Working out at home: keep it functional and fun
• Foundational movement patterns you can use in your fitness routine
The Covid-19 pandemic has turned our world upside down. The economy is working out remotely, but are you? Some people have transitioned into exercising at home with ease while others have either quit or spun themselves into a flat panic, with their fitness routines downgraded to junk status.
Near-panic buying has seen large numbers of people buy dumbbells, exercise machines, mats, bands and all sorts or equipment. It’s going to be a price-war paradise on OLX in a few months when all those — almost unused — products hit the virtual shelves.
It’s not just exercise that falls into the category of people spending ridiculous amounts of money on things that are far more accessible than they realise.
Used car salesmen and their spare-part cousins don’t quite have a shiny reputation, but when trying to understand how we can stay fit during a lockdown, looking at how their world works provides some useful insight.
The owner of a well-known aftermarket motor spares franchise shop — the type that sells oil, spark plugs, light bulbs and even aftermarket bonnets — once told me that when someone makes a request for a part, “they put it out to tender”.
Not the type of tender we read about in Business Day — they send a note out to all their suppliers and man-in-a-van associates, asking for a “bonnet for a 2002 Nissan Almera”, for instance. They get a bunch of quotes, settle on the cheapest most of the time, add a markup and call you back.
Most of the middle men end up getting quotes from a handful of suppliers who bring the goods into the country. Let’s call this having access to “the source”. If you, as the consumer, are confident enough to call the source on your own and stand your ground as if you know what you are talking about, you can get your spare part at cost.
Doing this, the Almera bonnet cost me just under a grand, while the original quote was R4,200. It demonstrates the power of knowledge. Of course, once I had the bonnet, I had no idea how to spray it and “stick it on”, and so I needed to pay an expert to do that for me.
COST-PRICE EXERCISE
The goal with exercise should be to become accustomed with “the source ”— in other words, learn the fundamentals first. Once you have the cost-price of exercise, you’ll still eventually need a qualified trainer to extract the most value.
When something like the Covid-19 lockdown happens, the average person is lost. Perhaps they scour YouTube or Instagram looking for inspiration, or maybe they buy e-books online. They have a lot of choice — unlike their grandparents or parents who only had one Jane Fonda VHS tape.
Too much choice causes anxiety, and we end up getting nowhere. Do you squat with your legs wide apart or shoulder-width apart? Does one drop one’s derrière below parallel or stop at parallel? Is a jump squat better than a pulse squat? What in the name of used car grease is a pulse squat? Can skipping burn a trillion calories? Which is better: dancing, jumping, jumping jacks or burpees?
Scrolling through the “Ultimate 101 Best Bodyweight Exercises” is no different to standing in a spares shop looking for valve stem seals in the battery aisle.
Dr John Rusin, a US-based sports performance specialist who has coached elite athletes, including Olympic gold medallists, wrote in weight training resource, T-Nation: “As a human, your body moves in much the same way as other humans. In fact, there are six basic movement patterns. Naturally, if you want to be a strong, athletic, healthy human, you train all of these foundational patterns.”
These foundational movement patterns, with some exceptions or additions, are: push, pull, squat, lunge, hinge and carry. This is the foundation of “functional training” programming.
When you put together a training session at home during the Covid-19 lockdown, by following the guidelines of, “for every push, do a pull, for every squat do a hinge”, you are able to have a structure in place, knowing that you are working towards a functional goal and not just aimlessly doing exercise for the sake of exercise.
“Making sure you have movement patterns covered in your training is a lot easier than worrying about individual muscles,” says Johannesburgbased personal trainer Ilana Bellotto, who has spoken to Business Day before about getting the most out of energy systems training.
“A pull will work your lats, traps, biceps and even your grip, while a push will target your deltoids, pecs and triceps. In terms of efficiency, especially when training at home, it makes a lot of sense to train this way.
“Add in work for your core and things such as skipping to get the pulse up, and you suddenly have a far more structured session.”
WHAT DO THESE EXERCISES LOOK LIKE?
Push: Push-up (and its variations), overhead press (and its variations).
