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Physical and Mental Health Tips from TrueSport Ambassadors: Tyler Carter, Veronica Day, and Kara Winger

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The daily grind of a sport season can take a toll on the body, mind, and spirit of even the most talented and dedicated elite athletes. Unfortunately, some athletes might not notice the subtle signs of over-training until the very end of their sport season when they suddenly get hit with feelings of complete exhaustion. This is especially true for young athletes and those new to sport.

That’s why it’s important for athletes at all levels to take some time for physical and mental recovery at the end of a season. Below are some tried-and-true personal routines and tips for post-season recovery from TrueSport Ambassadors and Team USA athletes Tyler Carter, a two-time Paralympic alpine skier; skeleton athlete Veronica Day; and Kara Winger, a three-time Olympic javelin thrower.

 

Question: How do you decompress once your sport season ends?

B&W Veronica DayTyler Carter: When you hit the end of the season, you need to decompress a little bit. You need to take a little time off. I like to take about a month, get away from the sport to get out of the gym, and get away from skiing. Read, travel, watch movies, have fun, and do something not related to skiing.

Veronica Day: I never really feel like my season is complete until I have put away my equipment. There’s a huge equipment component to skeleton where we have to maintain and upkeep our equipment on a daily basis, and until it’s away in the basement and I don’t have to look at it, I don’t feel like I can really truly relax. So, that’s my step number one for decompressing post-season.

Kara Winger: I like to go outside to decompress once my sport season ends. This year I went to Big Bend National Park for a week with a friend and backpacked and paddle boarded. It was a blast. I think it’s important to stay physically active, but check-in with things you don’t get to do during the season. I also like to decompress by cooking new recipes and just being home. I deep clean my house, and that’s therapeutic and fun for me. Trying new stuff in the kitchen makes me really happy too, because a lot of times when you’re training, you’re tired. You’re working really hard physically, so you maybe get lazy on the cooking part of it.

 

Question: How long of a break do you take before you get back to training?

Tyler Carter: After about a month, I will get back to work because the most important thing is to physically and mentally prepare yourself for the coming season. Skiing is a very physical sport. I need to make sure I’m strong, agile, and ready to go. It’s the same with any other 

olympian kara winger throwing a javelin credit derek duncan

sport, you want to be prepared. Spending time in the gym, getting strong, and making sure you’re taking care of your mindset by getting yourself focused with goals for the season are really important things to do.

Veronica Day: I take about a month off after my season ends and I don’t do anything related to my sport. That’s when I do all my cross training, any distance running, swimming, anything like that usually happens in the springtime.

Kara Winger: I take at least a month break from everything physical after a season. I went to the gym one time in the month following my season in 2019 and did a couple different really lightweight circuits, and that was it in the whole month…it was just complete physical rest. But it ultimately depends on the year and how long the season lasts. I really value rest, so I take at least a month.

 

Question: What kind of post-season exercises do you do?

Veronica Day: Once I start my off-season training, which usually happens around May, I can really buckle up and start doing my Olympic lifts, my sprinting…anything that’s going to help me be fast and explosive. Those are the kind of workouts and exercises that I’m going to do because that will translate to pushing a skeleton sled fast. That push started at the beginning is so important and I really have to work on being fast and explosive in the off season.

Kara Winger: I cross-train in the off season after my period of rest. I’m not an endurance athlete, so running is really hard for me – sustained pace running, but I enjoy the challenge of it. I swam in high school, so I also love endurance swimming to make my body feel better. And I consider hiking to be a cross-training activity for me. There are benefits to cross-training for me since the activities I do have less bilateral pounding on my joints. What I do in javelin is unilateral. I throw with my right arm all the time. So, balancing out the body by doing a bilateral activity is important for me in cross-training.

 

Question: What tips do you have for young athletes as they approach their off-season recovery?

Paralympian Tyler Carter sitting on a stoopTyler Carter: Take care of yourself, your body, and your mind. Make sure everything is looked at because sometimes we tend to forget one or the other. One of the most important things is to have fun. That’s why we do sports in the first place. If you’re not having fun, then what’s the point of it?

Veronica Day: Reward yourself. You just competed all year. You wrapped up a presumably long season and you deserve it. Make sure you find something that you can do in the off-season that you typically would not be doing in your regular season and really lean into that. Make sure that you have fun doing something completely outside of your sport, so that you’re not feeling drained when your season starts back up again.

