By Alysse Caldwell & Madison Haller
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writers
Before COVID-19, when there were no stay-at-home orders or concerns about congregating inside, Carlos Santiago was a regular at Planet Fitness in Towson. He visited up to four times a week for solo exercises, which mainly consisted of cardio and weightlifting.
Since last spring, his routine has been interrupted. The gym closed in April for three months. And he was laid off from his job as a kitchen manager at Cinemark Reserve in Towson. Suddenly, Santiago found himself spending a lot of time at home. He felt sluggish and was inactive, lacking motivation to work out during the stay-at-home order. Santiago realized that while he was confined to his apartment, he was eating more than he did before. In addition to three meals a day, he constantly snacked. Takeout and fast foods became a regular part of his diet, and because he was at home with little to do, food was on his mind all the time. He knew something needed to change when he looked in the mirror and was no longer content with what he saw.
“I felt I was much more defined pre-quarantine for sure and I absolutely gained fat in my lower mid-section and thighs,” Santiago said. “Once I looked in the mirror and could physically see a difference, I knew immediately I needed to do something right away.”
He could no longer rely on having a job where he was on his feet constantly. He noticed not only that his physical health was deteriorating, but also his mental health. Figuring out how to regain motivation and become active again was an immense challenge.
Santiago is one of many people whose routines were upended this year with the onset of COVID-19. Many people were sedentary during the first months at home. Once it became clear that the pandemic would stretch on, people had to figure out how to get active without leaving the house. Want evidence that people got motivated? More and more people began searching for terms like “at-home exercises,” “exercise videos,” and “exercise classes.”
In 2020, home is where the workout routine is. And routine is important. Without one, people suffer from poor sleep, stress, poor diet, poor physical conditions and ineffective use of time, according to medical experts. This story will explore how people have made the best of their situations during the pandemic and tried to get active.
The importance of working out during the pandemic
During the pandemic, people have to get creative with ways to stay healthy and keep a routine. And there’s evidence that, at least in the early stages of COVID-19, people weren’t doing a very good job of that. According to Statista, in April, 27 percent of Americans over the age of 18 stated that they were less active than they had been before the pandemic. Unfortunately, physical and mental health go hand in hand, so when one is lacking the other often suffers, too.
According to the Mental Health Foundation, “Poor physical health can lead to an increased risk of developing mental health problems. Similarly, poor mental health can negatively impact on physical health, leading to an increased risk of some conditions.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 40 percent of U.S. adults reported struggling with mental health and substance use after the onset of COVID-19. There are a lot of reasons why: fear of getting sick, a reduction of daily activities, social isolation, among them.
The CDC study found that symptoms of anxiety disorder were three times higher, and symptoms of depressive disorder were four times higher than the previous year. Research consistency shows that being active can help reduce mental health problems.
Dr. Karla Kubitz, an associate professor at Towson University who specializes in sport and exercise psychology, said working out is important to keep people mentally and physically healthy.
“Physical fitness, physical activity decreases anxiety and depression,” Kubitz said. “They help create something called physiological toughness, which is a change in a number of stress hormones that is beneficial to health and to emotional stability.”
Given the many unexpected changes that people have faced from the pandemic, it is now more important than ever to emphasize not only the physical benefits of exercise, but the mental ones as well. When people’s routines are interrupted and people are isolated, it’s easy to give up workout routines and fall into bad habits.
Fitness can improve self-esteem and self-efficacy, which is what a person thinks about their physical capabilities, Kubitz said. Exercise has also proven to make people more confident about their physical appearance. And finally, while it’s easy to think exercise causes fatigue and tiredness, Kubitz says it is quite the opposite, and that exercise energizes people.
Space for the home gym is at a premium
One challenge of working out from home can be a lack of physical space. Isaiah Jefferson, who lives in Wilmington, Delaware, has always enjoyed fitness. Jefferson played soccer the majority of his life but decided to take some time off from the sport when he entered college. All the while, he continued to keep physical health a top priority, spending an average of five hours at the gym per week. There was even a time when Jefferson decided to encourage a group of his friends to join him at his workouts. They agreed, and the group met on Tuesday evenings at their local gym, working out and bonding over shared experiences throughout their workweek. Now that gyms have closed down and indoor workout options have significantly decreased due to the spread of COVID-19, Jefferson has been forced to figure out other means of exercise within the safety of his home.
“It’s been super tough,” Jefferson said. “I try and stay motivated and all but it’s just hard with everything else going on.”
Jefferson lives in a busy home, with five other people including a dog named Snoopy who Jefferson said barks excessively while he is on the treadmill in his basement.
“It’s pretty much just non-stop distractions but my treadmill is my happy place,” Jefferson said.
Jefferson can’t work out in person with his friends, but he’s tried going online to find inspiration.
“I’ve gone on YouTube a lot, which has been really cool with like finding things in your house to use as workout equipment,” Jefferson said. “The craziest thing I found on there was using bottled laundry detergent as weights, so I’ve been lifting a lot of Tide detergent around the house.”
Another person facing her own set of challenges as a result of the pandemic is former Zumba instructor Anya Colney.
“Fitness has always been a passion of mine,” Colney said. She took a 12-hour class with two of her friends and became an instructor in Anne Arundel and Howard Counties.
