According to the BBC, one third of the entire world is under lock and key, call that lockdown. Both poor and rich countries alike are in the same boat rowing against COVID-19.
Office workers already used to sedentary lifestyles will suffer the excruciating pain of being locked down in their homes, some in tiny apartments for months on end. If you’re in Nigeria’s commercial capital of Lagos, you would have been under lockdown for five weeks now.
So how are you keeping fit under social distancing rules: no hugging, no kissing, no smooching, no nothing, as we say in Naija? Were you to be in the office, chances are that you’d be rushing from one meeting to the other, hopping into lifts, escalators and running flight of stairs to catch up with innumerable subjects to confirm your name on the payroll is not a mistake. It’s a different ball game in the home setting. Perhaps you’re locked down in your tiny library or reading room or you’re working from your couch or dinner table.
More than ever before you need exercise to boost your emotion, immune system and mental faculty. And muscle strength too, especially for adults above sixty. Richmond Dayo Johnson, my friend, coach and mentor, recently whispered to me, “To change your emotion, change your motion.” Are you changing your motion regularly to cope with the lockdown?
Rather than sending out boastful videos pumping their people up to outwork all others while the lockdown lasts, senior corporate executives should draw up exercise regimens for their far-flung staff and enforce strict compliance. One bank CEO was recently extolling his people to work hard so that should the world come to an end, they’d be the only bank standing. The only bank standing with no customers and banking ecosystem, how would such a “victory” feel?
If you’ve always hated exercise, now is the time to un-hate waking up early in the morning to engage in a few laps round your compound and doing some hip-hop in your bedroom. Luckily the Director of Institute of Information on Aging, University of Birmingham, Prof. Jane Lord, recently shared a video on simple exercises you can do all for 10 – 15 minutes right in your bedroom or office or anywhere to keep fit while on lockdown.
I call Prof. Lord’s recommended exercise regimen “The Five Must Do Exercises For The Elderly”. At any rate, anybody can do these exercises given the current lockdown. The exercises consist of five activities:
- 10 Heel raises
- 10 Leg lifts each side
- 10 Arm lifts with weights
- 10 Sit-to-stands
- Climbing stairs (as many times as you can)
If you need Prof. Lord’s video, please email me (paul@pauluduk.com) or (pauluduk@gmail.com) the phone number you use for WhatsApp and I’ll send it to you.
As far as climbing stairs is concerned, if you don’t have stairs at home, use your front porch – at least there is something you climb before stepping into your house. As for weights, you can use two bottles of one liter each filled with water, that is, one kilogram weight in each arm. You can do the exercises anywhere even in your kitchen as you’re boiling water for tea.
If you really want to take it a notch higher to prolong your lifespan by as much as 51%, you can follow the advice published on the website theladders.com. The simple advice is to take 8,000 steps daily – to prolong your life. Indeed, you will live as long as Methuselah. If you’re interested in the full research, you can get it here.
To say the world is changing fast is a tautology. You can request food vendors to deliver food to your doorstep, drive to a Domino Pizza drive-thru and get your pizza without stepping out from your car, and you can instruct your microwave oven to warm your food while a robot brings it to your library.
No need cataloging what the future holds here. The focus is exercise. But with robots doing everything your muscle will begin to atrophy, so also your brain. Don’t allow that to happen to you. Engage in simple health-giving exercises regularly, like the five exercises recommended by Prof. Lord. That’s the best way to keep fit at this time of COVID-19 lockdown and beyond.
Even much better, you can learn new skills, like making simple social media videos and/or running a small blog to share your passion while on lockdown all for mental toughness. The available technologies for making videos and setting up blogs are so simple even a 10 year old girl can do it. If you want to learn how to do a social media video within 10 minutes here is the link, and if you want to learn blogging even for fun, here is the link. Another link is here.
These links lead to awesome freebies that will educate, entertain and coach you. Indeed you have nothing to lose. Some of these freebies are so good those who know their value would be willing to pay for them. But they are free right now. Do note, however, that these links may contain affiliate programs that may result in a commission to me the writer without any cost to you. Go and keep fit mentally and physically noting that nothing worth doing comes cheap.