Houston Sports Park will open its doors on May 6 to the Houston Dynamo for the first time in more than a month due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Major League Soccer suspended its season on March 19 and the Dynamo created a new normal for their players and staff as the entire club transitioned to their home office for quarantine.
That new normal for the players began with delivering a stationary bike, weights and additional gear from Kwik Goal only a handful of days after the announcement that the season was suspended. The Dynamo technical and support staff generated individual workout plans for each player and incorporated additional tools to monitor the progress of each player during quarantine.
“I think [the coaches] have done a tremendous job given how unprecedented this situation is and how difficult it is to find a solution to it,” said Dynamo goalkeeper Michael Nelson. “I think they have stayed on it and stayed in regular communication with us about the things that we need to be doing, and they have expressed to us many times that their main concern is staying fit and staying on top of injury prevention things so that when we get back we can hit the ground running.”
Nelson, a third-year goalkeeper from Southern Methodist University, has adapted to a new routine and the challenges that come with a home gym. For Nelson, the challenges are also mental, and his goal is to make the most of his time away from Houston Sports Park.
“Having the bike at home is fantastic, and you can do that at any time of the day and just get on for twenty or thirty minutes. The Kwik Goal hurdles, rings, ladders, and bikes, it has all just provided a really good variety of stuff so it is not just the same monotonous stuff every day,” Nelson said. “That allows us to have a variety of things that we do to keep fresh and have a different challenge each day.”
Goalkeepers received tailored programs specific to their role on the field. Nelson has focused on more explosive and lateral movements. His go-to equipment includes a variety of the Kwik Goal hurdles and rings that he will also use next week at Houston Sports Park for the first time in almost 50 days.
“I think everybody received (the individual training news) well. Even if it is individual and we are not training with each other, I think we are all itching just to get back on the field and be training in some capacity with the ball, so I think everyone is really excited about that,” Nelson said. “Hopefully it is the first step to a bigger opening as well, but everyone is pretty excited about it.”
