staying healthy in lockdown
5 ways to stay fit & healthy in lockdown
By Gavin Clarke
By Fitness & Nutrition Coach
& Kettlebell Instructor at
Bespoke Fitness Training
How I know Gavin
How I know GavinI’m Martin Jones, a web development consultant and SEO Consultant who met Gavin Clarke (Gav to me) through Factory BJJ where Gav provides strength & conditioning coaching & kettlebell classes. Thankfully, I’ve not had the pleasure of sparring with Gav yet, but will do as soon as we get back on the mats… I promise. I have worked with Gav on a new Web Development project as well as providing some SEO consultancy.
This period is certainly not ideal. But I have personally observed a positive shift in people’s attitude towards their health. Clients and other people I’ve spoken to are looking to make changes to their current lifestyle and exploring ways to stay fit & health in lockdown. Every cloud…
Increase Activity
I have lots of clients that have very active jobs and lifestyles. Often, they also have an active sport or hobby on top of that. Their total daily energy expenditure through movement can be a significant. It’s therefore very important to keep active through this lockdown period.
A risk factor here is decreased daily movement. This can create a calorie surplus. This can also depend on the number of daily calories consumed. An increased number of calories over a period of time will create weight gain and more body fat.
This will lead to various health problems long term.
Good Nutrition
Maintaining or adopting a healthy diet through this period is very important.
Being at home can often bring big advantages to daily diet but can also play havoc with increased daily calorific consumption. People I often coach (nutritional) have increased eating habits that include boredom and stress. Both can be big factors in the lockdown period.
It’s important to not eat too much treat-based foods. The Bespoke Fitness Training way of having a balanced diet is to try and make sure that 80% of the food and drink you consume is from a healthy source. And the remaining 20% can be made up of treats.
Breathe
Sounds like a pretty obvious thing to do. But let’s face it, this can be a pretty stressful time for many people.
Money issues, change of work environment and spending more time within the home can all be an added pressure.
There are some very effective breathing techniques that can really help the body and mind relax and ease these stressful moments. Diaphragmatic breathing techniques can help to focus the breath and relax mind and body.
– Video Below –
Activate Muscle
Being active is important. Activating muscles that get switched off through long periods of sitting and inactivity is very important, as it can cause mobility issues.
As a strength & conditioning coach and rehab specialist, I very often see how detrimental both overused and underactive muscles can be. Both cause significant muscular pain and mobility issues.
This can be significantly reduced by effective muscle recruitment. This does not need to be massively complicated and is simple to conduct.
Plan Ahead
Normality with return. When it does, it is important that your body can adapt to that next change of routine. Lockdown period may last another 12 weeks, which is enough time for you to adapt to that change. So, if you have a sport or very active job to go back to, will your body be able to deal with the stress that you will put upon it?
I am an active martial artist and play around with Olympic weightlifting and I can’t do those things at the moment. But crucially, I’m not being inactive. So, my advice is to keep very active and try and maintain activity and strength levels to a level that will protect you when lockdown stops.
Ensuring your ergonomics are correct while working from home is vital. We suspect almost everyone will be using a set-up at home that hasn’t been optimally designed for them. It’s much easier to fall into bad habits at home with having sofa’s, ‘comfy’ chairs and beds etc. If we’re feeling achy or tired, it’s also much easier to say “I’ll just have a lie down for 10 minutes” which often turns into half an hour. Not having the correct ergonomics at home can affect productivity so it’s vital we get it right!
