For over a year, the MGC New Life (MGCNL) varsity teams have continued with virtual training. Though the teams have different routines and contrasting training days, all the student-athletes meet with their respective teams on Zoom to train for their sport. As for the volleyball varsity, they train every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
MGCNL’s volleyball team is led by Coach Thelma Rojas and Coach Joseph Alipoon. Along with them, team captains Corinne See, Peach Diño, and Annika Tan lead Senior High School, Junior High School, and Middle School, respectively. Consisting of 36 members this year, the volleyball varsity team faced some obstacles in adjusting to virtual training.
Challenges & Changes
“A struggle I had was maintaining my discipline since we are all at home and there are no competitions to prepare for so at times it’s a struggle to find the motivation to keep going,” says See.
Since we’re all currently under lockdown, there aren’t any tournaments for student-athletes to join at all. The determination to win these tournaments disappear, making it difficult for the trainees to continue pushing themselves in training.
“I think being physically apart from my teammates is one of my biggest struggles during online training. Especially in a team sport, where team dynamics plays a significant factor in the team’s overall performance, it's definitely a challenge to not be able to see or interact with my teammates and coaches,“ explains Diño.
On the coaches’ part, a challenge they face is monitoring the players who don’t have proper camera angles or internet connection. It's hard to adjust and understand the players since there is also a factor of honesty and integrity.
“I had doubts before on who was really doing the activities religiously. We’ve already improved on this and I know those players who really do the activities,” says coach Rojas.
Routines
For most volleyball players, their pre-training routine is usually checking if they have all the equipment they need for training on that day. This may include a fully charged laptop, dumbbells, shoeboxes, a jump rope, or a yoga mat. The players also try to memorize the activities for the day to make sure that the training session will go smoothly.
“I usually make sure that I’m familiar with the list of exercises we’ll do, and also be mentally prepared to push through and grind during training,” Diño said.
As a working mother, coach Rojas makes sure to finish everything needed to be done at home before training sessions. This helps her to focus and monitor the athletes with her full attention. Every Saturday, she also prepares devotion for the team to listen and reflect on before training.
Training Program
For the team’s training program, coaches Rojas and Alipoon try to keep the same routine of activities for a month so that each player can have time to memorize and learn the exercises included. This also helps ensure that everyone is doing the exercises correctly to avoid injuries.
The training program starts with stretching then proceeds to cardio exercises that are prepared by team captain See. Next, they have ball-handling and jumping exercises using shoe boxes. This idea of using shoeboxes to improve the players jumping is one of the examples of adjustments that the coaches thought of since not everyone had the equipment needed at home. Lastly, the team has their Physical Fitness Training (PFT) exercises usually made by See.
Highlights
“One of my highlights is when I get to see all of my teammates even though it may just be on a computer screen,” says See.
The same goes for the coaches since they look forward to getting an update on each player’s physical fitness.
“Something I look forward to is seeing if the players have grown. This is why I ask them to come forward to the camera,” says coach Rojas, “Since we’re in a pandemic, as long as they do the exercises religiously, that’s just what I look for.”
Virtual training has its setbacks and obstacles, but the important thing is that the coaches and players learn something new and gain something every training session. Like most, the team looks forward to training together, face-to-face, again.
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