Ugh. Well. Here we are again. Goodbye gym and hello to the cat biting my ankles when I’m trying to do a press up in the living room.
By the way, please don’t feel any pressure to start exercising in the lockdown if that’s not your thing. You do you. Do whatever gets you through and I’ll see you on the other side.
Normally I would be cranking up the exercise in November, in the lead up to my birthday in the middle of December. I like to do some sort of bone-shaking, blood-pumping activity on my birthday so I can feel happy about being alive instead of depressed about getting older. This year I was hoping to turn 52 by running 5.2k, doing 52 press ups and deadlifting whatever I could manage. This year, well, who knows?
So here is my plan for the next month:
I bought a kettlebell
A new toy should be a nice distraction. I’ve done kettlebell classes before, and there are plenty of YouTube kettlebell workouts so I’m looking forward to swinging this fella around the living room. I bought an 8kg bell which should be good for upper body, although it’s not really heavy enough for leg exercises. Kettlebells are in short supply right now but if you can get hold of one it’s a really useful piece of kit
A 30 day challenge
The month long lockdown seems like the perfect time to do one of those 30 day exercise challenges that were popular a few years back. If you search online you’ll find tons of these – just print out a grid and then tick off the boxes as you go. It’s very satisfying as you can see your ability grow each day. I might do an abs or a plank challenge, what do you think?
Daily press ups
This is something I did during the last lockdown. For about 6 months in total while the gyms were closed, I did 15 press ups a day (or more if I felt like it. Best day was 26). It’s more doable than you might think. Takes under 30 seconds.
I only developed the strength to do full press ups when I was 50 so I’m not letting go of that ability without a fight. This time I’m going to do 20 a day, every day.
Thursdays to become Mandalorian + pudding night
Normally on a Thursday I go to a women’s weightlifting group class, but until that starts up again we’re going to watch an episode of The Mandalorian and I’m going to cook a fancy pudding. Well, I say fancy but my son has requested apple crumble for the first week which is really more of a signature bake. Will work up to showstopper status by December.