Exercise During the Time of Nurgle

Back in January, before everything stopped, my wife and I signed up for a six-month Dietbet to provide external motivation for our long-term exercise goals. We were getting out to the YMCA for their group exercise classes and changing our diet and things were going okay.

Now that we’re stuck at home with our two daughters, we’ve had to adopt a different routine and so far it feels like it might be better for us as a family.

Strength

Aaron Griffin’s Everyday Fitness post was a hard sell to the kids, but after some griping we all got through 3 sets of 8 reps of push-ups, lunges, and walkouts. I dread the walkout portion of each set, so I know they must be good for me.

I own a pullup bar, and have been making incredibly slow progress. I decided (2 months into 2020) that my New Year’s resolution would be to do a pullup.

Moar Strength

We also do calf raises and squats to that “Bring Sally Up” song. Fun fact: It’s “Flower” by Moby, in case anyone out there 1) didn’t know that and 2) wanted to find the real version untainted by dance beats. We tried the pushup variant but oh man. Maybe later. This is an easier sell to the girls because it’s done to music.

Outside

It smacks a bit of “Thanos was right”, but being quarantined together means that we’ve all gone outside together a lot more than we used to. There’s a field near our YMCA with a walking/jogging loop and some soccer goals set up. The girls take a soccer ball or bubble wands or other toys and run and play while we do laps.

Rainy Day Cardio

I got into the habit of pre-work elliptical time and have mostly kept up with that. The big cardio workouts my wife and I looked forward to were at the YMCA, though. You can find “body combat” classes (think Taebo but less Billy Blanks) in chunks on youtube. It’s not quite the same as the solidarity of suffering through a workout as a group, but it’s something.

Have you had to adapt your workouts? Did you already have everything you need at home? Have you fallen off the wagon or has your glut of free time opened up fitness opportunities?