Global Challenges of Being a Strength Athlete during a Pandemic: Impacts and Sports-Specific Training Considerations and Recommendations

Abstract

The ongoing global pandemic brought about by Coronavirus II (SARS-Cov-2 or COVID-19) has caused an ongoing cessation of sporting competitions and training facility closures. This is a fundamental challenge for amateur and elite sporting professionals. Although recommendations have been provided for team-sport athletes to maintain general and sport-specific conditioning, these methods are often not optimal for strength athletes (i.e., powerlifting (PL) and weightlifting (WL)) due to the unique and narrow set of performance requirements posed by these sports. The purpose of this review is to provide evidence-based information and recommendations and highlight potential strategies and approaches that may be used by strength (PL and WL) athletes during the current global crisis. Collectively, we provide evidence from resistance training literature regarding the loss of muscle strength, power and mass, minimum training frequencies required to attenuate such losses and training re-adaptation. Additionally, we suggest that time off training and competition caused by ongoing restrictions may be used for other purposes, such as overcoming injury and improving movement quality and/or mobility, goal setting, psychological development and emphasizing strength sports for health. These suggestions are intended to be useful for coaches, strength athletes and organizations where existing training strategies and recommendations are not suitable or no longer feasible.

Keywords: COVID-19; detraining; injury; performance; powerlifting; resistance training; weightlifting.

Figure 1

Displays the estimated percentage reduction in competitor entries based on country from the 1 January 2020 to 2 May 2020 compared to same dates in 2019 (data extracted from [21]). Countries where results were not available for both years or were deemed incomplete after manual inspection were omitted.

Figure 2

Theoretical depiction of the time-course of training cessation and possible retraining effects, based on available evidence from resistance training literature. “Baseline” refers to pre-training level of athletes’ neuromuscular capacity, “peak” refers to capacity prior to training cessation period. Orange dotted line indicates general neuromuscular (i.e., strength and power) capabilities of athlete.

Figure 3

General and proposed benefits for athletes’ overall health (e.g., physical and mental) with strength sport participation.