“Outside of my kids, it was literally the highlight of my day,” Colney said.
Fearful of contracting COVID-19, Colney stopped conducting classes at the end of March. She misses the joy that her clients would bring her as they joined in on her sessions.
“I would often get somewhere between about 17 people in my sessions, sometimes 20 on a good day which was usually like a Saturday,” Colney said.
Living in Ellicott City, Maryland, with her two children, Hannah and Gracie, Colney has faced many challenges in working out from home.
“Mommy? Mommy? That’s all I hear all day long,” Colney said. “It’s tough. I mean, it’s really tough trying to stay fit while being a mom with young kids, but exercise is my peace.”
After going a few months without working out at all, Colney noticed a severe change within her physical appearance and decided to take part in a virtual fitness program that promotes healthy living and time management called Obe Fitness.
“While the girls are sleeping, I sneak in a good 45 minutes to an hour of cardio in my basement,” she said. “It doesn’t compete with my live workouts with my clients, but it comes in a close, close second.”
Colney is continuously looking for new ways to incorporate fitness into her daily routine and is even interested in finding workout activities she can do with her young children. “The girls and I do everything together and I know they’d love to join mommy in a workout so that’ll probably be next on the list of to-dos.”
Keeping up a routine without a gym to attend
This summer, Santiago used the resources he had available to get back to a routine without a gym and all its equipment at his disposal. At home he already had a pair of dumbbells, a pull-up bar and a weighted jump rope. But since he wanted to add some challenge to his outdoor exercising, Santiago bought a weighted vest to wear on hikes and runs. Though these tools don’t compare those at a gym, they gave Santiago a sense of direction in his venture to exercise again.
“I was limited to whatever I had, obviously to bicep curls, pull ups, cardio with the jump rope and cardio running with a weighted vest to add some sort of increased resistance,” Santiago said.
Since Santiago’s second-floor apartment was a less-than-ideal location for exercise, he decided to utilize many of the hiking trails and parks around him while gyms remained closed. It was also a better alternative to staying inside, since he expressed how difficult it can be to stay on task while at home.
“At home, your bed is right there, and all the food is there, so it’s hard to just stay focused on trying to work out when every single vice that can deter you from that kind of activity is just right in your face,” Santiago said.
Not having a designated place to exercise can put a huge dent in progress because it takes away having a sense of direction, a wide variation of tools to choose from and a specific time in one’s routine.
Santiago was able to overcome these difficulties by reaching out to two close friends dealing with similar circumstances to see if they would be up for hiking. They were all feeling isolated and out of sorts, and they decided it would be worthwhile to take Santiago up on his offer. By exercising together, they were able to motivate one another and have something to look forward to doing. After seeing how beneficial it was to simply get outside and do something, Santiago was inspired to build it up to a routine, and frequently utilized many of Maryland’s parks and trails for exercise.
Gyms want to bring people back
Even though people are trying to find space at home, gyms are trying to persuade people it’s safe to return. Some gyms have reopened with limited capacity, many people, yet Colney, like many others, are not yet going back. Giresh Tiwari, 27, a manager at Planet Fitness gym in Alexandria, Virginia, has been working hard to keep gym goers safe and comfortable when entering his facility since reopening in August. Having faced his own set of health challenges, including high-blood pressure and severe leg pains, Tiwari said that COVID-19 should not prevent people from keeping fitness a top priority in their lives.
“Four years ago, I went into the doctor’s office one way and came out with a totally different view of myself,” Tiwari said. “My doctor told me at twenty-two that my system was suffering. I had super high-blood pressure, pain all over and I just didn’t know how bad I had gotten.” Since this time, Tiwari has lost more than 32 pounds and has dedicated his time during COVID-19 to maintaining his health.
“COVID hit business hard,” Tiwari said. “Now we’re trying to get folks back in. We’ve been cleaning like crazy.”
Tiwari said he and his staff have gone the extra mile to ensure customer safety by spraying down machines, among other things. “We make sure no one is within six feet of each other and if we see they are the team has no problem politely asking the client to move down a few machines, and usually they comply.”
Tiwari has made it his mission to intensify his weight loss initiative during this pandemic. Adding healthier food options to his diet such as an array of fruits, veggies, beans and fibers, Tiwari has felt his system “reboot” and is thankful for the push that the pandemic has given him.
“I had to change a lot of what I ate, which wasn’t that bad, but because there is less ways for me to be on the equipment at the gym, I still have to shed the weight somehow and I feel better.
“Honestly who knows when this will end,” Tiwari said of the pandemic. “But working out is your own escape, you know? It’s helping your body and even your mind to take control again instead of worrying about COVID chaos. It’s like an investment where were investing in our health and well-being.”
How to build a lasting exercise routine
Kubitz said there are several roadblocks that must be overcome before a person begins exercising. People sometimes think they don’t have the time or tools available. They can feel unmotivated. They can be psychologically unprepared to exercise, or physically unable. Evaluating these roadblocks on a person-to-person basis can reveal which ones stand in one’s when it comes to physical fitness and routines. Luckily, there are ways to encourage people to feel they are reading to exercise.
This so-called four-way model helps people feel they have the opportunity, motivation, psychological capability and physical capability to exercise.
How has COVID-19 impacted your worktout routine? Take this survey.