Stay fit, stay healthy: Quarantine home workout plan

Staying physically fit boosts your immune system, so here are some simple bodyweight workout exercises that will keep you healthy, happy, and busy at home during Ireland’s quarantine lockdown.

As you may have heard, Ireland is experiencing a slight period of uncertainty at the moment. The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has led to the country-wide cancellation of sporting events and large gatherings, with many businesses closing. What is reassuring is that these measures are preemptive, and have been put in place to ‘flatten the curve’ of the virus to avoid our country following in the unfortunate footsteps of China and Italy.

• Come together as nation by staying apart – Leo Varadkar

So, why keep fit during this lockdown?

The list of benefits to frequent exercise is virtually endless. At a time like this though, exercise is more crucial than ever for your physical and mental well-being.

• Studies have proven the link between physical fitness and the body’s immune system. Moderate regular exercise improves cardiovascular, respiratory, metabolic, and circulatory health, which enables white blood cells and antibodies to flow faster through your body to detect and fight illness. If you’d like to stay healthy for yourself, friends, and family, now might be the time to figure out a home exercise plan.
• One of the more bizarre factors of this situation is that we could feasibly be in our homes for months. To avoid crawling up the walls, and also assuage any anxiety you may have about this, you could try a home exercise plan. Exercise has been linked to stress and anxiety relief. As well as feeling better, you’ll sleep better too.
• Finally, I’m a glass half-full kind of guy, with this much time to kill, this really is a gorgeous opportunity to do everything you tell yourself you don’t have time for normally. No more commuting, acting as a taxi for the kids, office parties or other social responsibilities. Use this absolute gift of extra time for a 30 minute exercise, even just 3 times a week, and by the time this whole mess is a memory you’ll be well on your way to the fitness goals you’ve been procrastinating.

How to keep fit during the lockdown

How can you stay fit with all the gyms and leisure centres across the country closed? What you need is a home exercise plan which will raise your heart rate and get blood and oxygen flowing through your body. This is a crash course of different exercises which stimulate the main muscle groups in your body while using conservative amounts of space and which require no equipment, just your fine, motivated selves. Before we start though, a few words of guidance:

Cardio

Let’s start with cardiovascular exercises as good cardio is the cornerstone to any healthy body. It strengthens your heart, increases your lung capacity, burns fat, lowers cholesterol and lowers blood pressure. Here’s a selection of exercises you can consider for your home workout:

Running/Jogging/Walking

As of the publication of this article jogging and running in parks and streets are permitted, just not in groups. So get out and get the wind on your face, it’s a sure way to feel better, get the heart pumping, and concentrate on something other than this quiet chaos, like making it that last 200m meters home.

Alternative: Running stairs

In all likelihood, Ireland will follow in the steps of its European neighbours and impose restrictive measures on leaving the home for non-essential reasons. If this day comes, your cardio will not suffer. Stair running, or stair climbing, is a plyometric exercise which means it involves exerting maximum force in a short amount of time. This increases speed, strength, and power in the legs and overall body. Sets of running stairs in your home or apartment building will force you to utilize areas of the body not used in regular jogging by lifting your knees high and using muscle stabilizers and core strength for balance and to fight gravity.

Jumping Jacks

Here’s one that’ll bring you back to primary school P.E. If jogging isn’t an option, jumping jacks can be a great substitute. This is a brilliant tool for those easing into fitness training who want to improve their health and immune system. Remember to keep good form with each set, jumping energetically and widely while engaging your core for the full benefits.

Burpees

There’s a reason why nearly every personal trainer and gym instructor has an affinity for demanding sets of this intense exercise. The highly physical movement engages almost every muscle in your body, doesn’t require a tonne of space, focuses on explosivity, and will have your heart pumping and sweat pouring after just a few repetitions. Here’s how you do it:

Muscle Groups

As for training your muscles, physical fitness professionals generally divide the body into 5 main muscle groups. These are the abs (core), legs (quads and glutes), arms (triceps and biceps), back, and chest. Here’s a handful of home exercises for each muscle group:

Abdominal Muscles (Core)

Commonly referred to as your core,this connects your upper and lower body. Strengthening this area helps keep you balanced, reinforces the spine, improves your posture, and helps in all paths of physical fitness. Everyone already knows about the sit-up, so let’s have a look at a few different approaches:

Elbow Planks

This classic exercise is simple to do, can be done practically anywhere, and is one you can easily work at improving over the coming weeks. If you’re a beginner you could start out holding for 20 seconds, adding on 10 seconds a week, or when you become more comfortable, aiming for a minute-long plank position hold.

A more difficult variation is a standard plank. For this one, you hold your body in a push-up position.

An entry-level option is the knee plank, where you rest your knees on the ground, with your ankles crossed behind you, your arms in normal or elbow plank position and hold.

Leg Raises

To target your lower abs you could try some leg raises. These take some time to get used to in terms of balance, but with a good rhythm and steady breathing, they soon become second-nature.

