I'm coming out of the this less fit, mostly because my workouts depended on being out of the house. gyms being open. Or freedom to travel to somewhere.
Im also not eating as fresh as I normally do. I can usually get fish and vegetables and cook the day of. Now I gotta stock up on groceries for the week to reduce shopping frequency.
My food has been pretty much perfect. I’ve reduced calories to match reduced activity but what I eat is still proportioned correctly, lean meats, vegetables, rice/potatoes.
What I have noticed though is due to isolation only going out when necessary, not lifting weights four days a week, no general daily walking about and no cardio is that now walking up the four flights of stairs to my apartment I’m getting slightly out of breath when I shouldn’t. I’m getting cardiovascular unfit when at the start of the year I was the fittest I’ve ever been.
I’ve also noticed body composition changes. I’ve lost 1-2 kilo, looking a lot less muscular / smaller. As food has been good I don’t think there’s an increase in body fat I just have less mass overall. When you’ve been training hard it’s demotivating.
Things are starting to relax as where I am the numbers are very good so am going to start going for runs to get my cardio back even though I’m not a runner. That’ll again make body composition less muscular as burn off more calories.
For the gym to do my weight training, unfortunately they will be the last to open and it’s a huge mental down knowing I’ll essentially need to start from the very beginning again.
Is there nothing around that you can use as makeshift weights? When I was at high school and couldn’t afford a gym membership I used a bunch of old telephone directories as makeshift weights.
It wasn’t ideal but it worked for a few months until I got my first job.
Pull ups are one of the easier problems to solve at home. You can get bars for your doorway that extend out like stair gates. Or if you have a fat enough door frame and strong enough fingers you could pull up directly from the frame (I used to do this too).
Obviously you know your situation better than I do so I’m not meaning any of the above to sound preachy. I also get that proper equipment makes a world of difference and using improper equipment can add an element of risk.
I don't have telephone directories anymore, and I certainly don't have 200 lbs of them in easily graspable form... hand weights are fine but kettlebells are better than those, and neither is at all the same as a barbell.
It’s hard to lift without equipment - nothing around the house concentrates that amount of weight into something liftable.
Pull up bars mostly work the back muscles but don’t provide enough isolation to work the biceps.
I have however seen a video recommending bicep curls where your arms pull against a towel folded across your foot, which pushes in the other direction. By locking the elbows, isolation is achieved and your leg which has larger muscles than your arms provides the counterweight. It’s not ideal but it’s better than nothing.
What workouts are they that cannot be done without access to a gym?
For me it’s the variety of city food I miss the most. I live quite a way out from where I work and while there are still a few open takeaways, they’re pretty average in quality and lacking in variety. However there are larger and mostly well stocked supermarkets so buying fresh food to last the week hasn’t been a problem (most veg will last a week albeit some items will need to be refrigerated). However I definitely feel your pain about fish.
To be honest very little has changed with regards to shopping for me because i have two young kids and my wife works full time as well, so we are used to doing big weekly shops since that’s the most practical way for us to shop even pre-COVID19. I guess the biggest change is where we used to order it online and have it delivered, now we are driving to the store and picking the items ourselves.
Jiu-jitsu classes need a gym. It's hard to replace those workouts. Idk if it would even be safe for me to run for 2-3 hours I'd need to spend time working up to that and not ruin my legs or knees. That's a whole 2-3 hour work out few times a week. Plus board sports is my other workout. Ski resorts shut down and cities are restricting travel make it hard to drive for surf.
I'm doing what I can but working out intentionally like that sucks when it used to just be fun. Heh
I’m not familiar with Jiu-Jitsu specifically but I have trained in a few martial arts, Japanese and western, and they usually have routines you can practice on your own. Is the same not true for Jiu-jitsu?
With the bored sports, while you obviously couldn’t train your board skills, you could still keep working on those muscles and stamina at home through different training exercises.
I agree none of this is the same as going to your gym et al, but my point wasn’t that you could do identical training at home. It was that you could do something similar to at least keep yourself reasonably sharp.
