The strange way Singleton stayed in shape during COVID layoff

Alex Singleton’s cardio work during his eight-day COVID layoff consisted of repeat sprints down a hallway in his house.

“It’s 11 yards,” he said. “But the wall comes real quick.”

Singleton said before practice Sunday that he tested positive for COVID on July 26 despite being fully vaccinated. He was finally cleared more than a week later, activated from the COVID list on Aug. 5 and returned to practice on Saturday.

He said his symptoms were very mild, but because he was quarantined he couldn’t work out at the NovaCare Complex and couldn’t leave his house.

So he improvised.

“Thankfully, I was able to get some kettlebells and dumbbells and stuff like that,” he said. “I think the first day, I looked up a YouTube kettlebell routine and it was like a 45-minute routine with a 60-pound kettlebell and I think the guy in the video had about a 10-pound and I just about killed myself in the living room.”

Singleton keeps himself in great shape so he was able to emerge from quarantine and jump on the practice field two days later.

“Surprisingly, you can get enough work in,” he said. “Being in quarantine for so long there’s so much stuff online and stuff I know from training what to do, so I would say I’m in decent shape for being able to come back. I guess after eight days my legs are a little fresher than some of the other guys around the building.

“I feel 100 percent. I felt really 100 percent the whole time. … But it was great being out there with the team (Saturday). It was really nice to be able to get out there and run around with the guys.”

As for the mental side of it, Singleton was to do pretty much everything remotely that he would have done if he were at the NovaCare Complex.

He just had to rely on all the technology that the Eagles put in place last year when so much of the team’s regular weekly preparation was done remotely.

“Thankfully, with all this Zoom stuff and all the communication that we have now … I was able to be in meetings and watch practices pretty much almost live through my iPad,” he said. “Mentally I was able to stay completely in it, and with this defense, with OTAs and everything I was able to get those reps in. 

“With how I felt yesterday I feel like I didn’t miss any days, mentally or physically.” 

Howie Roseman said when camp began that more than 90 percent of Eagles players had already gotten at least one shot and those who hadn’t gotten both were all planning to. Singleton said he doesn’t know where he caught the virus, but he realizes that because he was vaccinated his chances of experiencing serious symptoms were extremely low.

He said team physicians used his case in a talk with the team to illustrate why the vaccine is so important.

“Our doctors communicate so well with us,” he said. “Once you allow them to talk about your situation with everybody, we all learn from each other and we end up being a safer team, and everybody understands what’s going on.”

Singleton said he was getting a lot of questions from teammates about his symptoms compared with members of the team who tested positive last year before the vaccines were in use.

And he said he’ll always take COVID seriously in part because of his older sister Ashley, who was born with Down syndrome.

“I don’t know any of the science, but you never know how her immune system would react to it, so me and my family have always taken it very serious,” he said. “I would just say everybody protect everybody. I just listen to what the doctors in the building say because I trust them completely.”

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