THE PULL-UP BAR
The problem with going to the gym every day — besides the agony of actually having to work out — is that routine is everything.
Whenever I leave town on business or travel for more than a couple of days, I invariably lose the all- important rhythm I have established over the course of many weeks and months, and once I’ve lost it, it takes an unbelievable amount of time and dedication to get it back. I don’t know quite know the reason, but while I have the resolve to do a onehour Crossfit class every day at the gym where I’m a member, it’s insurmountably difficult for me to do any kind of serious exercise on my own. More than solitude, seclusion or stir- craziness, that has been the most difficult thing about life under quarantine: I miss the gym.
Like most people, I’ve tried to adjust. A number of my coaches have been offering at- home personal training sessions over Zoom or Skype. One has even been recording workout routines and sharing them for free on Instagram every day. The rise of what some fitness accounts are calling “home WODS” — home workout- of- the- day — has made it possible to endure self- isolation without abandoning daily exercise entirely.
I did 1,000 situps on a Saturday afternoon, which I don’t recommend, and over the course of the past three weeks I’ve lost count of how many pushups, planks, burpees, handstands, lunges and squats I’ve forced myself to half-heartedly bang out. The other day I even went for a run, which I enjoy about as much as doing my taxes. If this keeps up another three months what’s going to become of me?
I miss dumbbells and barbells, doing heavy cleans and deadlifts. (I tried it with an old duffel bag filled with books and laundry; it wasn’t the same.) But most of all, I miss pullups. And while they’re more technical than pushups and squats, they only require one simple thing: a simple pull-up bar, which can be installed in virtually any hallway or fit into almost any door.
In the absence of the space necessary for a complete home gym — and at a time when the cash for a Boxflex or a Peloton is not exactly kicking around waiting to be spent — it’s amazing how much you can get out of that one modest piece of equipment. Adding a few pullups to the mix of a home workout routine immediately transforms the experience from the meagre flailing of a body in solitary confinement into something that resembles proper exercise, and for me, it’s the difference between trying to keep my body moving once in a while and actually remaining in decent shape.
That steel bar in the doorframe is a game-changer, one that could radically invigorate the home workout and, by giving you back a little bit of that familiar gym rhythm in self- isolation, possibly keep you sane.