Gyms Are Closed, But Fitness Never Stops

Image credit: Dan Qiu for The Campus Trainer

The coronavirus pandemic has made it impossible for people to go to gyms. However, quarantine will not stop fitness enthusiasts from working out regardless of their access to equipment. Many students have found ways to exercise with what they have at home.

Obviously, not being able to go to the gym forces many to alter their training plans, especially those who have been trying to increase their strength. Those who want to exercise have to adapt to the situation by changing their exercise routines.

“I do miss being able to use the workout machines or heavier weights that you’ll find in the campus gyms,” said John Ziemski, a senior information science major. “But being stuck at home has forced me to come up with more creative workouts that I never would have thought of doing at school, which is great for variety.”

Ziemski said that he has a few dumbbells and a pull-up bar in his house, which allows him to do some weighted workouts.

“I’ll put a dumbbell in my backpack and do weighted pushups, pullups, etc. and use a table for incline/decline pushups,” Ziemski wrote over a text interview. “I do a combination [of weighted and body weight workouts] and try to mix it up as much as possible.”

“There are a ton of resources on YouTube that can help you find creative ways to work out using things you’ll find around any household,” Ziemski said.

There are other students who previously centered their workouts on heavy lifting that have adapted to the quarantine by altering the goals and focuses of their training.

“I miss being able to squat, bench, and deadlift. I still get a great workout, but I altered my goals from gaining strength to leaning down, given the equipment I have,” said Brandon Kwintner, a junior computer science major.

Like Ziemski, Kwinter has also been doing weighted backpack pushups as a chest workout while having no bench at home.

“In place of other heavy lifts that I can’t replicate, I’ve shifted my focus to doing high volume with lower weight,” Kwintner said.

Kwintner also said that he does pistol squats, Bulgarian split squats and other single leg bodyweight exercises for leg days, since he cannot do heavy weighted squats.

“It makes me get creative with my workouts and shows that you don’t need a gym with lots of equipment to get a good workout,” Kwinter said when asked about the positive takeaways from the workout experience during quarantine.

Matt Schifferle, a fitness trainer whose programs center on bodyweight training, shared some insights on working out with limited equipment during quarantine.

Without having to purchase a whole set of heavy equipment, resistance bands and pull-up bars are two things that are relatively inexpensive and can be very useful during quarantine, according to Schifferle.

“One of the advantages of bands is that you can put resistance in directions other than straight up against gravity. So, you can do things like pull downs, chopping downs and triceps push downs and so forth,” Schifferle said.

Schifferle said that one disadvantage of bands is that the resistance of them tends to vary as they get stretched, which takes away some of their effectiveness in strength training compared to free weights or bodyweight workouts.

He also suggested getting a pull-up bar because although there are exercises such as “superman” (laying on your stomach on the ground and pulling your back up) and many bridge workouts that can work your back without any equipment, in the long run, especially during the time of quarantine, it is more effective to do back exercises with a pull-up bar.

Explosive workouts are common substitutes for heavy weightlifting. While acknowledging their effectiveness, Schifferle said that they can be challenging and risky for people who are not experienced in this type of training.

“You have to make sure that you already have a decent amount of strength. And you have good alignment in your joints. That way there is less stress going into the joints then going into the muscles,” Schifferle said.

For those who are into cardio exercise and are unable to go outside or use a treadmill, Schifferle suggests that they rack up strength training and get the tiring effects from the intensity.

“Cardio isn’t a particular kind of exercise. Cardio is a response to a speed or a demand on the body,” Schifferle said. “If you’re doing your strength training, you’re basically creating a strong metabolic demand.”

The key to this is to create a high level of metabolic demand which your body would have trouble keeping up with, which would achieve the same goal as a traditional cardio workout.

“So just circuit up your strength training, that way it would be two birds with one stone,” Schifferle said.