Nowadays, tech companies all over the world struggle with maintaining their businesses and ensuring conducive work environment for their remote employees. Regular physical exercise is what helps your team stay productive and engaged even during quarantine.
Although subsidized gym membership is no longer an option, there are plenty of workout programs that do not require fancy equipment or advanced fitness knowledge.
We asked Redwerk employees about the impact of sports on their daily lives and the creative ways they found to stay fit, and we are happy to share our ways of glowing up.
Why Now Is the Best Time for Sports?
Being away from our favorite places in town, with no way to see friends or loved ones, it’s easy to feel frustrated and under the weather. While Netflix binging sessions might come to our rescue at first, new ways to unwind are necessary.
Regular exercising is the right way to get motivated and energized for the day on lockdown. Once you look at the science of staying fit, you’ll realize that even short, yet consistent, workouts make a huge difference and allow you to forget about continuous struggling to make it past Friday.
According to studies, regular gym sessions promote brain cell growth, improve nerve strength, and enhance the release of endorphins. The impact of sports is undeniable – so much so that health practitioners often prescribe cardio and strength-building as an antidepressant.
During the pandemic, global health organizations emphasize the importance of exercise as regular training brings the following benefits:
- Increases immune system resistance
- Sharpens cognitive abilities
- Reduces likelihood of developing heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and depression
- Helps to maintain healthy body weight
After talking to each other in the team, we realized that even those who never cared for sports pre-lockdown now taking up exercise – here’s why:
“This is simple for me. If I skip my workout, it’s so much harder to do anything later throughout the day. I need to train early in the morning because in such a way I feel more powerful and ready to face the struggles of the day,”
says Evgeniia, Quality Assurance Specialist.
“Because I didn’t have particular fitness goals, working out regularly didn’t make much sense. However, the pandemic made me appreciate being healthy and strengthened my desire to stay this way for years. Now I definitely work out to future-proof my health,”
mentions Daniil, WordPress Developer.
Types of Workouts Redwerk Employees Do at Home
There’s more to working out than abs exercises and squats. Depending on whether you aim to lose weight, get stronger, or meditate, there are dozens of stay-at-home workout programs to help you get in shape.
Here are all types of training our team chooses while we are locked down at our homes:
Cardio training
When you think of cardio, consider all exercises that raise your heart rate. According to fitness coaches, this type of training is one of the most efficient ways to lose fat since blood flows to active muscles – stomach, legs, and arms. Toning your body is not the only benefit of cardio – make changes to your workout plan as moderate amount of cardio brings the following gains:
- Strengthens your heart
- Improves your lung capacity
- Reduces the risk of diabetes, heart attack, and other cardiovascular diseases
- Helps to fight depression
- Increases bone density and strength
Top cardio exercises during quarantine:
- Dancing – dance hip-hop, Latin bachata, or anything else, swaying to a good tune is enjoyable and helpful if you want a fitness makeover till summer.
- Burpees – switch between a plank and a jump while keeping your back straight; this one is especially good for maximum calorie burn.
- Jumping jacks – swing your arms and legs at the same time while keeping the core tight; a great total-body exercise with plenty of variations for you not to get bored.
- Squat jumping – change your position from sitting in a squat to jumping up; burn the calories and tone your legs simultaneously.
- Jogging in place – download a step counting app, set a fitness goal, and jog until you reach it; remember to put on your favourite music to last longer.
- Running the stairs – run up and down a flight of stairs to warm up the muscles and tone them; as simple as that, yet still efficient.
“Granted, cardio sessions at home are not what they used to be outside. However, now that we don’t move so much, I feel like there’s no way around it and do at least 15 minutes of cardio a day,”
shares Olga, Office Manager.
Strength building
A lot of people at Redwerk are bored to do cardio without being able to go to the swimming pool, dancing classes, or outside for a morning run. If that is the case for you as well, consider working on muscle strength instead. If you are hesitant whether plank and ab workouts are a good idea, take a look at the benefits of these programs:
- Maintain your muscle mass. If you are over 30 years old, losing muscle mass due to aging is inevitable. In fact, we start shedding off about 5% of muscle mass a year after crossing the midlife bridge.
- Stabilize your body weight. Strength-building workouts increase your metabolism so much that calories continue burning long after you’ve exercised. This way, after doing strength training, you will be losing fat for the rest of the day, even if you aren’t too active.
- Improve your posture. Strength training improves the sense of balance and coordination. Basically, the odds of you falling in a crowded subway will be much lower if you work on strength building during quarantine.
- Manage your chronic diseases. Health practitioners highly recommend resistance exercise to those suffering from arthritis or type 2 diabetes.
Types of strength-building exercises during quarantine:
- Squats – perfect for strengthening your lower body and core. Squats mostly target glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings, hip flexors, and calves; however, since this is a compound exercise, your core muscles are also engaged.
- Push-ups – suitable for toning the upper body. Push-ups work chest muscles, shoulders, biceps, triceps, abdominals and some back muscles. With variations in the position of arms and palms, you can focus on the specific muscle groups you want to isolate.
- Plank exercises – great for workouts limited in time. Maintaining the correct plank position engages all of your body muscles. Once the basics are covered, you can also add modifications to further enhance your stability and endurance.
- Lunges – fit for middle-level sport enthusiasts as they require a certain level of stability in your knees. Being a compound exercise, lunges target multiple muscle groups simultaneously – glutes, hamstrings, quadriceps, and calves. You can also spice up your fitness routine by switching between different types of lunges, such as static, walking or side lunges.
“The quarantine really gave my confidence and decision-making a hit. Strength building reminds me of what I’m capable of and encourages me to not slack off and hustle harder,”
says Denys, .NET Developer.
