We are now goodness knows how many weeks into lockdown. At the start of all this my Facebook feed was full of ideas on how to keep busy - learn a new skill, daily workouts, books to read. Perhaps you went straight to Duo Lingo, started to learn Italian and are now onto woodworking, cultivating bonsai trees and Zooming your workouts twice a day (as well as watching Tiger King, obviously...).
However, for others this period had been very challenging - and with the lockdown in Northern Ireland being extended again this doesn’t take away the pressure for many of us. We know that exercise can play a massive role in keeping ourselves sane and keeping well but are we managing to get more active during lockdown?
In the past, the public health message about taking more exercise and being more active seems to have fallen on reluctant ears. Even adapting our physical environment in towns and cities with bike paths, greenways or providing opportunity through public-hire bike schemes, free parkruns, etc, has still left many of us falling short with 45% of NI adults not achieving the recommended 150 mins of moderate level activity each week (2018/19 Health Survey Northern Ireland). Busy lives, our changeable Northern Ireland weather and a lack of motivation were perhaps to blame for our laid-back approach to getting active.
It would seem, however, that in telling us that one of the only ways by which we can lawfully leave our house is by taking daily exercise might be working to get us more active! Recent data from a Ipsos Mori poll is showing that 25% of us have upped our activity levels since lockdown and the Office of National Statistics is reporting that 52% of us are using outdoor exercise to cope with the crisis and 31% agree that indoor exercise is helpful.
Whether you are pounding the pavements every evening, taking the kids out for a bike ride on deserted side streets or turning your living room into to your own personal version of the Pineapple Dance Studios by pushing the couch into the corner and cha cha cha-ing the night away with FitSteps online, keeping active will definitely help us all get through this.
If you want some help in getting more active, don’t forget I am not just a FitSteps instructor, personal trainer and Pilates teacher. My full-time role is to work for Belfast Trust with people with chronic health conditions and type 2 diabetes and devise achievable and effective workouts regardless of age, disability or medical condition.
Contact me for FREE consultations on how to keep active, try some of my FREE FitSteps workouts live with Zoom or on demand through my website for FREE with sign up.
We will all get through this.
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