It may sound like a lot, but if you are like me and your quarantine space is limited to a studio apartment, then it is probably the most essential thing you can do to stay sane. The three groups of exercise I alternate between are:
- Anaerobic
- Aerobic
- Stretching
As an experienced introvert, it may not come as a surprise to you that exercise is one of the things I tend to go long periods neglecting, but in this new COVID-19 world, I decided it was mission critical so I went on a YouTube research quest to figure out what I was going to do for exercise.
My goals on this quest were to get a good anaerobic workout that didn’t take too much time or require any special equipment. After devising my super sophisticated research plan, I typed “workout” into youtube and started scrolling through the results. My hypothesis was that if I wanted to get a good workout, I need to find someone who has a similar body type to me. This means that as much as I wanted to get my workout information from the attractive young lady, I chose a video by a smallish frame asian dude who’s muscles I could imagine wearing.
Since the goal of this blogpost isn’t to endorse my youtube workout coach I will not post a link, but I did like the video very much because it explained the reasoning behind all the workout decisions and talked about how many reps you should do in terms of how many you can do rather than giving a specific number. Also, because the trainer was targeting COVID watchers, the only equipment I needed for this workout was two sheets with a knot tied to hang over the door.
The video recommends only doing the workout every other day, but I need to work out every day for my sanity, this means I need some kind of an aerobic workout. Now, my usual solution would be to play music and jump around until I’m sweaty, but I noticed this was too time consuming as it would take me awhile to get tired. I also noticed that sitting at a desk for a long time was making me feel lousy.
This is when I decided to buy a mini elliptical to put under my improvised standing desk. This way I can work while doing my aerobics so it is okay if it takes a bit longer. This has a small impact on shower planning, but I am confident you can figure that out.
Finally, after a week of alternating between full body and aerobic workouts, you may find at the end of the week that you are just exhausted and can’t do it anymore. At least, that is what happened to me. That is when I decided to designate a stretching day. Stretching day came when my muscles were just not willing to do another workout. On stretching day, I went on YouTube and searched for stretches for the parts of my body that ached and after watching a flamboyant doctor tell me all the ways I should bend to loosen the muscles that were tight, I felt a lot better.
Hopefully walking you through my experience with exercising in quarantine will give you the motivation you need to get YouTube fired up and do some exercising yourself. Stay tuned for the rest of my quarantutorials.