So, you are stuck at home; can­not go to work, can­not go out with friends, no more evening foot­ball with the boys. The frus­tra­tion lev­el is ris­ing. The past four months have seen dra­mat­ic changes sweep­ing across the globe, re­sult­ing in se­vere re­stric­tions on free­dom of move­ment. It be­gan in the Hubei province in Chi­na where a com­plete ‘lock­down’ was im­posed to try and con­tain the spread of COVID-19. Over the past two months, the pace of ‘lock­downs’ rapid­ly ac­cel­er­at­ed as coun­tries across the globe fol­lowed the ex­am­ple of Chi­na. Par­tic­i­pa­tion in phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty and oth­er recre­ation­al sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties have been af­fect­ed as gyms, pub­lic parks and all oth­er sport and recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties have had to close their doors in com­pli­ance with gov­ern­men­tal re­stric­tions. For­tu­nate­ly, for our high-per­for­mance ath­letes, who have had to cur­tail train­ing, the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee fi­nal­ly saw it fit to post­pone the Olympics.

Whilst the re­stric­tions be­ing im­posed are un­der­stand­able, it has sig­nif­i­cant im­pli­ca­tions for peo­ple’s abil­i­ty to meet the stan­dard rec­om­men­da­tions for en­gage­ment in phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty to main­tain health and well­ness. This will, in turn, have an ad­verse ef­fect on chron­ic dis­eases, which can be an even larg­er killer than COVID-19. It is a known fact that the longer you take a break from ex­er­cis­ing, the more dif­fi­cult it is to re­sume. Since no one is sure when re­stric­tions on free­dom of move­ment will be re­moved, we must think of al­ter­na­tive and cre­ative ways to con­tin­ue to en­gage in phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty and not sit around wait­ing for life to go back to ‘nor­mal’.

One of the main bar­ri­ers to ex­er­cise is time. For many of us, that bar­ri­er has been re­moved. As you sit at home try­ing to fig­ure out what to do with your day, set aside 45 min­utes to an hour for ex­er­cise. For those who con­tin­ue to work at home, you can now use the hour or more that you spend dri­ving on the road each day to ex­er­cise. Build-in this time in­to a dai­ly sched­ule at home. Two oth­er com­mon bar­ri­ers to ex­er­cise are cost and not know­ing how to ex­er­cise. So, you can­not go to an in­struc­tor but maybe you can have a con­ver­sa­tion with your gym in­struc­tor about de­liv­er­ing your work­out via phone in­stead of you go­ing to the gym. For those who can­not af­ford to pay for a pri­vate in­struc­tor, tap in­to the nu­mer­ous, freely avail­able videos on Youtube and fol­low the on­line in­struc­tor. You can find work­outs rang­ing from low in­ten­si­ty, in­door, walk in place pro­grammes for be­gin­ners to high­er in­ten­si­ty in­ter­val train­ing. The va­ri­ety is end­less. Work­outs range from dance aer­o­bics to kick­box­ing, high-in­ten­si­ty in­ter­val train­ing and var­i­ous types of yo­ga. Sim­ply type what you want in the search en­gine.

Mo­ti­va­tion to ex­er­cise is an­oth­er com­mon bar­ri­er. Per­sons who par­tic­i­pate in group ac­tiv­i­ties of­ten de­pend on ex­ter­nal mo­ti­va­tion from the group to keep them go­ing.

This can be main­tained by set­ting up work­out groups us­ing so­cial me­dia or video­con­fer­enc­ing ap­pli­ca­tions. Group mem­bers can agree on the work­out for the day and en­cour­age one an­oth­er to be­gin the ac­tiv­i­ty at the same time. Video­con­fer­enc­ing op­tions al­low you to see one an­oth­er as you work­out to­geth­er and pro­vide ver­bal en­cour­age­ment to keep go­ing. Now may al­so be a good time to form a new group as you work on get­ting the fam­i­ly to ex­er­cise to­geth­er in the home.

Space to ex­er­cise and equip­ment are al­so cit­ed as bar­ri­ers in the lit­er­a­ture. For those who live in homes with yard spaces, you can still go out­doors and walk around your yards but for those con­strained to apart­ment liv­ing, the chal­lenge may be greater. Now would be a good time to look at how you can re­or­gan­ise your liv­ing room or bed­room. You will be amazed at how much calo­ries you can burn work­ing out in con­strained spaces.

You like do­ing weights at the gym and you do not have these at home. There is no bet­ter weight to work with than your own body weight. Go on­line and check out the body­weight strength work­outs that sim­ply use your own body to pro­vide the re­sis­tance you need to build strength.

Fi­nal­ly, you do not have in­ter­net ac­cess at home or have very lim­it­ed ac­cess. Why not turn on some up­beat mu­sic for 40 min­utes and have your per­son­al dance par­ty. You can per­fect your ‘win­ing’ while burn­ing calo­ries.

Re­mem­ber to keep hy­drat­ed and if you feel ill or show any signs of be­ing sick, do not ex­er­cise un­til you get clear­ance from your doc­tor.

Dr Sharmel­la Roopc­hand Mar­tin can be reached at sharmel­la.roopchand­martin@uwi­mona.edu.jm