Pull: Row (and its variations) and pull-up (believe it or not, there are variations)
Squat and Lunge: these movements have many progressions and variations
Hinge: Romanian dead lift (and its variations)
Carry: Farmer’s walk
Core and cardio: mountain climbers, plank, skipping, dancing, bear crawls, jumping jacks
Much like the spare-parts analogy, knowledge is power. “exercise Log onto exrx.net,”go libraries , and to at your disposal are descriptions of almost every exercise you can imagine, which muscles are activated, and a Gif showing correct form. Exrx.net is a resource for exercise professionals, coaches and enthusiasts.
Use this resource to empower yourself, and read it alongside watching YouTube videos by real trainers — it’s easy to research someone’s credentials. YouTube is great to get descriptions of more exotic exercises such as Hindu pushups.
Using these resources won’t replace a skilled trainer, but they will go a long way towards helping average folk learn proper form. Whenever reading about and attempting a new exercise, make sure you understand how to perform it, and listen to your body — if it hurts, stop.
Here are some exercises that encompass the various movement patterns for beginners, intermediate and advanced trainers.
PUSH
Beginner: Push-ups with knees on the ground
Intermediate: Traditional push-ups and plyometric clap push-ups
Advanced: Pike push-ups, Hindu push-ups and one-arm push-ups
PULL
Beginner: Bent-over rows using milk bottles as weights, table pull-ups (inverted rows) under a sturdy table
Intermediate: Pull-ups and bent-over rows with weights
Advanced: Weighted pullups, muscle-ups
SQUAT
Beginner: Body weight squats down onto a chair and back up, body weight squats.
Intermediate: Goblet squats, jump squats.
Advanced: Pistol squats, weighted single-leg box squats.
LUNGE
Beginner: Reverse lunges (while holding onto a firm object such as a table).
Intermediate: Walking lunges, weighted lunges. Advanced: Weighted split squats, weighted step ups.
HINGE
Beginner: Body weight Romanian dead lift.
Intermediate: Weighted Romanian dead lift.
Advanced: Contralateral single-leg (weighted) Romanian dead lift.
CARRY
A farmer’s walk is basically what we all do when we go shopping. The progressions here involve increasing the weight, distance walked and time, and then working towards unilateral carries — meaning one side at a time.
CORE
Beginner: Traditional plank, mountain climbers.
Intermediate: Single-leg plank and ab scissors.
Advanced: Pike with a suspension trainer or gliding disks (or coasters, if you’re creative).
CARDIO
This is where the fun begins, or ends, depending on your perspective. You can skip, do jumping jacks, run on the spot, do high-knees or dance. Have fun with this. An effective technique to turn up the intensity is doing a timed set of skipping or dancing between your sets of body weight exercises.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Doing something like burpees with a push-up at the bottom incorporates push, squat, core and cardio. Exercise doesn’t have to be boring. Burpees becoming easy? Do single-leg burpees and suddenly you see why the hinge workouts were so important!
WHAT ARE OTHER PEOPLE DOING?
Masasa Mbangeni, the actress who has graced the cover of True Love, oozes talent. She, like the rest of us, is under lockdown. She told Business Day on day 3 of the lockdown: “It is tough.”
For her training, she has a plan. “I am doing yoga off the Nike app, and then I am doing [video conferencing] Zoom gym sessions with my trainer.”
Susan Plant, from north Wales, was a runner who switched to strength training eight years ago. Her twitter handle called @gym_manic provides daily updates of weighted chin-ups and deadlifts, among much more, for her 6000 followers. What has she done during the lockdown in the UK?
“My top tip is keeping a good attitude. You may be limited but there’s plenty of YouTube channels, and items you can use at home to improvise. Make a plan beforehand, so you have a definite goal or routine.
“If you are used to heavy sets, accept that you don’t have those means now and adjust for lighter weight and more reps. Resistance bands are life savers. Skipping ropes are great for cardio. Keep a routine going and don’let your mind veer off on negative paths. Be grateful every day that you can still exercise.
“PJ [pyjama] workouts are perfectly acceptable!”