Finding your space - in lockdown

Preface, the following breaks from my typical blog entries from Diabetes and tech, but thought it might be good time to write about this.

New Zealand is in lock-down (at time of writing), in fact most of the world is in lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19, this is history in the making.

Lockdown was announced on Monday the 23rd of March in NZ with a 48 hour window to migrate from a then effective stage 3 to stage 4. All gyms started to close around the country within hours of the announcement. Some gyms like the ones that my flatmates and myself frequent started to offer loaning out of equipment.

This certainly helped cushioned the blow for many people who would classify the gym “a second home” but did not have equipment at home to do workouts.
If you are gym owner/operator and you offered this to your members, you are to be commended!

My flatmates and I then proceeded to pickup equipment that was on loan, and placed it in the living room floor, now what? Then you might have been like me, I don’t have space or location for it to live!
Time ticked, the living room floor turned into a maze of where to put your feet to walk, but my flatmates and I were kind of trying to ignore this obvious maze we had given ourselves.

The very next day waking up and seeing the equipment all on the floor, the issue really needed to be dealt with and a space needed to be made.

Up until this moment I was dreading thinking about working out at home as the things I had become accustomed to where no longer there. I would suddenly need to adjust to the change.

I started to look around the property and house, saw an area outside under the eves of a covered deck, that looked good but was full of stuff. We then committed to the idea that we all needed to workout over the 4 week period, allot of cleaning and sweeping and tidying up the area ensued.

The area then was ready for use! Once we saw the tidied up area, we were instantly ready and motivated to get into a workout.

Strange isn’t it, that feeling of reluctance and dread turned on its head by simply removing a blocker.

Realising we had an “Gym” so to speak, I then remembered feeling this way before. I had this exact feeling when I switched gyms just over a year ago. Just as the change happened then, it’s happening again. Whether I liked it or not this would be my gym for at least for the next 4 weeks.

This meant treating the area as any one of the gyms I frequent, a place to sweat it out, scrape shins and collapse after a good WOD.

That means getting out of the usual lazy day boxer and t-shirt combo and into some apparel more fitting for the “gym”.

When doing this without realising I was giving myself the typical non-verbal cues and prepping myself and headspace for working out, exactly as I would feel if I would rock up to my usual gyms.

The walk to the “gym” provided the same cues as driving to my normal gym. Knowing that work needed to be done, and this was the place to do it really helped.

First workouts were done in the “gym” on that day and felt exactly the same if not better than my usual gym sessions. I have less than 1/5 of the equipment that a gym provides, yet I got a sesh done with the same if not more intensity.
Even if I had less or no equipment on hand, it wouldn’t stop me from accomplishing a thorough and strenuous workout, with similar muscle groups from being targeted.

This leads me to this point, its all about headspace. Make room in your place,but most importantly your head. Identify blockers or things are dragging you away from doing your best both physically and mentally, especially during this time.

A lack of equipment will not deter an athlete to do his/her best during difficult times with the correct mindspace.

Lockdown and the ramifications of it will no doubt be a challenge, but we have the opportunity to overcome this hurdle and fight Covid-19 in more ways than one.

Keep strong everyone.

Tim

Some abbreviations used:

WOD = Workout of the Day

BOX = Crossfit Gym