SHANE FINN: Staying Fit & Maintaining Training During COVID-19

Here is a blog post by Origin Brand Ambassador and fitness expert, Shane Finn, on Staying Fit & Maintaining Training During COVID-19. Enjoy!

We are in unprecedented times! Without a doubt the strangest times in our lives anyway! However, we are delighted to bring you this blog post and article with some helpful tips on staying fit during this lockdown!

Maintaining training during this time can prove to be both very important but also quite a difficulty too! Mentally it can help to keep you focused and for a lot of us, training & the outdoors is a huge part of our lives! 

In Ireland, we currently have a 2 km radius limit on where we can exercise! This is to enable us to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to give our front line workers & heroes the space to do their work! 2 km is not a lot for some of us adventure seekers but we can still be smart, stay fit & maintain our training within the limits!

Keep it Simple

They say that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. They might be onto something with that! In times like this, we need to keep it simple and get a little creative with what we have!

Do what you can, with what you have, wherever you are is a nice way to put it!

It could be scheduling a week of exercise for yourself! A morning walk, a lunchtime yoga session or an evening time bodyweight workout! Pre COVID-19 many of us would have been good at making plans, scheduling our training sessions around everyday life & trying to balance it all!

It might be a good time to continue with that to some aspect! Don’t overthink it right now! Get outside and move where you can and where it is safe to do so!

So first of all! Let's keep it simple! Every time that you get to exercise during this crisis should be a celebration! There are many folks who can’t!

Running 

Running is one of the simplest and easiest ways to exercise! Grab your shoes and out the door (within 2 km)! So if you are starting out or maybe you are an accomplished runner already you can still get plenty of training inside the 2 km radius!

People who are starting out can adopt a run-walk strategy pretty easily within their 2 km radius and this who want to go a little further can find some loops, backroads and get creative! 

On that note, now is also not really a time to hammer yourself training. Especially if you are an accomplished runner already! There are no races for the foreseeable future and the key focus here should be to remain healthy, remain fit, remain sharp & remain injury free! You don’t need to set a PB every morning you go running. Keep it controlled so you have enough in the tank and in the legs to go the next day too! 

Play your cards right here and you could come out of COVID-19 fitter and fresher than when you went in!

Strength Training

With gyms closed for the foreseeable future too, we need to think about possible ways to still work on our Strength! It is a case of going back to basics again and using what you have! Bodyweight training can be phenomenally effective at times like this when you might not have access to Barbells, Kettlebells or Dumbbells!

Training at home or in the spare room for 30/40 mins can really kickstart the day & it is easy to get a full-body workout in that period of time too!

Here is an example of a basic bodyweight workout for you to try at home! 

Ensure you warm up properly! A warm-up could be a 5 min walk/jog with some reps of the below exercises just to prepare the body for the workout ahead

Set 1

• Bodyweight Squats - 12 reps
• Push-Ups or Half Kneeling Push Ups - 10 Reps
• (3 Rounds with 10/15 seconds off in-between exercise to keep the intensity up)

Set 2 

• Alternating Lunges - 12 reps
• Glute Bridge - 30 seconds hold
• (3 Rounds with 10/15 seconds off in-between exercise to keep the intensity up)

Set 3

• Plank - 30 seconds
• High Knees - 30 seconds
• (3 Rounds with 10/15 seconds off in-between exercise to keep the intensity up)

 As with all of these home strength sessions and workouts it is important to first and foremost focus on good technique and remember that it is quality over quantity!

Work On Your Weaknesses

Now that we all have a little extra time available it is a great time to work on your weaknesses! Straight off we all have weaknesses and nobody is perfect when it comes to the training and the lifestyle side of things so let's try using this extra time wisely!

You can turn your attention to a huge number of things but here are some ideas for you;

• Sleep & sleep quality!
• Nutritional choices
• Time management & planning out your day
• Mobility & flexibility work! We could all use some of this!
• Goal Setting for the future
• Core Strength

So there is just some example of things you can turn your attention to! Where you can, use this time as an opportunity to work on things that you know you need to work on!

When the time then comes that it is safe for us to get back outdoors & back seeking adventure we will be stronger & better equipped to do so!

Thanks for reading our blog post and feel free to share or send to a friend!

-ends-

If you found this useful, and want to find out more about Shane, check out his website here, his podcast here or his Instagram here.