Some little tips on how to keep fit at home - Covid-19 Edition

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Hey guys, I want to start off by saying my heart goes out to anyone who has been affected personally by this illness and the detrimental effects it is having on us. We have got to stick together and get through this, we are strong, and we will come out on top, better than before. We must try and find the positives in this situation. Maybe we were all due a worldwide reset, we are to go-go-go the whole time. Let’s use this time to rest, reset and be present for those that matter to us.

With this being said, I can appreciate if you are having to work from home and social distance, this can be pretty f*cking boring and de-motivating. So I really want to do my part and help you in terms of staying on track health and fitness wise. I want to provide you with some exercise ideas you can do in your own home, and some nutritional guidance to follow for when you are forced to stay quite sedentary. I want to get straight into it, providing you with some lower body, upper body and abdominal exercises you can do at home with little to no equipment;

Grab a sofa

  • hip thrusts

  • split squats

  • single leg elevated glute bridge

  • tricep dips

  • elevated push ups

Grab something heavy e.g. water bottle, dog

  • sumo squats

  • lunge pulses

  • curtsy lunge

  • jump squats

  • walking lunges

  • shoulder press

  • bicep curls

  • renegade rows

  • front raises

Grab a trusty booty band

  • crab walks

  • standing abduction

  • laying abduction

  • Step outs

  • step backs

  • Glute bridge variations

Some socks on a hard wood floor

  • plank scissors

  • plank scissors alternating legs

  • pike

  • plank knee tuck

  • hamstring extensions

  • gliding mountain climbers

Body weight cardio

  • jumping jacks

  • burpees

  • speed burpees

  • jumping lunges

  • high knees

  • plank jacks

  • sprints

  • skaters

These are just a few you can do at home, there are so many options. Sadly we may not be chasing those muscle gains as quickly as if we were in the gym, but strengthening through bodyweight is so important and a lot of people forget this is actually essential before any kind of weight lifting is beneficial. Let’s use this time to reset, and strengthen our bodies, be able to easily complete bodyweight exercises, making it that much easier for ourselves when we do get back into the gym!

I am in the process of creating some home workouts, so watch this space if you would like one specifically tailored to you.

Now I just want to touch on nutrition. This is the most important thing to stay on top of when it comes to being at home. We are spending a lot of time sitting down and being incredibly sedentary, even more so than usual, therefore nutrition is key. The benefit of being at home is that you are in control of all your own food, you can cook all your own meals. My best piece of advice here would be to track your food. Figure out an estimate of your macros on a sedentary lifestyle and alter them to your goal e.g. maintain, lose weight, gain weight. Once you have this figure, you can then track accordingly making sure you know what you are consuming. The most risky thing here is that we will all tend to overeat, as being at home so close to constant fridge access is a big trigger. I seriously struggle. I would also advise altering your meals. For someone like me, if I am close to food all the time I will always want to graze. So instead of eating three big meals, I have lots of little meals throughout the day, it helps me stay satiated and not snack on the un-filling things like copious amounts of crisps and chocolate.

It is so important at this time to eat nutritious food as well - many of us now have a luxury to be able to cook our own meals, add in some dark leafy greens, some broccoli, beans, kale, spinach, and some colourful veggies like pumpkin, bell pepper, tomatoes etc. The more nutrients the better, they are also very low in calories, so we can fill our plates up for not many calories and stay fuller for a lot longer.

If there is one thing you take away from this post, let it be tracking your food, get into the habit now so that when April hits and when this whole chaos passes, you will have created the habit ready for those summer bodies, and you will be more likely to stick to it. There is no better time than now to start tracking, and trust me, you are unlikely to lose weight if you don’t track, as we all tend to underestimate how many calories we are consuming. Tracking is the key to your dream body.

I hope you found this post useful, I will be dropping more tips and tricks over the next few weeks. But most importantly, let us all stay strong, and fight this thing together! The world has been through much worse and we have come back stronger, I don’t doubt the same thing will happen here. <3