Strength Training at Home During Covid-19

Has Covid-19 again closed your gym during this pandemic? What are you to do especially when you have no fitness equipment or very little of it at home?

You could do bodyweight exercises which require no equipment but just your weight and the resistance from gravity but it is not the same as going to the gym where you have a huge variety of equipment and options to choose from unless you have a fully-furnished home gym. For me, it’s more enjoyable to work out at the gym: it’s a chance to get out of my house, the motivational atmosphere of working out at the gym, talking to people, a chance to unwind and of course the wide and huge assortment of serious fitness and weight training equipment that is impossible to duplicate in a home gym.

In the meantime, right now we have to make do with what we may have at home. If you do have a couple of light dumbbells you can still do a workout at home say for 10-15 minutes per day hitting every muscle group by doing 1 set of each exercise for 12 reps. By slowing the reps down, you can further increase the resistance of the exercise. For toning and limited strength training this is fine and you can actually get a good workout, but if you are into serious bodybuilding and adding muscle mass this workout is too limited and just won’t accomplish these goals. Basically it is just a stopgap to buy your muscles some time - keep your muscles engaged, stretched and working until the gym actually does finally open up, where you can actually do some serious weight training and bodybuilding!

An Essential Service

In my opinion there is no reason to close a gym during Covid-19. It should be deemed an essential service for both mental and physical reasons because a gym can operate very safely even during a pandemic if the following procedures are strictly followed:

• Masks must be worn properly (even covering your nose) at all times in a gym - that is when not working out, when exercising and in change rooms. Masks should only be removed safely when you need a drink of water.
• Limit the number of people in a gym, so for a big gym 50 people. For smaller gyms, fewer people.
• Use hand sanitizer when entering the gym.
• Wipe down machines before and after use.
• Use your own clean towel on the machines if you have one.
• For cardio classes increase the space for people to 3 metres.

If these measures are followed strictly then the gym can be a safer place during Covid-19 than even the grocery store!

In the meantime, if your gym is closed you can do this short and light workout routine to at least stay in shape, working out all upper body parts:

• Several chest press exercises
• 4 shoulder exercises - lateral raise, shoulder shrug and shoulder press exercise
• 2 biceps curls exercises
• Various versions of Back row exercises