If you really want to get that 6-pack popping, try a butt up. This is just like a leg raise, but when your legs are up in the perpendicular position, you thrust your hips and raise your butt off the floor. You then ease your butt to the ground, return your legs to the starting position, and go again.

Reverse Crunches

As mentioned, everyone knows the sit-up, so here’s a movement that hits those muscles, but has a twist. A reverse crunch targets the upper and lower abs and while it may look easy, a few reps in and you’ll be feeling the burn.

Legs

The leg muscles are the biggest muscle group in your body. Working these muscles takes a lot of energy which means you’ll burn more calories. Plus, most exercises below engage many muscle groups at the same time, giving your full body a hit and sending surges of testosterone and endorphins through your body. Yum.

Quadricep Muscles (Quads)

Lunges

You’ve probably seen this one before. Lunges are pretty simple and are great for working your core, back, and most importantly the long, large muscles at the front of your legs.

Mountain Climbers

This exercise is a beautiful blend of cardio, abdominal and upper body muscles.

Gluteus Muscles (Glutes)

Squats

This exercise works your quads, glutes, hamstrings, and core all in the one gorgeous (and excruciating) movement. In the past you may have seen the huge weights people squat in the gym,so you’ll be relieved to hear that squats using only your bodyweight are fantastic for you too, especially for the purpose of aerobic, cardiac, and vascular health. Furthermore, as I’ve stated, form is imperative, so mastering the bodyweight squat is important before stepping up to the rack.

One useful tip is to place a chair behind you when squatting, so on the downward motion you make sure to lightly touch the chair with your butt, before raising up again.

Bridges

This is a super simple exercise which is great for bringing definition and strength to your glutes.

Arms

Tricep Muscles

Diamond/Triangle Push-Ups

This is a variation of the classic movement favoured by drill sergeants around the world – the push-up. This movement focuses on the large muscles at the back of your arm, while also hitting your chest and shoulders.

This can be demanding on your balance and shoulders, so if you’re struggling, ease into it with some standard push-ups, which I explain in the chest section.

Tricep Dips

This movement is straightforward, only requiring a chair or other well-balanced surface, and really effective at engaging your tricep muscles. Be careful putting your weight and balance on a surface, and make sure you don’t overload your shoulders by warming-up well! If it becomes uncomfortable, try a surface lower than a chair to use.

Bicep Muscles

Push-Up Variations

Close-stance push-up

A standard push-up already hits the bicep muscle, but by moving your hands closer together you will put more weight on that muscle and achieve more of a curling motion.

Body Rows

This is like a pull-up, without the pull-up bar. It’s a tricky one though, which requires some DIY equipment, so be careful when setting up and performing this exercise. What you’ll need is either a large, sturdy table, like the one you find in your kitchen/dining room. Or, you could set up a thick, sturdy metal pipe or wooden bar between two chairs which are facing each other.

Chest Muscles

Push-Ups

This fan favourite is brilliant for your chest, shoulders, arm muscles and core. But like so many classic exercises, you need to make sure you’re doing it right to get the full benefit of the movement. It should be an exercise in full body tension, and you should squeeze your shoulder blades together as you lower into the pushup.

If this proves difficult, feel free to place your knees on the floor with your ankles crossed until you are comfortable with the movement.

Shoulder Taps

This active movement gets your blood pumping and targets your transverse abdominals and obliques. It blasts your shoulders too, as you hold your body up with just one arm at a time.

Back Muscles

Alt Arm/Leg Raises

This calisthenic exercise works a lot of muscles including the abs, lower back, obliques, and shoulders.

Supermans

A silly looking exercise that’s super for your back muscles. The name is obviously inspired by the DC caped crusader and its clear to see why.

Plans

Now you have a few simple exercises to get started with, you might want to develop a plan to help structure and organise your workouts. Combine whatever choice of exercises you feel. Some people split their workout into a ‘Push, Pull, Legs’ Split. This works on two main muscles groups per day on a three day rotation. ‘Pull’ includes back and bicep exercises, ‘Push’ includes chest and tricep exercises, and ‘Legs’ includes quads, glutes and generally core for good measure. Others try a ‘Bro Split’, this involves concentrating on one muscle group each day for six or seven days.

There are plenty of other ways to split your workout which you can research but if you’re going for general health and well-being, why not try mixing and matching different exercises three or four times a week. Like you would in a  “Pyramid Workout”. This takes you through 5 exercises which hit various muscles, the repetitions become lower with each movement and you aim for minimal to no breaks in between sets .

Here’s an example of one, feel free to switch out exercises to suit your body and your goals:

Jumping Jacks        50 repetitions

Squats                        40

Push-ups                    30

Shoulder Touches  20

Supermans                 10                                                          to be repeated three times.

Was there anything I missed out? What would you add? Or have you started a home workout plan yourself?

Let me know in the comments, and remember to mind your mental health during these confusing times.