Yoga and stretching
Now that we are amidst uncertainty and chaos, relaxation and mental tonus are crucial. That’s why a lot of our employees rediscovered yoga during the quarantine. Indeed, the benefits of learning and practicing poses regularly are undeniable – here is what yoga can do:
- Tones and strengthens your muscles
- Improves respiration quality, sense of balance, and mental tonus
- Increases body resistance and lowers injury susceptibility
- Balances out metabolism
- Assists in losing weight
Types of yoga exercises to practice on lockdown:
- Mountain pose. Stand straight with your shoulder blades slid down the back, the heels anchored down, and the chin raised up. This one helps stretch out your entire body.
- Raised arms stand. Keeping the mountain pose type of stand, raise your arms up and down slowly.
- Bending forward while standing. This exercise is perfect for stretching your hamstrings out. You can either have your feet together or at the hip level.
- Lunge stand. Put one foot in front of the other and lean on it when going down. Shift the balance from the left and right leg. Stay down for five breaths before alternating legs.
“I love yoga because it doesn’t feel like exercising – I do it as a way to get me-time and relax. Getting toned and healthier is definitely a nice bonus,”
comments Olga, UI/UX Designer.
5 Useful Fitness Instagram Accounts to Follow in Quarantine
Deciding to workout is already a huge step towards a fitter and healthier body – however, this is only the beginning of the long improvement path. To stay inspired through the highs and lows of your workout routine, you need to rely on someone for guidance and motivation.
The good news is, a lot of fitness bloggers have become especially active during the quarantine, posting #StayAtHome fitness programs and live streams. We asked our team around and collected these accounts our developers, marketers, and other professionals follow to stay fit.
Yoga With Hanan
Instagram: @yogawithhanan
This Instagram account is full of daily yoga inspiration – you will get to know new poses every morning, find about the right breathing techniques, improve your stress resistance and motivation to practice. Other than useful tips and tricks, Yoga With Hanan hosts regular live streams – make sure to check these out.
Chloe Ting
Youtube: Chloe Ting
Famous for her two-week shreds, Chloe Ting is the queen of summer glow-up. On this Youtube account, you will see a ton of abs, glutes, plank, and waist workouts. Some of these are extremely beginner-friendly while others are quite intense – choose your favorites and shred hard during quarantine.
Rachael’s Good Eats
Instagram: @rachaelsgoodeats
This Insta account is exactly what being “wholesome” means. Here, you will find a lot of tips for stay-at-home workouts, along with smart nutrition hacks and habits. Whether you want to get stronger, lose weight, or start eating balanced meals for the sake of your health, Rachael’s Good Eats is your go-to place for ensuring you get fitness and dieting right.
Romee Strijd
Youtube: Romee Strijd
If you have hopes of getting a supermodel-like body by the end of the lockdown, take pointers from the best. Romee Strijd, a worldwide-renown model and a Victoria’s Secret Angel, runs a Youtube channel where she regularly shares workouts, meals, and routine habits.
Whether you are just curious to see how a world-class model spends a day on lockdown or are ready to make radical nutrition changes, you will not regret subscribing to Romee.
Natacha Oceane
Youtube: Natacha Oceane
If you want to have a rational, science-backed approach to fitness, you’ll enjoy watching Natacha’s videos a ton. Here, she shows both beginner and advanced workouts, debunks fitness myths, and helps incorporate regular exercises into your daily life, making sports a lifestyle, not an obsession.
It doesn’t matter whether you are into fitness for health, rocking beach looks, or professional goals – either way, this Youtube channel is gold.
5 Fitness Apps to Get in Shape at Home
Faced with the lockdown, a lot of people find refuge using fitness apps for home training. Apart from preventing your body from excessive strain, your virtual fitness instructor will also monitor your progress and encourage you to keep going.
Here are the top 5 apps Redwerk team uses to find killer workouts while we are stuck at home.
Nike Training Center
This Nike-backed application is essentially a personalized fitness trainer inside your smartphone – here, you have customized training programs, hundreds of cardio and strength-building workouts that require no equipment (not even a mat), and videos accompanying each exercise to show you how it’s done.
Fat Burning Workout
Download: Android
This application helps people lose weight with a customized 30-days plan. None of the exercises require additional equipment. Also, you can tweak the workout in line with your dietary habits and make sure you don’t skip a single workout thanks to built-in reminders.
8Fit: Workouts and Meal Planner
This is one of the largest workout catalogs out there – there are dozens of sets for men and women, beginners, and advanced athletes alike. All programs offered by 8Fit are grouped by categories – cardio, yoga, boxing, pilates, strength building, martial arts, and others.
Other than that, there’s a built-in meal planner that will help you see the effects of regular workouts faster since you will be eating cleaner as well.
Flexibility Training and Stretching at Home
Download: Android
This free fitness app mainly focuses on body stretching and flexibility training. You can choose a program that matches your fitness goal – be it full-body stretching, lower-body flexibility, injury recovery, etc.
All workout plans are customizable – you can specify rest intervals as well. The app is great as you can choose the training pace and make sure you don’t strain yourself.
30 Days Workout
Download: Android
This is another favorite within the team. This app is great thanks to the wide range of available workouts. The catalog includes ab exercises, yoga poses, glutes programs, and many other programs. Other than that, you can use a built-in meal planner as well, choosing among healthy vegetarian, vegan, and non-vegan dishes.
Conclusion
Taking care of yourself during the lockdown is crucial. Even if beach-ready body seems to be the least of your worries, finding 15-20 minutes a day to exercise will make a noticeable difference in how you feel: you will be able to boost your stamina, increase overall energy level, and help your body fight any health threats.
Hopefully, the tips Redwerk team shared were helpful in organizing the ultimate workout routine. Stay safe, healthy, and remember to wash your hands.
