MADISON, Wis. – Monday was the beginning of Wisconsin’s summer workouts, commonly known to head coach Paul Chryst and his staff as phase three of four in preparing for a fall football season. In the wake of the global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, however, few things anymore can be labeled as common.
Even so, despite starting workouts a week later than originally scheduled, Wisconsin strength and conditioning coach Ross Kolodziej felt a sense of optimism that new procedures and protocols didn’t result in a change of philosophy from a hungry group of players ready to get back to work.
“Having been a member of this locker room, that’s the secret sauce to this place. It’s the character of our guys and the why of what they’re trying to do,” Kolodziej told the media during a Zoom call Monday. “We’re fortunate that we’ve got a group in that locker room that loves football, that loves to train and doesn’t lose sight of that. That’s why I’m incredibly optimistic … I think our guys (with) how they train, how they rally around each other, how they respond to adversity is what sets us different.”
Progressing toward an early September season opener, Kolodziej acknowledged that the weight room workouts are different than in past years because of social distancing recommendations, new health parameters (no spotters) and a strong emphasis on cleaning. Rather than the whole team working out together, UW organized groups with a maximum of 10 players to go through workouts with one individual strength coach.
Scheduling out a 90-minute block of time for players, running from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Kolodziej said players trained for roughly 70 minutes, had 10 minutes to break down and sanitize their stations and migrate out of the weight room and worked for roughly another 45 minutes on the field. Players were always also required to wear masks in the facilities, except during training when wearing a mask is optional.
Working Mondays and Thursday on improving speed and power and doing multi-direction, position-specific training on Tuesdays and Friday, Kolodziej said the only real difference will be more solo drills, individualized equipment and more spacing between players.
While all the workouts are deemed voluntarily per the NCAA, Kolodziej said 100 of UW’s 123 rostered players participated on day one with more players set to join next week.
“They’ve done a great job in preparing themselves for this first phase,” Kolodziej said. “I really feel comfortable with the safety in the room.”
Part of that security feeling is the work the strength department and sports medicine staff did in oversaturating players with videos, power points and other documents to stress the importance of the new procedures and be as proactive as possible with education. A common occurrence in sports is a player pushing through a workout when not at 100 percent, overlooking an injury or a sickness to not lose out on valuable reps.
Late last week, the University of Houston suspended voluntary workouts for all student-athletes after six symptomatic student-athletes in various sports tested positive for the coronavirus.
“Playing through (injuries) is how does it affect me,” Kolodziej said. “You ask a doctor can I make it worse by continuing to practice, train or play. What we’re dealing with here is not only can it be worse for you, it can be worse for everyone in the building. It can be a complete and total shutdown by you trying to be a tough guy … It would be hard for any guy at this point to not understand the gravity of the situation.”
While other programs were able to get some spring practices in, Wisconsin lost the entirety of its spring practice schedule because of the country-wide shutdown. With the campus closed and players sent home, the quarantine led to Wisconsin’s players posting videos to social media of their inventive ways to work out and stay in shape, from elaborate home gym setups to pushing trucks and lugging 2x4s.
“Guys really challenged themselves to find a way,” Kolodziej said. “Guys look prepared … In terms of percentages in the weight room, their work capacity really stood out from every single strength coach talking to them throughout the day.”
Despite the new measures, Kolodziej believes his staff’s approach to preparing for the season won’t drastically change over the next several weeks. Operating under the assumption that football will start on time, Kolodziej said that the program is ready to adapt to any changes and that the players will follow suit.
“I love our guys,” he said. “I can’t say enough about our locker room. Whether we have one day to prepare or one year to prepare, I’d bet on our guys.”
