Olympic swimmer Ryan Murphy shares how he's creatively training during COVID-19 outbreak

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics officially being postponed last week was only the latest example of countless athletes and Olympic hopefuls’ lives being flipped upside down.

Prior to the International Olympic Committee’s postponement decision, gyms, pools and other training facilities had already closed, and several sports cannot be played while also practicing social distancing. So for the first time in history, the Games were postponed, and the IOC announced Monday that they are now scheduled to begin July 23, 2021, giving athletes about a 15-month training cycle to prepare.

While they have some clarity about their futures with a new date, they still face a variety of physical and mental health issues around pushing their training, goals and lifelong dreams back another year.

For The Win spoke with Olympic swimmer Ryan Murphy — who won three gold medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics in the 100-meter backstroke (and broke that world record), 200-meter backstroke and the 4×100 medley relay — about his reaction to the postponement. We also talked to the 24-year-old American, who trains at California Aquatics in Berkeley, about how he’s coping with the change and what he’s doing to get creative with his workouts.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

What was your reaction to the Olympics being postponed?

It was really a slow bubble for us. Everything was progressing every day, and we were getting little snippets. We got a call on a Tuesday the week before the Olympics officially got postponed. We were training at the Olympic Training Center on Tuesday night from our coach that said, “Hey, they’re going to shut down the training center. Get out of there as soon as you can.”

That was really the first shock, and that’s when I started talking to a bunch of people trying to gain perspective on the severity of the health situation.

Like who?

I leaned on someone like my sister for that. She’s a physical therapist at a hospital in Chicago, so a lot of her coworkers are screening people for coronavirus. And after conversations like that, I understood the severity of the situation and the need we have to support the medical community to make sure they’re not overwhelmed.

The competitor side of me — it’s still hard because we started in a job and I want to finish that at the original date. Luckily, I’m someone who’s fortunate to be able to continue to swim and continue to pursue this dream. That’s a relatively small sacrifice we have to make compared to what the medical community is making.

Since the Olympics have been postponed, have you received any direction from USA Swimming about how to move forward in general and in terms of training?

The initial help from USA Swimming is on the mental health side. There was a call to talk with a USOPC sports psychologist.

It’s really that you’re operating within your current training group. My training group is Cal Aquatics, and we’ve been staying in touch regularly about things we can do on our own in the comfort of our homes to stay in shape and make sure we’re in a good spot when we can get back into the pool.

Ryan Murphy with Cody Miller, Michael Phelps and Nathan Adrian after winning the 4×100 medley relay at the 2016 Rio Olympics. (Rob Carr/Getty Images)

What have those conversations with other swimmers been like?

On the mental health side, I think the biggest thing is getting comfortable in just recognizing your emotions on this. I think it’s completely normal to be torn. It’s completely normal to wish you had a competition this summer. That’s very fair. On the same side, it’s totally normal to recognize the severity of this pandemic and realize that we have to be stewards of society and do our part to protect our community, our families, our friends.

And on my side, recognizing that I am fortunate. The dream’s not gone; it’s just postponed. I put a ton of effort into this season and was in a really good spot, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going not be in a great spot four months out from the Olympics next time around.

What have you guys talked about from a physical standpoint of how to stay in shape as much as you can right now?

We can plan for having a 15-month run-up to the Olympic trials and the Olympics. So getting creative with what you have at your disposal. Like, I was doing pull-ups on a tree the other day. I was pushing my car up the street in neutral up. Getting creative like that is fun and breaks up the monotony of regular training. So from a physical standpoint, I really don’t think we’re going to miss a beat.

While recognizing your emotions and allowing yourself to be upset, how are you coping with all that?

I’m someone that has to just talk it through. So that’s talking with my innner circle, my family. My family’s been great throughout all of this.

But also on the competitive side, talking to my close friends on the national team, whether that’s Chase Kalisz, Caeleb Dressel, Kevin Cordes, Nathan Adrian, Tom Shields, Josh Prenot, all the guys at Cal. They get it. They completely understand the mix of emotions as well, and really just pumping each other up. We’re all lucky we’re going to be able to do this again.

We’ll take the experiences this year and apply them to being better next year. So I think, ultimately, the performances are going to be better next summer than they could have been this summer because it’s another year of knowledge.

Aside from pull-ups on a tree and pushing your car up a hill, how else have you had to get creative with your workouts?

I live with five people, and everyone’s pretty active. So we have a decent supply of workout tools at our house. We have a boxing bag — I think it’s 100 pounds — so we were picking that up and doing squats with that. We’ve been doing a lot of stuff like jumping into a lunge, so then you get the impact of gravity so your muscles have to fire off really quickly. I’m going to get into biking too. I don’t usually bike, but I’m looking into stationary bikes now.

Open-water gold medalist Sharon van Rouwendaal shared a video of her swimming in a small blowup pool with a rope attached to her. Have you gotten creative swimming wise, or are you sticking to dryland?

Right now, I’m just doing dryland. Given that we have such a long time now until the Olympics, this has been my break from the water, which is totally healthy to do.

I’ve got some ideas for some stuff I can do in a pool, but that’s mainly vertical stuff. One idea I have — and I wouldn’t recommend people do this — but I have ankle weights. So I’ll put those on so I’m naturally sinking in the water. And I also have a band, so I can tie my legs together. So if I immobilize my legs, I’ll sink pretty quickly, so I’ll do some sculling to keep myself on the surface. So that’s an idea I have that I’ll start doing probably in the next couple days.

What pool would you do that in?

Luckily, Nathan Adrian has a pool, so I could do it there.

Had you considered the possibility of skipping the Games if they were going to go on as scheduled?

I’m not an expert on this, and I don’t think I can become an expert on public health overnight. So I was really leaning on the information I was getting from USA Swimming and from the World Health Organization. And I essentially would have followed the advice of the experts on whether to compete or not.

How do you think it might affect you to not be able to train properly a year out from the Olympics next summer?

I honestly don’t think it’s super important to be doing a ton of stuff in the water right now. I think I might be a little more new school in terms of my thoughts on that. I honestly think I could probably take two months out of the water and be perfectly fine for next summer. So I’m not stressing too much about getting back into the pool.