AUBURN | Only about 25-30 percent of Auburn’s football players currently have access to a weight room or adequate weights. So what do the rest of AU’s athletes do to stay in shape during the global coronavirus pandemic?

A lot of the same things you probably did as a kid, and maybe still do today.

“I’m a big believer in relative-body-strength movements like pushups, chin-ups, and mastering your own bodyweight before you ever externally load a student-athlete,” said Ryan Russell, who is the assistant AD for Athletic Performance and the Executive Director of Football at Auburn.

“So that’s always been a big part of our program. Even with the signees that are coming in May, those guys, their program that we sent them back to them in January whenever they signed is a lot of bodyweight stuff anyway.”

Russell actually builds Auburn’s foundational-level program, which he calls “stage zero,” around the young players mastering their own bodyweight. Of course, for elite-level athletes it can involve more than just their actual body weight.

“Those movements are always in our program, whether it be inverted rows, different pushup variations,” Russell said. “Now, we do externally load them with weight vests and chains and things of that nature, but overall those movements are always in our program in some capacity.”

But it’s not strength training that Russell is the most concerned about for his players training at home. It’s running and staying in peak condition.

“A lot of the things that we’re trying to sell them on too and emphasize is just the speed work and the conditioning because they can all be outside and keep their social distancing and do that speed work and the position-specific conditioning,” Russell said. “That’s the No. 1 biomotor quality that they’re going to lose anyway, first, is that speed if they don’t continue to run fast and change directions and do all their plyometrics.

“And believe it or not, if they’re doing that stuff three days a week like we’ve prescribed, yeah they’re going to lose some strength levels, there’s no doubt, but they’re not going to be as bad off when they get back as they could’ve been had they not continued to sprint and not continued to do the jumping exercises that we prescribed for them.”

Russell and AU’s strength and conditioning staff are able to send out workouts to the players every Monday through an app.

“We have two different programs going—one bodyweight program and then one program that has strength exercises for the student-athletes that still have access to a weight room,” Russell explained. “And then, myself and my staff normally call just to check in on them, you know, to see how they’re doing No. 1, and to see how their well-being is and if they’re healthy and all that.”

Russell likes to talk to his players about “getting comfortable being uncomfortable.” He’s had to do that by being a long-distance strength and conditioning coach and implementing more technology into his daily repertoire. His players are having to do the same and learning to push themselves on their own.

“Obviously, we’re in unprecedented times right now and things are a little different, but as they always say — and I’m a firm believer in this — the great ones adjust,” Russell said. “The main thing right now is the health and safety of the student-athletes, and that’s what we’ve really been focusing on here recently.”

The Auburn University campus is closed and all on-campus athletic activities or suspended through the remainder of spring semester and summer sessions 1 and 2. A decision for summer session 3 will be made by June 1. Auburn is scheduled to open the season Sept. 5 against Alcorn State at Jordan-Hare Stadium.