How Should We Prepare Ourselves for New Normal Related to Stopped Competitions? Public Health and Athletes

What is it about?

Covid-19 has disrupted normal life not only among the general population and their daily ac-tivities, but also in different professions. Recrea-tional and elite athletes have been ordered to halt their exercise activities. Currently there is no social physical activity or professional competitions, thus there will be huge financial consequences related to stopping those activities. Athletes will lose their physical and emotional fitness and sponsors could potentially lose their business (1–3). What will be the new normal? What happens when athletes can do their training exercises at in home or indoor gyms or stadiums and sponsors can sell their tickets? Nevertheless, we do not know how long we must wait for this new nor-mal life and what we can do now?

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Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Before we reach the new normal, we recognize the very serious issues in the current situation. Staying at home, lack of social activities and physical activity, not only affect physical condi-tion, but also the psychological condition of indi-viduals. If a correct solution is not identified many individuals may not recover (4–6). As a result of the absence of physical activity and lack of professional exercise training among elite athletes, we may need to learn how to replace international competitions with lower level of competitions in small societies or at the national level (4,6). This strategy will potentially keep in-dividuals at a better level of physical fitness in comparison to waiting for an undetermined peri-od of time. Certainly, recreational athletes or normal individuals who need physical activity for maintaining health can simply do stretching train-ing combined with aerobic (dancing/walking) and resistance training (using body weight/water bottles) (7). If individuals do the suggested physi-cal activities at home it will assist with overall health both physically and mentally (1,4). You may not notice the psychological effects of your mind and performance. Most likely you will adapt to this situation, but what would be the level of your performance? Maybe playing web-based games or reading a book with motivational and challenging aims could be useful.

Perspectives