In just half an hour you can perform this series of exercises that will allow you to maintain your physical shape, with the weight of your body or with a little more strength or endurance



Since the Government of Spain approved the state of alarm decree on March 14, the population must stay at home to reduce infections and minimize the impact of Covid-19. The restrictions imply that we cannot go for a walk, walk, run, ride a bike, go hiking, go to the gym ... But this is not an excuse for us not to be able to continue maintaining a healthy and active life these days. There are infinite resources that will allow us to continue obtaining the undoubted benefits that sport supposes for our health also at home and, why not, help us to make this period more bearable without leaving.

It is widely demonstrated that lack of mobility, when extended over long periods of time, can cause us to encounter joint stiffness problems, lose muscle strength and mass, increase respiratory problems we may have, circulatory problems appear, etc. Furthermore, this lack of mobility can affect our mental state.

To begin with, we have a multitude of 'apps' to play sports from home. A large number of them are free, they are available for both Android and iPhone and in them we can find training plans appropriate to our physical form and the objectives we intend to achieve, helping us to stay in good physical shape, even if we have to stay quarantined for several days. Also many sports professionals make exercise routines available to us on video platforms such as YouTube and on their social networks. In addition, it is a good time to dust off that exercise bike, elliptical or treadmill that we bought in its day.

Another resource that we can choose is, to walk, do it between the farthest ends of the home for five minutes every hour. A good alternative if we do not have a reasonable space is the 'simulated walk', that is, walking without advancing by raising your knees alternately.

It has been shown that lack of mobility can cause joint stiffness problems and that we lose both strength and muscle mass

There are several exercises that we can do easily and for which we will only need our own weight. If you are more used to doing sports, you can add some weight or resistance with a backpack on your back with objects inside (controlling the weight with the bathroom scale) or use some bottles of water, cartons of milk ... It is important to define a routine . There are lots of examples, but basically the following should be considered:

  • We warm up with a simple activity. About 10 minutes of light jogging.
  • We went on to do two or three sets of basic exercises like 10 squats, 10 sit-ups, and 10 biceps curls with some weight.
  • We end up doing two or three sets of some exercise that requires more effort, for example, 10 push-ups or 10 'burpees'.
  • You can finish with a good series of stretches for five or 10 minutes.

In just half an hour you can perform a good batch of exercises that will allow you to maintain your physical shape during this quarantine. It is important to vary the exercises and not do the same thing every day, as well as trying to establish a fixed time to do the exercises.

In addition, there are other basic guidelines during your stay at home:

  • Forget about the bed and the sofa. It is not only about exercising, but respecting the usual hours of rest and not spending extra time in bed.
  • Control what you eat. The less movement, the less calories we spend. Adjust your needs. Continuing to eat a healthy and healthy diet is not at all incompatible with quarantine.
  • It is important that we establish an exercise routine that is based on both our real possibilities and working on four basic abilities: flexibility, speed, endurance and strength.
  • Of course, if we are sick or with symptoms of coronavirus, forget about sports.