Coronavirus quarantine making you fat? It doesn’t have to. Try these exercises at home
Gosh, we’re going to get so fat with all this social distancing and staying quarantined at home. COVID-19, you’ve gone and closed all our gyms and fitness centers. We can’t even take a walk in the park or on the beach since government leaders ordered them closed to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.
The irony is that exercising is recommended to keep healthy, especially at this time of high stress and anxiety.
Exercise, and proper nutrition, won’t prevent you from catching the coronavirus if you touch your face after being exposed to an infected person’s droplets. But exercise’s ability to boost overall health and our immune systems — in combination with a smart eating plan — is well documented.
The good news is there is no reason to forego exercising — even alone inside your own walls. Apparently, many of you already know this. “Dumbbells seemed to become the new toilet paper, and retail stores and Amazon have started selling out of the equipment,” the Atlantic reported Wednesday.
Here are some workout suggestions to help you put your new dumbbells to good use:
“There are tons of things you can do from your chair or sofa — squats, tricep dips, crunches, body work exercises and so on,” personal trainer Keris Hopkins told the BBC.
“If you have kids at home, you can get them involved. Make activities fun, like running around or playing hide and seek. Just keep moving,” she said.
Exercises that work more than one muscle group at a time — like squats, lunges, push-ups, planks and dips — can give you a quick workout without equipment, said WebMD.
Try to do these exercises three or four days a week, 15 to 20 minutes per session, fitness consultant Michael Stefano told WebMD.
As always, aim for 30 minutes daily of some form of exercise.
Alternate upper and lower body workouts, experts suggest. Stomach, or abs, exercises can be done daily because these muscles don’t need as long a recovery time, says fitness guru Jane Fonda on her “5 Minute Abs” workout, which you can watch on YouTube.
Make YouTube your new gym
There are thousands of exercise videos available online on YouTube. Since so many of us have smart TVs these days, one great way to build a library is to save a number of workouts into playlists you can easily stream onto the sets around your house.
Make sure to gather workout clips that cover the whole body: upper body workouts, lower body, abs, butt, cardio, strength, yoga, balance, flexibility and stretching.
Fonda is the gold standard ever since she launched the home video revolution in 1982 with sales of her old “Workout” tapes. Most of these are on YouTube — and some, like the 1987 “Low Impact Workout,” have been reissued digitally for sale on services like Amazon. You can stream and download these to your smart phones or TVs.
But we have learned a lot about exercise physiology in 35 years. The high impact pounding we did to our joints back in the 1980s from challenging aerobics tapes and classes led to a lot of hip and/or knee replacements in the 2000s — including Fonda’s.
So the workout queen filmed a new series of contemporary workout videos about 10 years ago that incorporate modern thinking in physiology.
For example, there are less strenuous, but still challenging, cardio classes. One of our favorites, “Walking Cardio,” gives you the equivalent of a mile walk that you can do in a small space that works the entire body. Fonda’s 26-minute “Walking Cardio Level 1” and the slightly more advanced “Level 2,” have nearly 4 million combined views on YouTube.
Fonda, who proves 82 is the new 42, also has morning and evening yoga flexibility and mobility workouts, as well as upper and lower body stretches for those who sit at desks all day and need to limber up their shoulders, arms and legs. She also has dance workouts set to Latin, funk and doo-wop music and moves.
All of these can be streamed off YouTube or purchased online.
Silver Sneakers
SilverSneakers, the national community fitness program designed for seniors, has added digital resources to support its members as the spread of COVID-19 keeps people home and quarantined, the company announced Thursday.
Silver Sneakers’ virtual workout series on Facebook Live offers an OnDemand video library of about 200 workouts of varying formats and intensity levels for beginners and experienced fitness buffs. These include digital classes on circuit training, fall prevention, stress management, nutrition, beginner and intermediate strength and mind and body programs. Also, Tai chi and Latin dance.
The Silver Sneakers OnDemand launch Thursday drew 68,000 Facebook friends.
“We will continue to add new content to our digital library to provide additional resources and options as the COVID-19 situation develops,” Silver Sneakers said in a news release.
There is also a mobile Silver Sneakers GO app where national trainers and FLEX instructors host virtual exercise classes for members.
For more information, to check eligibility or to enroll in the program or to sign up for a SilverSneakers newsletter, go to silversneakers.com.
Check your gym’s app
Chances are you already downloaded your gym’s app but seldom use most of its features, aside from booking a class.
Now, you have a reason.
24 Hour Fitness’ 24 Go, for instance, is available for Apple and Google Play users and has countless workouts designed by the trainers you may already work out with locally.
Other gyms that also have locations in South Florida, like Club Pilates, RZone Fitness and Equinox, similarly have “on demand” apps or Facebook posts you can use to mimic the gym atmosphere from inside your living room.
Once the quarantine lifts you can use the app to check in to your local gym. The digital workouts serve as a complement to what you will do in the fitness center — whenever we’re allowed back.
WebMD sample workout
If you are able, this is a good one fitness trainer Ray Khan suggests on WebMD that you can do right now at home.
▪ Warm up. “Put on some music that makes you feel like moving, and dance around the living room.”
▪ Walk up and down the steps. (Or around your room if you don’t have stairs.)
▪ Do dumbbell curls and presses. If you don’t have weights, use water bottles or cans of food.
▪ Do assisted squats, keeping your back on a fitness ball against the wall, or using the back of the couch for support. (You can also build killer thigh muscles by standing against a wall and squatting down — as if sitting — keeping your knees above your toes. You can do this anywhere you have a wall or a solid, flat surface in the house.)
▪ Shadow box.
And finally, get up and stand for at least one minute every hour that you’re awake to counter the ills of sitting too much.
This story was originally published March 21, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