Kara Winger: Try to have the foresight to recognize the benefit of rest. It’s really easy to think that you should just push through and make yourself better by building on what you already have, but your body needs an opportunity to rest and recuperate before you can add more gains to it.

 

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Hi. I’m Trevon, Trey, Jennifer. Team USA wheelchair basketball player, paralympian, and true sport athlete. Today, I want to talk to you about goal setting. And there are three things that I would like you to know. First, successful athletes set goals and a planned roadmap. Second, goals should be written down, assessed over time, and changed if necessary. And third, goals need to be challenging in order to be worthwhile. As a freshmen at Edinboro University, I was a part of a team that made the national championship game. And at that time I recognized I was the low man on the totem pole, but I felt in my heart that I knew my dreams were so much bigger than winning a national title. I wanted to make Team USA. I knew what achieving my lofty goal was not going to be easy and that I would need to work hard every day.

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By understanding that there are smaller stepping stones to achieving my ultimate goal of being on Team USA, I was able to stay motivated and to stay focused on completing the smaller stepping stones fully before moving onto the next one. Now I’ll be the first to admit that not every goal that I listed on my pyramid was accomplished, but seeing my goals every day when I went to bed, I was able to push through the days that I felt like doing nothing in hopes of achieving the bigger picture. Remember, create a clear goal roadmap, assess your goals often, and continue to challenge yourself. I hope that you never stopped dreaming big or reaching for the stars. And I look forward to seeing where your roadmap takes you.

Body Image Lesson Video Transcript

Hi, I’m Kara Winger, Olympic javelin thrower, and true sport athlete. Today I want to talk to you about body image and I have three things I’d like you to know. First, healthy thoughts often lead to healthier bodies. Second, there are varying body types and no one’s body is exactly like another. And third, true beauty goes deeper than the skin. As a multi-time Olympian, I’ve experienced a lot of variation and progression in my training. My coaches and I adapt to my training frequently, all with the goal of supporting my long-term success and health in the sport of javelin. I’m talking to you about body image today because sometimes even with the best of intentions and a common goal in mind, the changes you make to your training habits can prove to be detrimental if made for the wrong reasons. In the lead up to the 2012 Olympic trials, I was told in order to improve my performance on the field, I should try to become a leaner, skinnier version of myself.

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I started competing in Modern Pentathlon eight years after my older sister and three-time Olympian, Margaux Isaksen, began competing. I soon realized that people often compared the two of us. I would overhear spectators and teammates asking, “Who’s the better athlete,” and “Who’s going to beat the other.” Instead of letting outside pressures create a negative experience for us, I chose to practice winning and losing with grace and respect. I know that it would have been easy to let our hyper competitive mindset affect our relationship, but instead we decided to support and cheer for each other, regardless of our own performance. My experience of competing against and being compared to my older sister, taught me to focus on how to perform at my best, rather than putting wasted energy into wishing for others to fail.

I believe that sportsmanship reveals true character. So, no matter what situation I encounter during competition, I know it’s important to always treat people with respect and be a good sport. Remember, be a fierce competitor, find grace in all your victories and losses. And I hope to see you out there.

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Edwin Moses: You’re a coach. Maybe what you want is very simple, for everyone to just run in the right direction, score for their own team, to try and try again and again. Maybe you want your athletes to become all stars. You want them to earn trophies, medals, win titles. You want them to reach the highest height their sport allows. And wanting all of that, of course, that’s good. But as every great coach discovers, developing a great athlete means nurturing, nurturing the even greater person within. Truth is, you have even more influence than you know.

You have the ability to affect even deeper change, to take what’s in your hands and do something even more extraordinary. You can be both the coach who provides the skills needed to win the game and the coach who helps them learn and succeed beyond the sport, to become all stars wherever they land in the future, and to enjoy their lives more now, because the confidence and courage they find working with you will stay with them when they need it the most. There are games to be won, lives to change. Coaches have the power to do both.

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At first glance, dietary supplements look the same. They seem safe and healthy, but just because the label says a product is a dietary supplement, that doesn’t mean it’s safe. Unfortunately, you can’t tell whether a product is safe or not just by looking at the label. Most vitamins, minerals, fish oil, and other supplements containing nutrients are probably just fine, but supplements are not evaluated or approved by FDA before they are sold. Although it is rare for vitamins or minerals to be contaminated with drugs, there has been at least one case of a vitamin containing an anabolic steroid.

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