Halfway into Western Nebraska Community College athletic department’s new virtual video workout series, WNCC Workout Wednesdays, things are going well.
WNCC assistant men’s basketball coach Billy Engel, who is organizing the weekly workouts along with special guests, said the 4-week video series is going well.
“The series is going well so far. Conner [McCracken] and Jasiya [DeOllos] both got great workouts in, and we are happy to be able to share with the community,” Engel said. “It is very easy to find excuses not to be active during a quarantine, so we thought putting some at-home exercises on camera might help a lot of people right now.”
The workout series started May 20 and will run for four weeks, ending June 10, with a different workout each week that can be done at home. Every Wednesday, a new video will go live at 10 a.m. on the WNCC Athletics Facebook page and on the WNCC Athletics YouTube channel.
These workouts will consist of exercises that are great for staying physically fit, along with basketball specific drills.
Engel said staying active is important during this unusual time that the world is experiencing.
“I think its incredibly important to stay active and continue to push ourselves to get better,” he said. “We feel so bad for kids missing out on Little League and softball seasons, traveling basketball seasons, etc. Without those activities, finding a new way to workout and get a sweat going is very important.”
The first workout series that came out May 20 involved current Cougar and Scottsbluff Bearcat Conner McCracken and focused on drills and workouts to keep you in basketball shape. The second video series involved incoming Cougar and former Bearcat Jasiya DeOllos and the third video will have former Cougar Martin Roub, who will be a senior at Jacksonville State University next year.
McCracken said it was fun doing something like this for the community.
“It was a blast doing the Wednesday workouts,” McCracken said. “It meant a lot to me that I could help do something for those in our area who are trying to stay active and/or get better at the game of basketball while not having access to an indoor gym or weight room.”
McCracken said he has had to find places to workout out during March, April, and May because the coronavirus closed the gyms and workout places.
“I have been out to the Carpenter Center to play pickup games with past teammates and opponents running games whenever we can put something together,” he said. “I also spend majority of my days at The Warehouse here in Scottsbluff doing various exercises to improve my strength and basket skills.”
DeOllos’ workout dealt with dribbling drills and speed dribbling. Former Cougar Martin Roub will be the guest workout individual for the third series, which premieres June 3 at 10 a.m. Roub.
Roub, who is back in Scottsbluff for the summer from Jacksonville State University in Alabama, said this is a cool idea.
“I think that it is a great idea to do this kind of video series in this time,” Roub said. “It can be challenging for many people to stay in shape and physically active, but it is very important for many different reasons and this video series is a great way of showing some easy ways of how to stay active.”
Roub said his workouts right now are interesting.
“I am trying to be creative in staying in shape because I think that it is important to engage in a variety of different activities, so it doesn’t get boring,” he said. “Some of the activities that I’ve been doing are running, riding a bike, brisk walking, yoga, exercising with my own weight, and I’ve been able to do some weight training as well.”
The final week will bring all three together to show how several people can work out together while applying the social distancing and all the other restrictions to working out.
“I think that having incoming, current, and former players all together working on this video shows the culture and values of the basketball team and WNCC athletics that always care about the whole community,” Roub said. “As I said, I think that working out in this time can be challenging, but it can also be a great opportunity to try and find new ways of staying physically active. Also, I think that it can be a great time to break bad habits with much better and healthier habits not only in the area of physical activity, but also other areas, such as mental health or healthy eating habits which is all very important especially in this time.”
McCracken said that final video series should be fun with all three of them together.
“I anticipate it will be a lot of fun as the three of us can display our different skills in a single video,” he said. “I think we all have very different styles of play and it will be interesting to see what we do together.”
The workouts will remain on the WNCC Athletic Youtube channel for all to watch through the year. McCracken said he hopes this helps everyone.
“I just hope it helps those here locally and abroad to have a structured workout that they can follow to keep getting better while having a creative and positive mindset,” he said.
