Ways to stay active during social distancing

With the recent COVID-19 outbreak, and closure of many of the gyms in the United States, we wanted to provide our clients with any information that may help them get through the “social distancing” we are all taking part of.

During these times, it is of high importance to find different ways to stay active. With spring right around the corner (and slightly warmer weather arising), we are lucky to have the ability to still get some fresh air by going on walks or riding a bike in less-populated areas. Although often overlooked, walking is a great way to increase calorie expenditure and get some low-level, but long duration activity in. An easy goal would be to set a step-count for each day, it is typically recommended that individuals aim for a minimum of 7-10k steps daily. As of right now, most of us are either working from home, doing classwork from home, or temporarily out of work/school altogether. If you still have to work from home, set aside two or three 15-20min time blocks where you can take a break from work and go on a walk. This will act two-fold by not only increasing your energy output, but also providing some mental clarity.

For those that will continue to work out at home, we’d be happy to provide you with some tips in addition to the Adult & Athlete At-Home Templates we will be sending out. First and foremost, the templates will be constructed under the assumption that no gym equipment is available to you. If you do have a few dumbbells, bands, or other equipment at home you can definitely make substitutions to the program as needed. Whether or not you choose to implement load, let’s discuss a few tools you can implement to make training at-home more difficult:

1.Increase Overall Volume - “Volume” is typically defined as the amount of sets & reps you do for a certain exercise. However it can also be extrapolated and applied to miles run, time performed, etc.

If you only only have the option of using your bodyweight or lighter dumbbells during your workouts at home, then it will be crucial that you increase volume in order to stress yourself more. Sets of 12, 15, and even 20 reps will be more useful at this time. You can also utilize a “Reps in Reserve” approach, where you continue to perform a movement until you feel like you only have a couple reps left in the tank. Typically these are described as 1RIR (one repetition in reserve), 2RIR (two repetitions in reserve), 3RIR (three repetitions in reserve), and so on...

2.Increase Training Frequency - Training frequency can be described as the number of times you workout during a certain period of time, let’s say a week in this case. Most clients at APT are used to working out 2-3 times a week, but it may be necessary to increase this to 4-5 times a week while you are working out at home. The reason being, that you can’t overload your body the same way you would be able to with heavier resistances at APT, so you have to increase your overall exposure to the stimulus instead.

3. Utilize Tempos, Super-sets, Density Circuits, or Reduce Rest Time - These are a variety of additional approaches you can take to make the workout more challenging

A. Tempos: Tempos refer to varying the speed during a certain portion of the movement. Typically tempos would be applied during the eccentric (downward portion or muscle lengthening), isometric (the transition), or concentric (upward portion or muscle contraction). For instance, you could perform a Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat by putting your foot on the couch behind you, and perform a 3-1-0 tempo. This would imply that you slowly lower yourself down for a 3-count, pause for 1 second at the bottom, then drive up normal speed.

B. Super Sets: If you train at APT, you are familiar with using “super sets” already. This means to follow up an exercise immediately with another one, without much rest in between. Typically we shuffle through exercises in an A1, A2, then A3 fashion.

C. Density Circuits: Higher density training implies an amount of work done over a certain period of time. You could select anywhere from 2+ exercises, and choose an amount of time to complete as many rounds of those exercises as possible. An example in this scenario could be an 8 Minute Density Circuit, performing an Incline Push Up for 10 reps, and a Manual Resistance Deadbug for 5 reps each side, continuously until time runs out.

D. Rest Time: as seen in the past two points, reducing rest time will lead to greater fatigue due to less recovery between sets. It doesn’t have to be done as part of super sets or a density circuit. You could simply plan to do 5 sets of chin ups, and take as little rest as you deem possible between the sets.

Take this information above and begin applying it to your at-home workouts during this time. There are plenty of resources online for home-workouts, and any of the coaches here at APT would be happy to help with any questions. Get creative with it, and push yourself. At the end of the day, working out or training is about applying stress to your body, enough stress that it can recover and adapt to the demand you are placing on it.

Prepare to Succeed

Team APT