Isolation doesn’t put end to workouts

Exercise bikes, dumbbells delivered to help keep fitness levels high

As the longtime strength and conditioning coach with the Raptors, Jon Lee works with some of the most highly motivated and fit athletes imaginable. Finding a way to keep them engaged, working and in shape during a couple of weeks of forced isolation hasn’t been difficult.

But Lee also has some advice for the normal folks trying to maintain fitness in these abnormal times.

“The best advice is to start doing the workouts,” Lee said in a telephone interview. “There’s a reason why you get a gym pass, so you have to go somewhere to go work out.

“(But) just get started at home. Whether it’s doing five pushups, five squats and five burpees, for example, and then you add another one to it. You go to six pushups, six squats, six burpees and so on.

“Create goals for yourself, challenge yourself, do something that makes you sweat. Whether it’s for five minutes, or 10 minutes or 30 minutes, just get off the couch and actually try to do something.”

Lee hasn’t had to prod the Raptors into keeping up their fitness as well as they can during a 14-day self-isolation period that ends this week. Members of the team’s travelling party — more than 50 people, including players, coaches, support staff and broadcasters — have been quarantined after an early March western road trip ended with a game in Salt Lake City. Two members of the Utah Jazz, Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell, eventually tested positive for COVID-19 and, while the entire Raptors party tested negative, they were told to go into isolation.

While the players were unable to take advantage of the franchise’s state-of-the-art training facilities, Lee quickly made sure each of the players had what they needed. Exercise bikes and adjustable dumbbells were delivered to each player with a workout program designed to keep their fitness level as high as possible.

“The reason why I chose the bike was it was the easiest one to get, we had a bunch at our practice facility that we took out, loaded on a truck and got them to them,” Lee said. “We’d like them to do more exercise that is conducive to the sport, like running, but not everyone has a treadmill and you can’t go outdoors.

“The best way to train for basketball is to actually play basketball and that’s something we can’t do right now.”

It’s hard to imagine the benefits of idle time, especially with it being the result of pandemic that has threatened ways of life around the world. But a couple of weeks of players not pounding their joints running and jumping isn’t a bad thing.

“The guys that we have are elite athletes,” Lee said. “If they’re doing something at home, whether it’s the conditioning on the bike or if they have a treadmill, it is very difficult for guys to lose what they’ve gained over these years, especially elite guys, in a matter of months.

“When these guys come back, I have no real worry about how quickly they can get back. We’ll have to manage how much they’re pounding ( joints) and the on-the-court stuff and be slow to get into it without getting quick injuries from being sedentary from basketball but not sedentary from exercise.”