Keeping Fit During Home Isolation

With everyone spending a lot more time at home, one common challenge is keeping fit. When we are spending so much time at home, we tend to eat more, eat worse and move less. So, what can we do about this?

For one thing, we have to remain mindful about our eating. This is a time when many people will "stress eat" and we have to find more positive ways to process that stress we're feeling. One great way to do that is exercise.

I know...many of you may be thinking that we can't go to the gym because they're all closed down. So, what can you do besides going for a walk or a jog? If you, like many people, do not have gym equipment at home, one of the best solutions for this is Progressive Calisthenics.

What the heck is Progressive Calisthenics? That is an excellent question.

You are probably already familiar with things like push-ups and that sort of thing. However, not everyone is at the same level of strength and fitness. For some, a normal push-up is already pretty challenging. Others may be able to pound out 100 push-ups and hardly break a sweat. The idea of Progressive Calisthenics is a way of leveraging your body weight to provide you with a challenging, strength-building workout that you can actually accomplish...no matter what level you may be.

First, let's take a look at push-ups. If you are someone who simply cannot perform a single push-up, you can change the leverage to make it easier so that you can start where you can have some success. To do that with the push-up, you can raise your upper body more than your lower body so that you are moving less weight. You can do this by keeping your feet on the floor, but your hands could be on a chair or the side of a counter-top. If you have stairs, you can place your hands one or more stairs above the floor. The higher your hands/upper body are compared to your feet, the less horizontal you are and the easier it will be to perform the movement.

Start with one set of ten and gradually work your way up to three sets of 20. When you are able to do three sets of 20, gradually start moving your body closer to being horizontal. For example, if you started using the third step on your stairs, go down to the second step. If you used the side of a counter, try the base of a chair. Eventually, you can get to where your hands and feet are on the floor. If that is still to hard, try staying on your hands and knees to do the push-ups until you can hit the 3x20 goal.

What if you can already do these push-ups and need to make them harder? Well, notice that to make them easier, we moved the upper body to a higher level than the lower body. The exact opposite is true when you want to make them harder. Move your lower body above your upper body. Instead, put your feet on the step or the base of a chair or whatever you have to raise them higher.

Next, for legs and glutes, you can do bodyweight squats. If you are unable to squat all the way down, go down as far as you can. If necessary, hold on to a countertop or the back of a chair for balance. Pay attention to how far you are able to go down so that you can work closer and closer to going all the way down over time. The goal, again, is to get to three sets of 20 squats, all the way done.

If bodyweight squats are not enough for you, try placing one foot on something elevated. A step on a staircase or a small stack of books or something like that will work. Make sure to switch which foot is elevated after each set. What this does is force you to exert more effort toward the lower leg and less to the raised leg. This will increase the resistence and make it more difficult. As you progress, you can even take your elevated foot completely off the floor. It's best to hold that leg out in front of you. Because of how this looks, it's usually referred to as a "Pistol Squat." At first, you may need to balance yourself on a chair or countertop, but eventually, you'll get the hang of it.

The next movement is the pull-up. This may be the only movement that would be best with a piece of equipment. It's not required, but it makes it a lot easier. You can buy a pull-up bar that fits over your door jam from Amazon for a pretty low cost. Personally, I like the ones that lock over the top of the door jam and are braced at the sides as well. Some of them are just a bar that goes across the door frame like a shower-curtain rod. I'm not crazy about those. If you don't have them tight enough, you could fall. If you do have them tight enough, you may damage or mark up your door jam.

If you can't do pull-ups very well, try setting a broom handle between a couple of chairs and get underneath it, with the broomstick directly over your sternum. Grab the broomstick just a bit outside shoulder width apart and pull yourself up until your chest touches the broomstick. The higher you set the broomstick, the closer to vertical you will be and the easier the movement will be. So, if you can't do this horizontally, raise it up a bit until you can.

If you don't have a broomstick or something like that, lay under a table or overhanging countertop and pull yourself up to that. This is a bit more difficult to adjust up or down, so you may have to be satisfied with starting with only 1 rep (or even a half a rep) until you can gradually work yourself up to three sets of 10.

Another thing you can do with countertops or chairs is dips. This works best if you have a corner of a countertop that you can use. Facing the counter, put one hand on either side, keep your knees bent so that you are suspended and then lower yourself down until your upper arms are parallel to the ground before pushing yourself back up. You can also use two chair backs and stand between them and perform the same movement. Work your way up to three sets of 10.

Glute bridges can be done without any equipment as well. Lay on the ground with your knees bent and your feet about shoulder width apart. Push through your feet and raise your hips until your body is straight from your head to your knees. If you need to make this more challenging, start by moving your feet further so that your knees are bent less. Eventually, you can even brace your upper back on a chair or bench and use one leg to push your hips up until your body is a straight line from head to knees.

For extra weight on any of these movements, find things around your house. Have a backpack? Put some books in it and wear it during many of these movements. For the glute bridges, set it on your hips to add weight to the movement. If you have small children, you can even incorporate them into movements such as Russian Twists.

Other great movements that can help keep you fit are things like planks, rolling side planks, burpees, jumping rope, jogging, cycling, mountain climbers, flutter kicks, knee raises, leg raises, lunges, etc. All of these (except cycling, of course) require no equipment at all and do not require a lot of space. They're simple to do and can help keep you fit and healthy while you're stuck at home staring down that tub of ice cream that you know you shouldn't eat all of at once.

I know this was long, but I hope it helps and you can use it to keep yourself from gaining too much weight during your time of isolation / house arrest.