Alexis Jones plays guard for the Atlanta Dream of the WNBA. Below, she spoke with Just Women’s Sports about her relationship with Adidas, her favorite cross-training workouts, and how she’s managing to rehab her knee while also training under quarantine. You can find an earlier interview with Alexis Jones about her draft day experience and her time with the Minnesota Lynx here.
Adidas has made a big push to invest in women’s sports. Can you talk about your experience with the brand and how they’ve supported you through your injuries?
Adidas has been super great to me, with anything I need. They’re always there for me and right now we have the #hometeam going on, where we got together all our Adidas athletes, and we’re just trying to show our fans and our community our activity while staying inside. We want to show them we’re still working out. And we’re just trying to get that positive energy to everybody who has to stay in the house right now. We’re trying to give the love back to our fans and show them that we’re here, and we’re going to support them in any cause, in any way.
What have you been doing while you’ve been quarantined?
I’ve been working out, keeping with the same routine I’ve had for the last three months. I made a hashtag video for Adidas where I showed them my boxing workouts I do. I’ve been really harping on these boxing workouts I’ve been doing lately.
#stayhome... working out is always a option for me! Stay moving and stay safe y’all !! @adidas @atlantadream @DrewdotCash #hometeam #makeembelieve pic.twitter.com/6WozazcDNY
— Alexis Jones (@real_alexisj) March 25, 2020
I saw that. They’re gnarly. They’re really good workouts, too. I feel like people don’t realize that.
Yeah, I be going hard with the boxing workouts. Man, you can go in there for 30 minutes and be dead tired and feel like you’ve been working out for two hours. It’s crazy. And I feel like it’s the combo of cardio, and because you’re hitting, it feels almost like an upper body workout, too. And it’s mental, too. If you’re going for 30 minutes, you can’t just pause. You have to mentally train your body and train your mind to keep doing something that you don’t want to do for a long period of time, and it helps you with your breathing, your stamina and just finishing through anything. You can’t just quit during that moment when it’s hard. You just keep finishing and keep attacking.
I love that. That’s awesome. Do you do a lot of cross training?
Only boxing right now, but I wouldn’t put it past me. The further I get in my career, I’m going to start doing other stuff. I do a little swimming, too. That’s so hard. I don’t know how swimmers do it. I had to learn, and at first I was like, we can just regularly swim, but somebody taught me how to swim swim, and I was like, yeah, I can’t breathe like that. I’m hyperventilating, feeling like I’m about to drown. But if I can get that part down, I think that’s something I might try to really get into.
How have you mentally been handling some of the collective stress of this moment combined with your own training and rehab?
It sucks that this is all happening, what we’re all going through… I’m trying to have a professional mindset. I found a lot of people that support me, and I’m super proud of how I’ve been handling rehab these last three months. I want to be a professional. And I think me being back home, and starting to build my foundation and find people who I want to be around me, will all help my game grow.
I want to get out there and let people know that I am out here and trying to work. I’m not trying to show-off or nothing like that. But I really do love the game, and this injury has been super impactful to me. But I’m feeling good. I like my process.
You’ve had to recover from multiple serious injuries in your career. How have you been able to overcome those and still compete at a high level?
Man, it’s crazy because I’m still overcoming them. When I went down in college, I was already physically hurt from my other right knee. Nobody knew, but I was trying to play through it as much as possible, and it just didn’t work out for me. My ACL has thankfully been fine ever since it’s been fixed. It’s just my right knee has been a little bit rocky ever since I tried to come back.
I think I rehab hard. And in every rehab, I try to take the baby steps, even if that means taking the year off to get everything right. And since coming into the league, I’ve learned a lot more about my body. I know how to train my body now. I know how it works. I know all the flexibilities I need to keep my joints and stuff moving and things like that. Those are things that I didn’t really grasp when I was in college. But I’m glad I’m 25 and I found out now before it was too late, because I know if I can just maintain my body and do the things that I do, I can last so much longer in this league.
Before signing Dream, you were waived by LA at the end of last season. How was that? That’s got to be emotional.
No.
No?
No. I got waived, and it is hard to get waived, because that was my one thing, to never get waived, and I got waived. But I had an opportunity to go to Atlanta. They believed in me, even coming back from this injury. And for them to trust me to be ready and be prepared to come and play — at this point, I’m just happy for the opportunity and praying for the best.
Regardless of when it’s played, what are your goals for next season?
I think my goal for the season is just to go in there, play hard, and to just try to have a good season and to try to just build the team and try to be a real team player in the midst of all that. And just try to get the feel of the game and keep learning in that area until I reach the level where I need to be.
