Working [Out] From Home: A Group-Fitness Fanatic Sweats It Out While Social Distancing
In January, before the COVID-19 pandemic was on the minds of many New Yorkers like myself, I faced an exciting prospect: getting more adventurous with my workouts. I’ve been a runner for half of my life (a habit I picked up from my mother, with whom I began running through snowy Chicago winters in middle school), but a muscular imbalance brought on by not diversifying my active pursuits landed me with costly corrective physical therapy in college. Since graduating, I’d been privileged to maintain the improvements I made in physical therapy by working on and off with personal trainers, and I’ve continued to run as an adult.
But toward the end of 2019, I began to resent my gym’s expensive membership dues. Or, more accurately, I resented the significant portion of my budget they consumed, compounded by pricey sessions with a trainer (who, like my physical therapist, was highly skilled, knowledgeable, and worth the investment in her expertise).
As 2020 loomed closer, I quit my gym and parted ways with my kind and understanding trainer. For two-and-a-half months of the new year I was happy to jump into a range of group classes that I felt were newly available to a stronger me. On any given day I felt confident grabbing the 20- and 25-pound dumbbells at Barry’s and like I actually had a “core” to “activate” in SLT.
I even surprised myself by dropping a solid minute per mile on my easy runs through my hilly neighborhood route. I gathered some of my newfound confidence to regularly take Pilates and enroll in ballet classes. Deadlifting 90 pounds with an Olympic barbell on the free weights floor of my former gym didn’t intimidate me nearly as much as tendus and pliés at the classical barre.
Then, amid the CDC’s calls to socially distance and self-isolate, my day-to-day changed drastically. Not least of which was my workout routine. As New York City’s confirmed case count surged, leaving home to work out in group settings posed clear and significant risks. Soon boutique fitness studios temporarily shuttered altogether as a measure to curb the spread of COVID-19. Seemingly overnight, my fitness-related concerns shifted from “Can I peel myself away from Mad Men early enough to still wake up for my 7 a.m. class in Manhattan?” to “Is it even safe for me go?”
After a requisite period of self-isolation, my fiancé and I made the decision to leave our cramped apartment to stay with family outside of New York City. Weathering this crisis with a bit more room and the comfort of loved ones is something we’re both endlessly grateful for, but we miss the home we’ve made for ourselves in Brooklyn. While some would rather sweat in the isolation of their living room, there’s something about the energy of a group fitness class that is so motivating to me that it is almost irreplaceable. Maybe it’s the feeling of accomplishment in just making it to class—even on “rest” days my Apple watch says I’ve logged about three miles of walking and 12 flights of stairs. Maybe it’s the semblance of order that a 50-minute class offers in an otherwise unpredictably chaotic day.
Regardless, our collective new reality has forced my routine and perspective to evolve. With that in mind, these are the apps, classes, and workouts that have helped me to maintain my super-active lifestyle from home.
Nike Training Club
Bodyweight workouts don’t really do much for me. At least, that’s what I naively thought before I started Nike master trainer Kirsty Godso’s bodyweight-only “Burn” program on the Nike Training Club app. My first 35-minute cardio and legs session left me breathless, my legs and lungs burning through high-intensity intervals of exercises like burpees, skaters, lateral lunges, and forward knee drives. Every workout is a little bit different, but generally the HIIT circuits repeat two to three times over, with Godso adding subtle modifications to intensify each exercise after every round. Three weeks into her program, I can safely say it doesn’t get any easier, but I feel myself becoming even stronger with every plank, bear crawl, and burpee.
As a trainer, Godso clearly knows her stuff; her sequencing is fun, challenging, and flows really well. Her stage presence is enthusiastic and high-energy. She talks through the entirety of the class with helpful tips on form and how to get the most out of each exercise. What I really appreciate is that she only mentions how much time remains in each circuit with eight seconds or less to go, making it easier to win the mental game of motivation. Godso also maintains an active Instagram presence, often posting five-minute bodyweight circuit workouts that inspire me to add a quick round of strength training to my cardio-only days. On recovery days, I look forward to the app’s selection of yoga classes taught by fellow Nike master trainer Alex Silver-Fagan, whose soothing voice and intuitive cueing is exactly what I look for in a yoga instructor.
