Homework: Splendora athletes get at-home workouts to keep sharp during school's closure

Marcus Shulz, like many teachers in the Houston-area right now, is utilizing online tools such as Google Classroom to get homework to his students.

Splendora ISD is closed for this week. Despite his athletes being away from the school, no games on the schedule and now no practices allowed by the UIL until at least March 29, Schulz wanted his athletes to stay active and ready.

So, Shulz and his coaching staff devised a homework"out" plan.

"We're taking it week to week," Schulz said. "As they come out with new information we'll adjust ours. I didn't want myself and my staff didn't want our kids losing what we already gained. So we met on a conference call and talked about a workout plan we wanted to put together for all of our athletes - junior high, high school boys and girls."

The workout plan was pieced together with the idea that the athletes wouldn't have access to a complete gym. Instead, it's workouts that they can do in their front or backyard or even in their living room.

"We broke it down into a five-day workout Monday through Friday," Schulz said. "Monday, Wednesday, Friday being lower-body day, Tuesday and Thursday being upper body or chest, shoulder, bicep, tricep-type day. Then a lot of body weight workout -squat-holds, lunges. Then we mixed in some sprints, stretching, warm-up and agility. Just to give them something to follow."

On Monday morning, Schulz completed the Monday-set of workouts. It took him roughly 40 minutes.

Currently, Schulz said Splendora ISD is preparing for the minimum of two weeks of not having students up on campus. As a district, Schulz stated they are preparing for a longer hiatus than that just to be ready if it were to happen.

Outside of keeping the athletes moving - to not lose the work gained by the offseason athletes and keep the in-season athletes game ready - it is also a mindset thing.

"We're trying to keep them as calm as possible and try to make it to where they are still doing something, so they have that sense of we're going to get back normalcy hopefully eventually," Schulz said. "I hate it for our seniors that they are missing some of that. But that's all we can be is optimistic that we're going to be back sooner than later."

At Splendora, the spring sports were hot out of the gates.

Both soccer teams had qualified for the playoffs, the tennis and track teams were off to great starts and baseball and softball had solid non-district wins under their belt. The best start was owned by Splendora's softball team, which started the year 9-0 and who's last win before the suspension of play was a 14-0 victory over state-ranked Atascocita - a Class 6A program and the 2018 State Champion.

"It's just trying to keep them as upbeat as possible and give them as much as we can," Schulz said. "Let them know to continue to work."