal returns, he envisions a new state-of-theart facility and a full-length football field.
“I’m rolling up my sleeves, and I’m going to go back to my eight first-round picks in one year,” Arnold said.
Allen is making his name, creating new bonds and building his brand.
He dreamed of playing in the NBA but never made it.
Now Allen is applying everything he’s been through and learned, keeping athletes in shape until sports return.
“I definitely didn’t expect it. I’m confident in the work and being blessed to work with a lot of guys but I didn’t see it happening like this,” Allen said. “I thought I was going to be at the house, just doing like everybody, trying to figure out something to do day-to-day. The park has been exciting, it’s been fun. It’s like a different world — it opens up a whole different side of you being there.”