Karantréning every day! – An alternative exercise programme of the Oltalom Sport Association during quarantine

Karantréning every day! – An alternative exercise programme of the Oltalom Sport Association during quarantine

At OSA, like many other partners, for the time of the mandatory quarantine we are forced to suspend one of our most important activities: football training sessions. Nevertheless, we found a way to not only keep in touch with our players, but also give them the training experience: we moved these events to the online space!

The Budapest-based Oltalom Sports Association started to practice sports as a personality-shaping, therapeutic activity in 2005. One of the cornerstones of our activity is our football training held in the capital and in other locations in the countryside on a weekly basis. In addition to educating children about a healthy lifestyle, regular sport also offers useful leisure activities for players lacking stability and regularity in their life.

With the mandatory quarantine and the precautionary measures introduced in the meantime, we were unable to continue our training sessions. At the same time, our goal was to maintain and even improve the physical and mental health of our players. To this end, we have created our “Karantréning” programme, during which we run an online exercise programme six days a week, led and moderated by coaches represented by our own and some external organisations.

Those who want to practice sport can join us through the online video room we have created. We welcome not only our certified players, but everyone interested. Led by a trained coach as well as a social worker, our trainings run for an average of 40-45 minutes. As we also teach participants new exercises and movement elements, we considered it important that in addition to the coach presenting the exercises, our social worker also participates in the session, in order to give feedback on the correct implementation of the exercises and possible areas of improvement.

To achieve our goal, in line with the spirit of civic space, we have created a platform on which the transfer and education of different approaches and working methods – from strength training and ball exercises to yoga practices – become accomplishable. In order to create as diverse training opportunities as possible, we provided our players with various sports equipment, such as fitness rubber bands.

For this purpose we have involved some of our partners, including the German Brandenburgische Sportjugend, the Czech Fotbal Pro Rozvoj and the Indian Slum Soccer, with whom we have been cooperating for many years in various projects. In addition, Ádám Szabados, a football freestyler, Hungarian champion and a world record holder football juggler, also held trainings with us.

The number of participants usually ranges from 5 to 15. For many of them, the accuracy and regularity of the exercises were significantly improved. In addition, thanks to strength training, the amount of exercises performed has also increased. One of the key members of the participants, Orsolya Katzer, also commented on the online training: “I really enjoy quarantine training for two reasons. Almost every night instructors and training associates “move” into my living room for an hour, helping me to get through this hard period. In addition, with a variety of exercises I am able to keep my body and soul in shape.”

When our “OSE Quarantine” programme was launched, we tested various video chat applications, looking for the most suitable one for our programme. In addition to high quality, it was expected that the social worker would be able to turn participants’ microphones on and off – so that they could hear constructive feedback from the social worker on how to perform their movements – and highlight the coach’s camera image.

After trying several apps, Google Meets proved to be the most convincing. We were pleased to find that our participants were open to different forms of motion, too, so we recommend everyone to incorporate yoga exercises into their workouts, in addition to strengthening exercises, and even hold a separate full-length yoga class!

From the very beginning of the coronavirus situation, we considered it a priority to preserve the physical and mental health of our players and to help them do sports at home. Our quarantine training programme is perfectly suited to achieve this goal.

Written by OSA