USAM handball players participated in stress management training supervised by the Gard gendarmerie. On the program: simulations, fake attacks and intense physical activity.
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Bombs, explosions, and even a helicopter. Funny welcoming committee for USAM handball players. Here, they come to do an internship to confront extreme stress, in the shoes of a police officer.
First exercise: go and arrest a criminal. But the operation goes wrong. A participant simulates an injury. Additional difficulty, the car has broken down.
This whole scenario serves to build team spirit. “There, we are like a kind of commando. The most important thing is the team and that is to never let a guy down on your team! When someone is injured, you have to carry them back to the car. It’s something that can be useful for matches“, notes Guéric Vincent, USAM left winger.
Intense physical activity, push-ups: it’s not easy to keep a clear mind when you’re in difficulty.
For this other exercise, despite fatigue, you must not lose your means. “It’s complicated to stay focused on the objective, because we have a problem with time and disturbances with noise. It was a bit rough, especially at the end“, confides Wesley Pardin, USAM goalkeeper.
The objective here is to manage stress in times of high pressure. Like in a very close final.
“At the end of the match, we can lack lucidity, due to fatigue and pressure for example. And you have to keep your cool to make the right decisions at that moment. So these exercises help us”, confirms Luc Tobie, USAM right-back.
To seal this partnership, 30 gendarmes were mobilized. “The idea is to introduce them to stress, perhaps a little different from that which they have in competition, and we explain to them the methods developed to manage this stress.” concludes Eric Painset, second in command of the Gard gendarmerie.
Written with Clara De Antoni
