In Photos: A Training Day for Emily Sonnett

The U.S. WNT January Camp consists of just over two weeks of physical testing, trainings, meetings, weights and much more. To give you an inside look of what a typical day of January Camp looks like, we enlisted defender Emily Sonnett for a first-person account. Here’s what went down…

Hey everybody, Emily here. What's a typical day in January Camp like? In a word: Training. Lots of intense and competitive training, but we are still always having fun. Today, the day started with a trip to the gym. It's not a long ride from the hotel to the gym, but the car rides are always entertaining. There’s always lots of stories, good music and awesome teammates.

Here we go. We don't often lift heavy weight, but we do get a lot of reps in.  We've also did a lot testing at the beginning of camp to measure our range of motion, agility, flexibility, etc. We really appreciate having that kind of feedback because of course want to do everything that can help us win, always.

Every defender needs some arm and core strength, right? Those forwards are always trying to push you around!

We normally get paired up during gym sessions. Today, my partner was Lynn Williams. Having a partner helps because we hold each other accountable. And you really want to do well for our high performance coach Dawn Scott. She puts some much effort into this part of our game that you want to make sure you are getting better!

What’s up with Ashlyn? She pranked me at the hotel and it’s time for some payback. But when you are good at pranks, you are good at pranks. It’s just the usual January Camp shenanigans!

This is one way we get through January Camp: coffee. Not just me and Jane (Campbell), but almost the entire team. We love coffee. I'd say it's rare if we don't have coffee at least twice a day. Jane is an iced coffee kinda gal, I went with a Matcha latte this time. Green is good, hashtag health.

You have to expend a lot of mental and physical energy during January Camp so in between sessions we not only stretch and get treatment to get the muscles and our bodies ready for the next training, but sometimes we take a little break and entertain ourselves with an intense game of finger soccer. Workout the brain and strategize, you know? It’s seems like it’s always competition for us.

Aaaaaand we're back at it. Afternoon sessions sometimes feature 11v11 games. It’s always fun to play full-field with and against some of the best players in the world. You can’t help but test yourself and get better.

"Who should I pass to? Hmmm…Maybe I’ll just dribble the length of the field and score." - My thoughts during training...not.

After two hours on the field, it's a wrap people! Time for ice baths, massages, treatment, FOOD and sleep. Hope you enjoyed this Day in the Life. Tomorrow, it will be time to do it all over again. See ya soon! -Emily