Staying in shape while staying at home
Get a routine, find a virtual buddy and be creative, fitness gurus urge
Now that you’ve perfected your sourdough, Marie Kondo-ed your underwear drawer and sewn some protective masks, it’s time to get your body moving again. As satisfying as a full pantry and a clean house are, physical exercise is good for our bodies and our anxious state of mind.
The fact that life will get back to some kind of normal is reason to restart or even begin an exercise regimen, say fitness experts. You could fit it in while you’re watching Tiger King or The Crown reruns.
The No. 1 excuse of people who don’t exercise is lack of time, says fitness expert Dr. Loren Chiu, associate professor of sport and recreation at the University of Alberta.
“We have that time now. Why don’t we take advantage of (it)?”
With many Calgarians cooped up, away from or out of work, every day starts to feel like a weekend, where our normally good eating and exercise habits may slide. And pandemic pounds start to creep up.
“We know physical inactivity is a big problem in the short term; it has negative effects on the immune system. Over the longer term, it affects muscle and bone loss,” Chiu says.
Here’s what three fitness experts recommend for finding the time, space and motivation for exercise.
KRISTIAN LEACH
Calgary-based personal trainer and nutrition adviser
“My main message is it’s important to try as best you can to establish some semblance of a routine, more for mental health than from a physical standpoint,” Leach says.
“I would encourage people to not beat themselves up about indulging. This is an unprecedented time. If you had anxiety before, now our anxiety is being felt as trauma; it’s magnified. But try to come up with a startup date to re-establish your routine.”
Some of Leach’s clients have kept up with weekly exercise sessions from the beginning of the social-distancing orders. Zoom, the remote conferencing tool, has become the go-to platform for Leach and many other trainers conducting workout sessions remotely, sometimes with two or more clients at a time.
“I have been pleasantly surprised that it’s worked so well,” says Leach, who offers free online training and nutritional counselling at Krisfit Exercise and Nutrition Support Group on Facebook.
You don’t need a lot of space to get a workout in, Leach says. Most of his clients use their basement or living room. Here are a couple of ways to use common items as exercise equipment:
■ You can use items like soup cans, milk jugs and books for bicep curls or working out your triceps. And if you have some dumbbells lying around, put them in the mix of your routine. If all you’ve got are five or 10 pounds and you’re used to lifting heavier weight, do more repetitions, increasing from your normal 10-12 to 20-25.
■ Furniture, such as an ottoman, can be used to do tricep dips, or a couch can double as a bench for one-legged squats or a knee rest for doing one-armed rows.
■ If you have a resistance band,
strap it to a door handle and do shoulder presses.
■ Pull that dusty stability ball out
of the closet. If you don’t have one, they cost about $20. It can take the place of a bench.
■ Get your kids involved. Leach has
incorporated daily yoga sessions with his three- and six-year-olds.
■ Can’t get motivated? Find a partner. Keep each other accountable, creating a weekly schedule that is non-negotiable.
DR. LOREN CHIU
Associate professor of sport and recreation at University of Alberta
After seeing crowds of people running the stairs in Edmonton’s river valley, Chiu was motivated to start an exercise blog in early April, called Exercising in Isolation. He gives guidance on how to exercise several times a week at home, without injury and while practising social distancing.
Chiu is concerned that if the pandemic shutdowns continue for three to five months, people are going to suffer the consequences, especially those not accustomed to doing physical labour for work.
“They are more likely to get injured, so there’s a cost to society that is not just financial. All of these people are not going to be able to do their jobs.”
He is helping people do resistance workouts focusing on the hips, spine, and abs for both beginners and more advanced exercisers. As does Leach, he recommends using a medicine ball to supplement body-weight exercises. Some of Chiu’s tips are:
■ Try a new activity or exercise regimen every day to stave off the boredom.
■ Break down your activity into 20- or 30-minute increments, twice a day.
■ Make it a scheduled family activity. Kids need to work their muscles just as much as adults do.
■ It’s easy to modify exercises like squats, making them harder by slowing them down and holding them longer.
■ Upper body workouts such as pushups can also be modified to target different muscle groups. A wide stance targets the shoulders, for example, while moving your hands in closer works out the triceps.
■ Look at your workout as a goal for the day. “It’s not just exercise that gets me out of bed each day, it’s that I want to accomplish something.”
KIM LAVENDER
Goodlife Fitness, vice-president, Group Fitness
“It’s crazy. I think our industry has been thrown into this digital tsunami,” says Lavender.
“Our goal as a company is to give back to Canada right now, whether you’re a member or non-member.”
Goodlife launched a free, onestop virtual workout studio called #Goodlifeat Home, open to both members and non-members.
For members, there is also a portal with Les Mills On Demand classes and a separate link for athome workouts.
Lavender says the workouts are meant to motivate, using body weight rather than equipment. They include mobility, balance and cardiovascular work that gets the heart rate up.
Take a deep breath: Lavender is leading twice-a-week meditation called Breathecanada, which is open to everyone.
You can follow the Goodlifefitness Instagram page and take part in the meditations at 8:30 a.m. on Mondays and 1 p.m. on Fridays.
“That’s the other beautiful piece in this,” Lavender says.
“You can try new things that you wouldn’t have otherwise tried, from the comfort of your home.”
We know physical inactivity is a big problem in the short term; it has negative effects on the immune system. Over the longer term, it affects muscle and bone loss. — Dr. Loren Chiu