Stuck at home during COVID-19? A workout can still work for you

Gina DiPietro 0:06
COVID-19 has changed the way many of us exercise, but that doesn't mean you should stop. Welcome to Novant Health healthy headlines, I'm Gina dipietro. These days workout gyms once easy to pop into during lunch or after work often or open fewer hours or have crowd limitations. In this episode, Dr. Adam Culver, a Novant, Health Sports Medicine Specialist talks to Cliff Martens about how you can get creative and shape your plan around working out at home. Thank you for listening.

Cliff Mehrtens 0:39
Tell me the top three exercises, in general I can do with limited equipment, the things that are most beneficial for me if I have 30 or 40 minute window two times a week.

Adam Culver 0:52
So I would say rather than one or two exercises, I could categorize things and types of exercise and you know, you want to hit every, every group of muscles you can within that type of exercise. So I'd say I'd say resistance training. And if you could do anything to target the literally all muscle groups, you know, we we use there. And then cardio, of course, so trying to do something cardio wise that you're getting a full body experience, whether that be you know, most easiest thing to do obviously is run you know, which, which you can, can do at home. If you know if you're around the community, if you layer up in and want to do it outside, that's an option if that is not, you can certainly run in place. And you know, of course there a portion of our population who will have the ability, you know, have some extra options in terms of a peloton or a treadmill, things like that, obviously. But those those two things cardio and resistance training would be to two big groups. Again, if I had to, if I had to pick exercises, if that's more what you're looking for, I would say planks, I would say squat. And there's an exercise called a good morning. I would say though,

Cliff Mehrtens 2:53
what about people who who fell in love with weight benches in their gym, or they really feel like they have to have a set of free weights which are hard to come by these days on

Unknown Speaker 3:03
online.

Cliff Mehrtens 3:04
There's still ways to build muscle without machines. Correct. You talk about resistance training, how can I do that if it's just me staring at the wall.

Adam Culver 3:14
So there's bands and actually your, your body provides you know, using the right way can provide a whole lot of resistance that you can use to build your core muscle groups. So with with squats, you know, the great example of that push ups. So we're actually using our, our bodyweight for for that resistance. And sometimes when you max out there, let's say you are pretty, pretty slight person and you may be looking to put on some, some mass. You know, if if the person feels comfortable, you can you can improvise with things at home, if you've got some experience with with weight. And there are YouTube videos about about how to do that.

Cliff Mehrtens 4:16
People in the military, they go through training and they don't run them through, you know, Gold's Gym, they're out in a field somewhere. You know, there's no fancy equipment, you know, in the barracks there, they're doing they're using resistance based on what they want.

Adam Culver 4:31
You realize, you know, you don't need much. If you can find a find a something to simulate a pull up. You know, you would with those kind of complex movements, you are hitting a lot of muscle groups that are vital. So, you know, if you if you can somehow simulate a pull up or you know, actually put up pull up bar. I mean, that's a lot of what they doing in the military is just using those using complex movements that are just weighted by their body.

Cliff Mehrtens 5:13
North Carolina is not a frigidly cold place. And like you said, If you lay around and you run, the first five minutes might hurt. It does maybe a little bit, but after that, a lot of times I'm peeling off because it's it's getting warm bodies. No, I'm starting to build up some heat. Is that really just an excuse? Oh, it's too cold outside.

Adam Culver 5:34
There may be days, there may be times of the day that you particularly have to work out they say, five in the morning, where sometimes it may get get in the 20s get in the teens or, or what have you, and you don't, you just don't want to do it, then that's when you, you know, you go to run in place or using using stairs that you may have at home. But definitely, I mean, there are people in much colder climates than what we're in who are committed to getting out and running. And it's just layering up and having that commitment to do it.

Cliff Mehrtens 6:14
Talk about the online component. There are plenty of things you can do, like you said, from the peloton to YouTube to you can do a yoga video online? Or is that a good suggestion for people who might not be as willing to go outside?

Adam Culver 6:30
Yeah, I think it's, I think it's great. What, what YouTube and other apps that are just strictly dedicated to work out do is they remove that excuse, they remove that excuse of, Oh, I don't have anybody to tell me what to do. Or, you know, the doc gave me these papers A while back and told me I should work out like this. And I don't have anybody to demonstrate what that looks like. So you know, YouTube and some of these workout videos and apps, I mean, you have a one stop shop, or somebody's giving you a demonstration on what to do. And giving you motivation, you know, because usually there's some sort of, you know, you got an instructor that's leading you through everything. So that's where we, you know, we've got to come in with, with our motivation and commitment to kind of complete that circle. Yeah, on YouTube, you've got a range of channels that that you can go to define whatever you want to do, whether it's yoga, Pilates resistance stuff, high impact interval, or high intensity interval training. I mean, it's all there. It's true at whatever, whatever, you know, experience level you're at with a beginner at an intermediate experienced. So

Cliff Mehrtens 8:06
if you found Utah to struggle because of COVID-19 restrictions working out at home, or are they more adaptive, they're just like, Okay, well this is where I am going to do this regardless. So I'm just gonna figure out a way to work my way out by changing the hours and changing the equipment I use or stuff like that people are working person is gonna be a workout person, no matter what.

Adam Culver 8:29
You know, I've run into people all across that spectrum. I've got some patients who were avid gym goers before it became not as safe to go to a gym and they are really struggling with figuring out how they can get the get their workouts in at home. And then you know, I've got people on the other end of that spectrum who were not the avid gym folks but especially as the new year has come around have just taken that approach. You know what I'm not gonna let COVID take 2021 from me, too. And you know, just have gotten after it so yeah, I think what we had to do is really figure out what is it about the the gym that we miss, is it the camaraderie you know, talking in the locker room with with folks or just being in the gym with other people who are like minded trying to everybody's working towards a goal. You know, what, what is it that I'm, that I'm missing that you're missing? And surely there's a way at home where you can at least simulate some of that may not be the exact same but you can get some of that back. Oftentimes now like a lot of folks are working from home So it and we struggle sometimes with that, I guess the, we're doing the sa...