Navigating through and trying to attain the perfect balance between our professional and personal lives amid a pandemic has turned out to be more challenging than we could ever imagine. It takes a toll on us while trying to be productive.
The lockdown imposed due to Covid-19 that has now spanned several months has forced us all to discuss and find innovative, new ways to stay fit by exercising and working out at home.
It’s important to find the motivation to want to remain fit – only then can we implement the same while being at home. Essentially, there is no substitute to care for your physical, mental, and emotional self.
The best part? You do not need a fully-functional gymnasium in or around where you live to ensure that you are at the peak of your physical well-being. There are several benefits of working out from the comfort of your home, such as:
1. Being able to fully utilize your bodyweight alone
2. Using household items like backpacks, buckets, oil cans, etc.
3. Having your own space and privacy to do yoga and meditate
Read on to find out the four most practical and lockdown-friendly strategies to help you stay fit during the quarantine.
1. Take advantage of technology using Fitness Apps
Several personal trainers and private gyms are using this time to offer virtual sessions so that everyone at home may access them. This has proven to be beneficial not only for the trainers in a way that they can reach out to a much larger audience but also to those who did not have physical centers around them that they could travel to.
Additionally, YouTube acts as a great resource – it offers various channels for free workouts. All sorts of exercises in the form of routines of various durations and intensities can be found on YouTube.
There are also quite a few applications available to download – free as well as paid versions.
- Nike Training Club
- CorePower Yoga
- Rumble
- Daily Burn
- Barre3
2. Schedule for success
It is not practical to tell yourself that you will exercise thrice a week after quarantine and find time among the million other things that pile up then.
Do away with the bad habit of procrastination at an early stage itself.
Mark your calendars like you would for an important event or meeting! You can even set reminders on your phone if you decide to be dead serious about your daily regimen.
According to experts, this practice does away with the habit of coming up with excuses and ensures that you have allotted time for daily exercise. It also prevents you from wasting your energy on trying to decide when, how, and where exactly you are going to exercise. You just need to stick to your schedule.
Another thing that you can do is allow your body to decide your workout routine. Take some time to figure out at what times of the day your body’s energy levels feel at peak.
You may even use your social networks to announce your workout plans if that helps you with sticking to your goals. Not only does it do that, but it can also act as encouragement and motivation to all those who see it.
3. Find innovative ways, and embrace good enough
It is better to have a daily workout routine that is imperfect than working out in the “perfect manner” only once – or never at all. Even a short, brisk walk that is taken regularly proves to be better than nothing.
Another important thing is to be able to plan and cope with potential failure.
For example, on a more hectic day than usual, you may allow yourself to walk for 20 minutes rather than going on your usual 4-kilometer run. The point is to not find excuses to skip a day – which creates irreversible inertia which is damn near impossible to break out of.
You can find several creative ways to change up the monotony of your everyday routine. This can help prioritize fitness as other tasks begin to demand your attention.
Often, multitasking gets frowned upon. But it can be employed in such a way to incorporate some physical movement into your daily tasks.
For instance, for those of you who like to read, you can look up an audio version of your preferred book that can help motivate you while you exercise.
If possible, at the workplace, you may even have your colleagues discuss the important events for the day while walking around rather than sitting inside a conference room.
If you think that you are not able to provide your family as much time as you would earlier, think of innovative ideas to do the same.
You can expand your areas of exercise and make it inclusive for your significant other and children – so that they can join in on the movement as well.
There are some dance videogames available on Wii and Xbox that help you increase your heart rate and also sweat out some toxins. There also simulations of games such as Tennis, Bowling, and activities like skateboarding that perform the same function.
Additionally, make sure to do your chores on time – scrubbing, sweeping, dusting, and vacuuming the house are all sorts of activities that engage your body’s muscles – the core, your arms, and legs.
You may even exercise during the advertisement breaks on the Television – which most of us are watching a little bit more than usual these days. We can walk around, swing our arms about, do a couple of squats or jumping jacks – anything, really. Just keep moving!
Also, if you are on a call, you may want to step away from the cozy comfort of your work-from-home office and instead, take a few laps of your house while you’re at it.
These are the perfect stay-at-home alternatives for when you can’t really step out of the house.
4. Reward yourself
The times that we are experiencing now are trying times, and being harsh on ourselves if we are not able to meet our desired goal will only lead to a detrimental impact on our mental health in the future.
It may be difficult for us to step out, and go around taking part in our most favorite forms of exercise. While we make do from within our homes, we can also use our personal space to our benefit and frequently reward ourselves for the efforts that we put in.
Having a certain “treat” to look forward to after your daily routine greatly improves your mindset regarding the entire exercise. It can motivate you to stick to your schedule on the daily!
These treats may include a fun bubble bath, an extra episode of your favorite sitcom, or an extra helping of the frozen yogurt that you love. It can be anything! As long as it motivates you to push yourself and do better each time.
Mary Jones is the co-founder & editor-in-chief at TopMyGrades, which focuses on Content Marketing Strategy for clients from the Education industry in the US, Canada & UK. Mary has conducted a series of webinars on Essay Writing AssignmentEssayHelp on assignment help. She has extensive content editing experience and has worked with MSNBC, NewsCred & Scripted. She has also authored blogs on Lifehack.org, Wn.com, Medium.com, Minds.com, and many more digital publications.
