I took on the second week of trying to get into shape while practicing social distancing in the comfort of my apartment.
I own no workout equipment and cringe at the thought of investing in some only to eventually find it unused when either this workout kick or this column ends.
I could look at a list of workouts and just do them, but that makes the workouts feel as isolating and alone as they actually are. What I need is some encouragement.
So I turned to Youtube where there exists a whole world of “follow along” workouts by this generation’s version of Richard Simmons, Jack Lalanne, Jane Fonda and Denise Austin.
I searched for the shortest workouts I could find so I could get them over with, but also knew that meant some of the shorter workouts were also supposed to be intense as well. While my only memories of myself working out were super intense in high school, those memories also made me never want to do anything like that again.
With my body much different and my killer instinct gone from the tough football player I was as a teen, I had to humble my ego down. I had to look for stuff that would not lead to me cursing the instructor’s name and scaring my neighbor’s children.
I found back in January possibly the most gentle 10-minute workouts from a channel called “Body Fit by Amy.”
The petite blonde Amy Schemper has videos dating back six years and had a pleasant, encouraging style that was free from the sunshine and rainbows super positive energy and caffeinated energetic style that some other people have leading a workout. I don’t like that vibe.
I mostly picked her because when I typed in beginner 10-minute workouts beginner, she had a couple of videos specified for beginners that required no equipment.
On Saturday and Sunday I did both of these workouts. One was cardio and the other targeted abdominals.
Like with my past experience with both of these videos, the workouts were almost too easy for me despite my fitness level. She gave easier alternatives to every exercise and even with me doing mostly the more challenging action, my muscles were not burning afterwards. At most I had picked up a light sweat.
I could do the video again like she recommended in the video if it was too easy, but the reason I picked 10-minute long videos was so I could be done. Still, while my muscles were not burning I had gotten up off the couch to do something during the weekend, but to make this more interesting I knew I might have to push myself more during the week.
I looked back into Amy’s back catalogue for an older 10-minute video. I looked for one that would not recommend me going to the ground like the ab workout.
Her most popular video with more than five million views was a 10-minute full-body workout that featured a kettle bell. I improvised and found two of the heaviest books I own that maybe together weighed five pounds. They would have to do.
This video did not have beginner in the title and I found out that was a mistake. While it is far from the hardest workout I have ever done, the many squats, lunges and general activity got my muscles burning halfway through more than the two workouts from the days before.
While I finished the workout, I might have skipped some reps on some particular exercises since my legs already felt like jelly. The only thing that made me feel better was contrasting Amy’s positive supporting tone with my now negative, out of breath tone.
While the workout was labeled as full body, my sore legs that still have a bit of soreness three days later, say otherwise.
While I didn’t want to go quite as hard as I did on Monday the final two days, I wanted to at least feel some soreness that I did not get from my first two days.
I had not done an arm workout yet. This was mostly because I figured it would feature a lot of pushup varieties that I was not keen to do or require some sort of free weights I did not own.
I remembered Amy had a beginner arm toning course I did back in January, but I remembered it as possibly the easiest workout of the bunch. It consisted mostly of doing generic lifts with dumbbells with nothing but flexing your arm muscles as you did it and doing a decent amount of repetitions.
I decided I would do that, but add my books and try to do a lot of reps until I felt something like a burning sensation. It worked to a degree.
You lift any amount of weight 20 times above your head and unless you train yourself that way you will feel something. Pushups were involved, at one point, with options to do them on the wall or knees, but I just did as many of the normal ones as I could. While the number was not high, I felt the burn and still feel a bit of it two days later.
With my legs and arms now sore, my final day I wanted to end with my abs feeling similar. I wanted to avoid getting on the floor and tried to look for a beginner labeled ab workout that was standing.
Looking through her videos, she did have one of those but it did not have beginner next to it and it looked like it required a chair. I learned my lesson from the non labeled beginner video before and since I never have any company over to eat, I don’t own a chair.
I settled for the on the ground beginner ab workout from the second day. This time, like the day before, I made sure to pick up the pace until I felt something was happening with my abs. It worked and a day later I can say getting out of bed this morning was a little tougher due to my sore core.
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