Submitted photo Morgan State University assistant strength and conditioning coach Reuben Green III helps fire up the team before a football game. Green, a YSU grad and a former coach in the Mahoning Valley, is offering advice on how to stay in shape while gyms and schools are closed.

Time seems to have slowed down for a lot of high school athletes with schools closed, sports on hold and team workouts canceled. A battle for area athletes is making sure they themselves don’t slow down — literally.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak led to the Ohio High School Athletic Association canceling winter tournaments and postponing spring sports. Coaches are left text messaging and calling players just to keep in touch, as all school-related functions, such as workouts, conditioning or any type of practices are not permitted.

While Gov. Mike DeWine put a stay-at-home order in place, he also suggested getting outside to area parks and other facilities (while still practicing social distancing). That means local athletes can still run to increase their speed and stay conditioned for an upcoming sport.

A few Division I college strength and conditioning coaches are offering their advice on how to do just that in the third story of a series focused on staying in shape during an unprecedented time.

Tarik Muse is a former three-sport athlete from Liberty High School. The 2014 graduate is now an assistant strength and conditioning coach at Mercer University in Georgia, following internships at Duke and North Carolina State.

The Youngstown State grad said it’s important not to overthink when it comes to speed training.

“The number one thing anyone is going to say is run, but take advantage of your surroundings,” he said. “If you have some nice hills around you, go do some hill sprints. You can do lunges up a hill, all types of stuff, different exercise variations on the hill.

“You can run up the bleachers if you have a nice stadium around you. It makes it a little fun, takes out the monotony of just running on the grass or the road.”

With many area tracks and stadiums remaining open to the public, running can be done in a variety of ways (depending on the sport — and the weather).

Muse, Reuben Green III (Morgan State strength coach) and Terry Grossetti (YSU strength coach) were all hired by their respective schools to work with the football team, so they sometimes alter their workouts depending on a player’s position. For instance, offensive linemen would run different distances than wide receivers, Grossetti said.

Similarly, the approach changes for other sports.

“It doesn’t make a ton of sense for an offensive lineman to run 5 miles,” said Grossetti, in his second year at YSU after being the strength and conditioning coach at Slippery Rock. “It literally does not help him get better at all. There are certain sports, like a basketball player, it might make sense for them to run a timed mile. Even like a soccer player, someone who actually has to use their aerobic energy system more.

“You want to make your training match what you would actually do in a game,” he added. “Times like this make it harder than ever, but you need to try and remember those concepts when you’re applying training to your athletes. You don’t want to put them in a position to get injured.”

Grossetti and Muse agreed that sprinting short distances is the best way to produce bursts of speed and the overall quickness needed for football — and any sport in which short-term quickness is important.

Muse suggested not running farther than 20 yards at a time, but he emphasized to do it at full speed. Grossetti was on the same page, but he used time elements.

“The key with sprint work is sprinting for 5 to 10 seconds and then giving yourself ample time to fully recover, then sprinting again,” Grossetti said. “… Or, instead of doing squat jumps for 60 seconds at a moderate intensity, where you’re not jumping as high as you could, you could do squat jumps for 10 seconds at max intensity.

“There, you’re really increasing your force development and jumping as high as you can, and then resting for 30 to 60 seconds in between. That hits the energy system you’re trying to target more than just randomly jumping around in your living room or running long distances.”

Green’s approach was slightly different, in part because of the time of year and the fact that sports don’t look to be restarting anytime soon.

The Youngstown State graduate and former coach in the Mahoning Valley believes staying in good overall shape will be most beneficial to high school athletes. He emphasized focusing on total-body workouts (discussed in a story published Tuesday) and staying well-conditioned, so that when practices do resume, players are ready.

“A lot of people want to go out and do a bunch of speed work and just jump all the time, but at the end of the day, you have to be in shape to perform those movements,” Green said. “If you’re staying in shape, you’re going to get faster. Make sure they stay in shape, and when they get back with their coaches, the coaches will be able to get them faster because they can handle the different volumes (of workouts) at higher intensities.

“Right now, with all sports being done, this is the offseason, and the offseason is really preparing to make sure you’re in shape for the training that’s about to come.”