Where You Work Out Is Not as Important as Your Attitude
While being without a gym is a deterrent, maintaining that desire to keep living a fitness-oriented lifestyle motivated me to come up with viable alternatives. The process has been a life lesson.
With gyms and health clubs being either closed or people not interested in returning to these facilities due to COVID-19, it is a boon for home gym equipment and accessories and alternatives to using public gyms. Advertisements of new home-gym or exercising products appear in my Facebook feed every day. I am being deluged with fitness gadgetry. Most of the products are portable and offer “revolutionary” approaches to working out. There are bands, bows, bands-and-bars combinations, calisthenics, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, that run the gambit. It is the price I am paying for liking pages of several fitness retailers and celebrities.
Although I stopped going to my favorite gym in mid-March, when I tracked the number of work outs I missed, I was surprised that I have hardly missed many opportunities in spite of no longer having access to a gym. While my exercising sessions have not felt as thorough as the ones I did at the gym, as I enter the fourth month without going to a gym, my workouts are now on par with what I was doing previously. I have managed to continue working out. My smartwatch tells no lies.
Until my home gym, a set of adjustable dumbbells, and a dip station arrived, I used an adjustable weight bench and some dumbbells, with the pairs of dumbbells ranging from three up to 25 pounds, a set of resistance bands, a pull-up station, which fits into door jams, and a jumping rope. I also began riding a bicycle twice a week and made sure I went out running for aerobics a couple times too.
Due to having a lower range of weights of dumbbells to work with than I had at a gym, I did more reps with the poundage on hand. I also have learned how to do a wider range of exercises with resistance bands and with my pull-up bar. Doing various types of push-ups regularly, such as military, standard, diamond, plyometric, and over-and-under versions for my shoulders and chest has also become part of workouts. For my abs, I am doing to the Ab RipperX, from the P90X fitness program, as well leg raises while hanging off my door-jam pull-up station.
Workarounds
I also got a lot of help from the content provided by a couple of fitness experts, namely Jeff Cavaliere, Jim Stoppani, and Frank Medrano, in finding new ways of doing my old routines while searching for my new “normal.” Additionally, Amazon has a lot of poster-size charts available that depict workouts with dumbbells, barbells, bands, bodyweight, and more. These are available and priced at around $10 each. For about $40, it is possible to purchase hundreds of illustrated, recommended exercises. I opted for the search and snap mode instead of buying these posters. However, those same type of posters, or similar ones, are available for free by doing a search through a web browser and taking a few screen shots. There are several alternatives, with hundreds of illustrations, for various workouts. Type “exercise posters” into a web browser. There is a lot material out there.
My new additions to my exercise room are great. The equipment that I ordered months ago came in finally. So, now I am studying how to use it effectively as much as I am working out with these devices. There are numerous alternatives on how to exercise properly. Doing it without the convenience of gym put me in a learning mode that is still a work in progress.
Social Aspect and Risks
Since I am more of a loner than a social butterfly when exercising, this is turning out to be a better experience than going to the gym for me. At least I do not have to wear a mask or worry about getting infected from other people’s germs in my house.
I applaud the people who are willing to go to the gym these days. They are braver than me. I am grateful that I could make a workable transition. Maybe I would go back too if I were unable to find ways to work out elsewhere. Despite their best efforts, gym owners expecting their low-wage employees to become as effective at containing and controlling the spreading of germs as certified hazard-materials experts is expecting too much from them.
Attitude Adjustment
I have learned a lot from having to find new ways to work out. Where I exercise and the equipment I use are not as important as my outlook toward wanting to do it. That is my biggest takeaway from this experience. While being without a gym is a deterrent, maintaining that desire to keep living a fitness-oriented lifestyle has motivated me to come up with viable alternatives. The process has been a life lesson.
I am hopeful that it will help me achieve goals in other facets of life. Obstacles are opportunities to test commitment and problem-solving skills. Circumstances are rarely ideal, if ever, and it is during these times that success or failure may depend on attitude more than any other variable. While it takes more than believing that something can be accomplished to achieve it, not believing could derail an effort to solve a problem from the get-go.
I am going to have to apply this life lesson to my ability to make more money so that I can afford to pay for all this new equipment I bought. Ouch — but not sorry.