Yeah there's probably some, the problem is motivation. I can go to a class and workout hard for hours, and not really notice. After a few minutes of running I'm ready to call it a day.
Same for surfing, keeping busy with a skateboard though. Paddle endurance is taking a hit.
If he's talking about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, then there's very little you can do on your own unfortunately. It all depends on having access to a training partner.
I just had a quick Google and found a bunch of training videos on YouTube for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, so it does seem possible. Having done a number of martial arts myself I do understand that having a partner does make a massive difference but I've never come across a martial art that doesn't have solo training exercises to enable individuals to practice when alone. Even the martial arts that you wouldn't expect could work solo (like fencing) still have solo training exercises.
> What workouts are they that cannot be done without access to a gym?
Anything needing special equipment or terrain, for example. If you want to do a climbing workout you're going out of luck without a rockface in your back garden or your own climbing wall, aren't you.
> I guess the biggest change is where we used to order it online and have it delivered, now we are driving to the store and picking the items ourselves.
This seems like the opposite of what you'd want to do - why are you doing this?
> Anything needing special equipment or terrain, for example. If you want to do a climbing workout you're going out of luck without a rockface in your back garden or your own climbing wall, aren't you.
In theory you’d be right but I the reason I asked is because there’s usually workouts you can still do at home to keep at least some of those muscles in shape even if you can’t do your usual training routines without using any specialist equipment. Granted sometimes you have to get a little creative but it’s certainly doable for most gym exercises that immediately sprint to mind.
Take the rock climbing example: I used to train at home doing pull ups on door frames on the weeks I couldn’t make it to an indoor climbing wall (though that was quite a few years ago now).
> This seems like the opposite of what you'd want to do - why are you doing this?
I agree and it’s not through choice I do it. The problem is everyone else agrees too and thus it has become impossible to book delivery slots due to the volume of demand.
> In theory you’d be right but I the reason I asked is because there’s usually workouts you can still do at home to keep at least some of those muscles in shape
Right, but you asked 'what workouts are they that cannot be done without access to a gym' and you're suggesting other workouts to keep the same muscles working. Yeah fine, but that's not the same workout, which is what you asked.
To be honest I didn’t put a much thought into the original comment because it’s now 4am U.K. time and I was just trying to idle my brain into sleep. Unfortunately the insomnia is winning tonight. :(
As a climber who currently does finger pull ups on my door frame, there is so much I can't do. A lot of climbing is body position and control of your center of mass. You can't practice proper technique for climbing without a wall. There's just also things you can't do without the height. As an avid sport climber, I would usually end my days climbing doing lead laps. This helps make clipping second nature because you're doing it till you can't do it anymore. I can't even think of a way to remotely simulate that at home and it has been such a critical component of my workout. It is the thing that allows me to do multi-pitch no problem and it is the thing that helps me sleep at night.
I’d not worry about it too much, I’ve gone maybe 9 months without climbing or doing anything but snowboarding and 2nd day out of the season done a 17 pitch 700m trad 5.9 multi. it comes back real fast, and the technique sticks long after the strength is gone.
Can’t wait to get back on rock Thursday out official “opening” date. planning on doing a 5.8 5 pitch multi right off the bat after 8 months off
It isn't me being worried about doing projects, it is the lack of a workout schedule. Many people choose sports, like climbing, because it is easier to convince themselves to workout. Having a good workout routine is a big part to mental and physical health.
Most aquatic sports, in addition to weightlifting, climbing, court sports (tennis, handball, racquetball, etc.), some dance, etc.
Cardio's easier to transition elsewhere, strength ... possible though the "big lifts" (squats, deads) are least easily converted, especially in shared / limited space. Having your upstairs apartment neighbour doing sets of deads could get annoying.
Anything with equipment or dedicated structures will be less convenient.
Im also not eating as fresh as I normally do. I can usually get fish and vegetables and cook the day of. Now I gotta stock up on groceries for the week to reduce shopping frequency.