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Steve Serio | Train Like | Men's Health
Men'sHealth
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23/07/2024
TK
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Sports
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00:00
This was the first time in my life that I feel like I don't have a disability.
00:08
My life was about being an athlete first.
00:10
My entire world changed the day that I found wheelchair basketball and I'm so incredibly
00:14
grateful that I found this game.
00:18
Hey everyone, I'm Steve Serio, I play wheelchair basketball for Team USA.
00:28
I am a two-time Paralympic gold medalist, one-time bronze medalist, and this is a day
00:33
in the life with a workout with me.
00:36
So I acquired my disability very early on in life.
00:39
I was actually born with a benign spinal tumor that went undiagnosed for the first 11 months
00:43
of my life.
00:44
During that time, the tumor became infected and inflamed and crushed my spinal cord, resulting
00:49
in the incomplete paralysis of my lower extremities.
00:51
So living with a disability, it's all I know, it's all I remember.
00:55
And I didn't find adaptive sports and specifically wheelchair basketball until I was 15 years
00:59
old.
01:00
And the day that I found it, my life completely changed.
01:04
My world became around focusing on the things that I could do and not focusing on the things
01:09
that I couldn't.
01:11
The day that I found wheelchair basketball was a fork in the road moment for me.
01:15
I had always been an athlete growing up, but I had to play able-bodied sports because that
01:20
was the world my loved ones decided to raise me in.
01:23
I didn't know that adaptive sports or wheelchair basketball even existed growing up.
01:28
And I remember going down to practice and sitting in a wheelchair for the very first
01:31
time.
01:32
And it was a basketball wheelchair that was like 10 times the size, that was too big for
01:37
me.
01:38
But I remember pushing up and down the court and going through practice.
01:42
And after practice, I remember being in the car with my father.
01:46
And he hesitatingly asked me, so how did it go?
01:50
What did you think?
01:51
It looked like you were having a great time out there.
01:53
And in typical teenager fashion, I turned to him and said, this was the first time in
01:57
my life that I feel like I don't have a disability.
02:00
This was the first time that the rules didn't have to be changed so that I could participate.
02:04
I was around like-minded kids and their parents, and my life was about being an athlete first.
02:11
I was fortunate enough to have some success early on in my career and then attended the
02:16
University of Illinois, where I graduated with a degree in kinesiology and exercise
02:22
science and have been on Team USA since 2006.
02:27
I've competed in the last four Paralympic Games, and Paris will be number five for me.
02:33
So a typical practice day for our Team USA consists of at least two practices a day.
02:40
All of our athletes are scattered all across the US.
02:44
So when we get together, which is basically every two weeks at the training center in
02:49
Colorado Springs, we have to make the most of our time because we don't have a lot of
02:53
time together.
02:54
We usually go for about three or four days at a time.
02:57
So our practice days consist of two on-court sessions and then one either weightlifting
03:03
session, mental health, sports psych session.
03:06
And basically, it's all work when we're in the gym all together.
03:10
We need to build just that camaraderie with each other.
03:15
So we have a lot of work to do, and every time we're together, we're taking steps towards
03:19
another gold medal.
03:20
As an athlete, my training goal is to be the absolute best, most conditioned, physically
03:26
ready to compete in the Paris Paralympic Games in a couple of months.
03:31
Team USA athletes say that this is not just a one-year or two-year endeavor.
03:36
It's a lifestyle that you have to accept, not only for yourself, but for your loved
03:41
ones as well.
03:42
Your nutrition plan has to be dialed in.
03:44
Your training program has to be dialed in.
03:47
Your mental health program has to be dialed in.
03:49
It's a lifestyle, and Paris will be the culmination of years and years in the making for these
03:55
athletes.
03:56
So when you are watching the Olympic or Paralympic Games in a couple of months, know that the
04:01
work that is being put in by those athletes spans back years of their life, and we're
04:08
just excited to show the world what we have up our sleeve and hopefully bring home another
04:14
gold medal.
04:15
A typical warm-up for us before I start my trendy conditioning program always consists
04:20
of rotator cuff and shoulder warm-ups.
04:24
So you'll see that I'm about to jump into the bands.
04:27
It's something that we always have to work through as an adaptive sports athlete.
04:32
Our shoulder health is so vital to our success as an athlete because, hey, if one of my shoulders
04:38
go or my shoulders go, then I am pretty immobile.
04:42
So we have to keep our shoulders healthy.
04:44
It's something that I focus on day in and day out each time I'm in the gym.
04:48
So I usually open each workout with a pushing movement, and that's because if you watch
04:53
wheelchair basketball, the primary movement that we do is pushing the wheelchair.
04:57
You have to be able to be explosive in wheelchair basketball.
05:02
So the first movement I usually do is a pushing movement, and I'm going to demonstrate a dumbbell
05:07
bench press from the floor.
05:09
It's one of the ways that we can stabilize our shoulders but also get that chest activation
05:14
that we need to be able to increase our speed and agility on the court.
05:19
So the next exercise that I like to do is a variation of a pull-up, and I'm going to
05:24
show you guys how we do a variation of the pull-up in my sports basketball wheelchair.
05:29
Again, once you have to counterweight those pushing elements to make sure that your shoulders
05:34
remain healthy, and obviously as we recover each of our pushes, it's a pulling motion.
05:40
And that typically is around three sets to about 10 or 12 reps each time.
05:46
The next exercise that we do is a lot of ab work, a lot of core work.
05:50
We have to be stable in our sports wheelchair because if you watch the game, we are getting
05:56
put in a bunch of different compromising positions.
05:58
I need to be able to reach for the ball and then come right back to neutral to get ready
06:01
to shoot.
06:02
So to have your core function strong is vitally important.
06:06
This exercise is called a halo dumbbell exercise, and we usually do three sets of this ab exercise
06:14
for about a minute each time.
06:16
The next exercise we'll do is another core workout, and it's basically just a leg lift
06:21
that we like to do.
06:23
This is the way that I can activate my lower core, my lower ab muscles to the best of my
06:27
abilities.
06:28
This one is a little bit unique because not everybody can do this exercise depending on
06:31
their disability, but this is one way that I get to activate my lower abs.
06:36
The next exercise we're going to do is a variation of a deadlift to curl to press.
06:42
One of the most functional wheelchair basketball movements is you have to be able to pick the
06:47
basketball up off the floor and then get ready to go into your shooting motion, and this
06:51
exercise kind of mimics that.
06:53
So it's a three exercise all in one.
06:57
We do a deadlift from the floor, I'll curl up and I'll press the dumbbell up, and we
07:03
usually do three sets of this one with eight to twelve reps.
07:09
Hey guys, I'm Steve Serio.
07:11
Thanks for following along as I showed you a little bit about our Team USA workouts.
07:16
Follow us along as we compete for gold in Paris in August.
07:18
Be good.
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