As I write this sat on the sofa after an afternoon trip to the seaside with the dogs it kind of feels like a strange Christmas. Everyone at the gym this morning was saying bye, have a good break, see you soon & just felt so odd to have this shutting down kind of feeling! It is literally like a wind-down Wednesday, trying to pack everything in before lockdown hits!
At least this time we have been given more warning rather than the immediate Spring lockdown so we have had some time to prepare & get ready for more home workouts, working from home & life reverting back to lockdown ways! Many people are worried that now the gyms are closing their training is going to suffer & their progress with stall.
Of course, progress at a gym may well be faster or better due to the access to better facilities & knowledge of trainers but you can still progress & get great results from home. The Spring lockdown showed us all how this was possible & training from home can reap big rewards if you follow a progressive training programme focusing on achieving your goals. For some home training has actually shown itself as a much better option, it saves us time & is far more convenient to fit into a hectic lifestyle than taking time out to go off to the gym before or after the horses or around work. So here are my tips to help you to get through your home training sessions & stay active during Lockdown 2.0!
If you are not sure of how you can train from home, then invest in an online coach for the next 4 weeks of lockdown. A month of training is plenty of time to get good results, use the time to educate yourself with the help of a qualified personal trainer who understands your goals & will help you learn how to train yourself to help your riding & get the results you want.
Put a plan in place for yourself for the next 4 weeks & give yourself structure, a plan is the key to success & being prepared is everything. You don’t need to make home training difficult or end up doing 500 burpees on every session, any trainer who is offering you that then I’d say they’re not doing the best job they could or should be doing and you should look for a different one! Have your weekly schedule & stick with it, write your sessions in your diary and tick them off as you go, this will really help you to feel like you’ve accomplished something each day.
Be inventive with the kit you do have! If you’ve only got a couple of dumbbells or some bands then that is plenty to give you a good session. Even if you’ve got no kit & can only do bodyweight sessions then you can still create effective full-body sessions you just need to be inventive! Look around at home or the yard & see what you could use as an alternative for gym kit, a table in place of a bench? Filled water bucket instead of weight? Trust me there is alot you CAN do! And that is what you need to focus on, stay positive & focus on what you can do.
Staying physically & mentally healthy during the winter lockdown is absolutely essential to your health & remember exercise is a huge part of mental & physical wellbeing. You don’t need to be training 6 days a week but try to focus on getting 2-5 sessions done each week, dependent on your fitness level, goals & current routine. Training is whatever you enjoy & want to do; if it’s a bodyweight resistance session or a run do it, whatever suits your goals & preferences. Don’t try to pack too much in & give yourself heaps of training to do because you will find you overwhelm yourself & end up burning out pretty quickly as you struggle to keep it up! Doing a little bit every day is far more effective than smashing it out hard & running yourself into the ground!
Keep moving & get your steps up! If you can aim to hit 10,000 steps a day, if you’re on the yard then this will be quite easy but for those of you like me who have gone from very active jobs to a zoom lifestyle you need to make sure you keep active & make an effort to get your steps in!
Take the time to go for a walk in the morning before you start work if you know you are going to be stuck on the laptop all day, get up and wander around the house as much as you can & if you need to go out in the dark and take the dogs for a walk. With the lack of daylight, it’s not going to be easy but you’ve got to make the effort to get out, keep moving & get your steps in even if that means headtorch walks!
Focus on a healthy diet & eating well. Nutrition is key to health & it is so true you are what you eat. The better & more nutritious foods you eat the better you are going to feel, your energy levels will be high, your recovery will be better & faster the more nutritious foods you get in & I promise you, you will feel so much better for eating well. Let’s be honest no-one feels great when you eat crap all the time do you! There’s no need to have an F it attitude & end up eating all the junk food for the sake of it, that’s just a poor attitude to self-sabotage yourself and food is a really easy thing you can control to keep your body as healthy as possible. Get your fresh fruit & veg in and as always keep your protein up!
Hydration is key to feeling good too, make sure you keep yourself hydrated through the day especially again if you’re sat on the laptop all day. It’s easily done to sit staring at your screen all day, get a massive headache & then realise you’ve not drunk any water all day & dehydration does not feel good. Keep yourself hydrated & try to limit your alcohol consumption.
I’ll be honest lockdown 1 I hit the wine hard & I’m not sure why. It was easy to slip into poor habits of drinking every night when actually there was no reason to do that. Alcohol will affect how you feel & your freshness hugely and will also really impact your sleep, productivity, recovery & workouts. If you’re feeling fatigued & tired due to alcohol your sessions are not going to be the best they could be and 100% your recovery will suffer so really focus on reducing your alcohol intake, if your goal is fat loss then this will really help to accelerate your results.
Another lockdown is going to be tough but we all know it is necessary & we’ve done it before, we can do it again. Training from home is a good opportunity to try something new, get outside & save yourself some time. Don’t overwhelm yourself with trying to do too much & just focus on doing a little every day, keeping yourself active & healthy. I will be sharing lots of workout ideas through my Instagram page but remember you don’t need to overcomplicate training from home! There will be lots of influencers showing crazy workouts using your bathtub but trust me you don’t need to be doing this & make sure anyone you take training advice from is a qualified personal trainer. I hope these tips help you to stay active & give you a bit of structure through the lockdown. Stay active, get yourself in a routine & keep working towards those winter goals!
Stay safe, if you need help with your training then please reach out to me,
Katie X
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