As far as logistics go, Godso’s program spans six weeks, each with three unique workouts focused on benchmarks like establishing foundational strength and improving muscular stability. With each training session ranging from 20 to 40 minutes in length, I find myself able to squeeze in a short workout before my lunch, for a quick active break from my work from home setup without missing a beat “at work.” Plus, the flexibility of having only three workouts each week gives me plenty of time to run, sculpt, dance, and cycle while still seeing noticeable improvements to my overall strength and endurance.
Peloton
As the years have passed, I’ve become a fair-weather runner. When the temperature dips below 48 degrees and the wind howls above 15 miles per hour, the miles I’ve planned to run get shelved. “Another day,” I tell myself. After all, this is the weather that most makes me want to curl up with a blanket, a robust glass of red wine, and the Bon Appétit YouTube channel—a highly enjoyable pastime of mine that is, categorically, the antithesis of cardio. Instead, I’ll hop on the early 90’s-era Schwinn spinning bike my in-laws salvaged from a relative’s basement and queue up a 20-, 30-, or 45-minute ride set to a playlist of pop or hip-hop music that I bookmarked when I actually felt motivated.
By now it’s well known that Peloton’s fitness app goes beyond the confines of just cycling and features a trove of yoga, strength training, dance cardio, and treadmill classes. Perhaps that’s appealing to some, but since cycling is the next closest thing to running, that’s all I use it for. The energy (and playlists) of the instructors whose classes I follow on my rides to nowhere recall the ones I’ve taken in my grapefruit-scented cycling studio of choice.
There’s also something unexpectedly comforting about the leaderboard in the interface of each Peloton class—that is, the list of other users who are taking class concurrently with me. On a recent 5 p.m. pop ride, it showed about 1,400 other riders from around the world were taking that class, too. Even when I’ve started a class closer to 9 p.m., there has been at least one other name on that screen. “Who are you? What is your life like right now? Are you also living for this sprint series set to Dua Lipa’s ‘Physical,’” I wonder. (While Peloton has paused live classes for the moment, they have an expansive library of pre-recorded workouts available on the app.) It’s a far cry from the halcyon days of high-fiving the rider next to me after a particularly brutal climb, but it’s enough to distract me from the fact that this is as close as I’ll get to that feeling of in-person, endorphin-fueled camaraderie for the foreseeable future.
After class, I’ll take a stretch, grab that glass of red wine, and take comfort in knowing I can pick up my running—a brisk three miles here, an indulgent five miles there, maybe even 10 miles as I continue to build up my base—right where I left off.
P.volve
It’s only been in the past few months that I’ve committed to adding low-impact workouts into my routine. Pilates reformer classes became my favorite way to stretch and strengthen while giving my joints a break from pounding the pavement through runs and plyometric exercises like jump lunges and high-knees. In lieu of my go-to studio classes, I’ve taken up streaming P.volve. The classes feel reminiscent of physical therapy, but in the best way! They’re methodical, and I never find myself thinking, Tomorrow, this is going to hurt. You can make do with the selection of bodyweight-only classes offered, but I’ve gotten the most out of the ones that require a few pieces of equipment: hand weights, ankle weights, resistance bands, and floor sliders.
P.volve was best suited to the confines of my apartment. Every exercise was doable in just a couple feet of free space, and every workout I tried was neighbor-friendly (read: no leaping, jumping, or shuffling to invoke the ire of those residing on the floor below me). In a perfect world I’d warm up for a Zoom ballet class by first doing a full-body P.volve workout; in reality my dancing has fallen by the wayside—thwarted by one too many glitchy video calls—and I find these classes best suited to the days when I cannot muster the willpower to entertain even the thought of a burpee. It’s recommended to start with the beginner classes, and though I didn’t find them particularly challenging, that was often the point. They served as a reset from slouching (despite my best efforts) over my makeshift desk and helped resolve the resulting imbalance from favoring my dominant side when standing.
In reality, these classes aren’t about my core strength or agility or endurance. Not really, anyway. They’re about carving out a few minutes of normalcy, moments during which my most dire concern is whether I can hold that forearm plank for 30 more seconds or if I can, as my virtual trainer insists I must, do a minute of bear crawls without the slightest shimmy of my hips. After it’s all over, I’m left with the surety that whenever the day comes, I’ll be ready to bound back up the six flights of stairs to the walk-up I call home—without so much as breaking a sweat.
Originally Appeared on Vogue
