Your gym is closed. You don’t have any exercise equipment at home. So how do you maintain your fitness during the protracted coronavirus lockdown?
Start by heeding the advice of a cynical Chicago politician who told us to “never let a crisis go to waste.” In fitness terms, that means using the current shutdown, now extended until at least April 30, to try new exercises that will shake up your monotonous workouts and raise your fitness level when you return to the gym.
“There are so many people who are stuck because all they know to do are the circuit pieces of equipment at the gym,” said Dr. Greg Rose, who co-founded Titleist Performance Institute, which has 23,000 certified trainers in 64 countries. “Most athletes don’t do that anyway. They use more free weights, body motion, body control, cable stuff, and rubber bands.”
Like many people, I spent recent weeks surfing body-weight routines on YouTube to get some exercise until my gym reopens. I quickly realized two things: It’s harder than it looks, and it should be a cornerstone of my exercise regimen.
“Typically, in a gym setting, you should be doing things you’re not good at, and a majority of the time, that’s body-weight workouts,” said Carson Kemp, owner of FSI Scottsdale in Scottsdale, Arizona. (FSI stands for flexibility, stability, and intensity.)
This is something that top trainers have been preaching to their clients, from professional athletes to weekend warriors, for years. Alex Bennett, who spends much of his time training professional golfers at the PGA Tour’s Performance Center in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, estimated that 30% of his sessions involve body-weight routines “because it’s the only way to teach proper body control — to use your own weight as the weight.”
Kemp sets aggressive goals. When he meets new clients, he tells them that they should be able to squat comfortably for six to eight minutes, though he knows that’s a big ask for people who sit much of the day and have limited hip strength and flexibility.
He emphasizes a variety of “foundational movements,” such as pushups, lunges, and bear crawls.
“We should be able to move our body weight for very high reps — do 100 squats, do 100 lunges, do 100 pushups,” Kemp said. “That should be a regular part of our training because higher-volume training is great for your joints and balancing out your body.”
Josh Lyon, director of fitness for 24 Hour Fitness, echoed Kemp’s recommendation and suggested ways to jazz up the routines at home.
“Don’t discount common items around your house like a chair for doing dips and pushups at an incline or decline,” Lyon said. “You can also use items like water bottles, cans of soup, and bags of potatoes as weights to add resistance to your exercises. The key is to get creative and mix things up to stay motivated.”
Bennett said he was telling clients to use the current shutdown to increase their mobility. Even while watching TV, he said, you can do a pigeon pose or other low-intensity yoga movements to enhance flexibility.
“The biggest thing I preach to everyone, whether it’s a 70-year-old guy or a kid, is to get good doing a lot of different things,” Bennett said. “Don’t just be really strong with your legs or have a big upper body and look good at the beach. It’s more about functionality than looks.”
The coronavirus lockdown isn’t just changing workout routines; it’s also affecting the way trainers do business. Today’s innovations are creating tomorrow’s business opportunities. Kemp, for example, has been providing online programming for his clients via Facebook, while 24 Hour Fitness has been beefing up the workout content on its 24GO app and has recently made that content available for free on YouTube.
“This is a great time to push yourself outside your comfort zone,” Lyon said. “If you gravitate toward high-intensity workouts, try a meditation or yoga class. It can help you stay grounded and relieve stress. Or, if you’ve never participated in a HIIT (high-intensity interval training) workout, it’s a stimulating change of pace, but take it slow to avoid injury.”
At TPI, aspiring trainers used to be required to attend a two-day seminar to become certified, but on March 25, the company introduced virtual seminars. Within minutes of that announcement, Rose said TPI received registrations from trainers in two countries, Iran and Hungary, where it previously had no presence.
“This could change the way we do business going forward,” Rose said.
Martin Kaufmann has covered sports for more than two decades, including 16 years as senior editor at Golfweek.
