Here Is My Favorite Workout Routine to Follow Once This Pandemic Ends
Let’s transform ourselves into athletes.
As this current pandemic started and gyms in Germany had to close, I rarely worked out anymore. Although I have been working as a fitness trainer at my local gym for a few years next to university and know how important it is to stay active, I didn’t. I was heartbroken after my weights have been locked away due to national shutdowns.
To regain some hope, I aimed to develop my ultimate fitness routine. I experimented with various types of exercises and now want to share my current plan. It’s a flexible routine, which thrives combined with a gym, but can also work without one — as arguably many people found their passion for bodyweight workouts during the past few months.
As a disclaimer, the following workout routine will be quite intense and might need individual adjustments. But if we share similar goals, you might find my routine to be a good starting point.
The Principles
Speaking about goals, I first want to explain the reasoning behind my routine. In the past, I had building muscle as my highest priority. But as I recently dove deeper into topics such as longevity and the cognitive benefits of regular workouts, my goals changed. I now aim to be athletic —a term, which needs some further clarifications.
The goal of my routine is to be healthy, mobile, and strong. I want to get rid of back pain from longer work sessions, stay mentally sharp, be able to pull my car if it breaks down, and be ripped. I broke this vague goal down into six major areas, ultimately describing a perfect all-round athlete:
- Strength
- Mobility
- Endurance
- Balance
- Coordination
- Core-Strength
My two weakest points are mobility and endurance, meaning that I will emphasize these two right now. If you are already flexible or running marathons, feel free to replace some cardio or stretching sessions with other exercises.
Another crucial aspect is that I want to stay injury-free. This will ultimately translate into lighter sets and more emphasis on the rep duration during strength-training sessions. I won’t follow a typical strength-building routine, with 2 to 8 repetitions per set, but rather aim at 10 to 15, entering an area of hypertrophy or muscle building. I will further make sure to warm up properly and listen to my body at all times.
The last principle is quite controversial. You will see that I don’t include an old school rest day. I will have one or two workouts every day, although the intensity varies. Technically, resting for one day per week is beneficial for muscle growth and adaptation because it gives your body time to recover. But one thing is even more important to improve one’s fitness: consistency. Anecdotally, I know that I am more likely to stay with a habit if I execute it daily. Therefore, any rest day could increase the risk of further missed sessions, which would ultimately hinder my progress.
The Workouts
I will use various workouts to target the six areas mentioned above. I want to tell you why I chose them so that you can decide for yourself which ones are appropriate for you and your goals.
Interval Cardio
High-intensity interval training is a perfect way to increase one’s endurance. During a session, you alternate between high and low-intensity work, for example, sprints and light jogging. Interval cardio sessions will be shorter in duration yet still be more effective in providing cardiovascular health benefits and in burning calories than usual workouts. It will also improve the muscles’ ability to use oxygen more efficiently than standard endurance training.
I mostly alternate between 10 seconds of high and 20 seconds of medium activity for 20 to 40 minutes. You could do this outdoors while running, on a stationary bike, while jumping rope, or with anything in between.
Strength
Strength training is the foundation for building muscle and strength. This can be achieved by either bodyweight workouts or assisted with gym equipment or simple dumbbells. Pick a routine that you like; my preference, however, is a full-body workout. Therefore, I will train every muscle group in one session and aim for three times a week. You could also go for a split by focussing on one muscle group each workout, but this will be quite time intensive, especially as we aim for more than solely building muscle.
Pilates
As a Pilates instructor, I may be biased in this regard, but I strongly believe that Pilates is a perfect complement to strength training. Pilates improves your core stability, which will benefit any other workout we will encounter in this plan. A strong core is necessary to achieve a good technique while doing squats, deadlifts, or similar. It will also improve one's posture and regularly prevent back pain. When we are training for various disciplines, we have to rely on a strong core. Pilates will help you get one.
Yoga
Mobility, balance, and core strength; Yoga combines many aspects that are necessary to achieve athleticism. I used to throw it into my active rest days, as it is calming and regenerative. For this plan, I am also using it to add some variation to my stretching routine. I have to work a lot on my mobility, and simple stretches will be too mundane in my estimation. That being said, I am far from being good at Yoga, which means the past few months, as well as the following, will be more of a trying to even reach the positions than practicing actual Yoga.
Coordination
As of now, my coordination workouts consist of agility ladders — which are like ladders that are lying on the floor — , juggling, jumping, and balancing. I am keeping them at around 20 minutes since I am already quite familiar with coordination training. If you aren’t, you might want to increase the duration, as improved coordination will benefit your everyday life heavily but subtly. Especially if your goal is to be an all-around athlete who can compete in every sport moderately, coordination is necessary.
Sling Training
Sling training is a fantastic full-body workout. It especially targets the core and small stabilizing muscles. It complements regular weight training by adding some variety and an improved body feeling. I sadly don’t have any slings at home, which means I have to wait for gyms to open. Once it’s safe to train there again, I will happily add some slings into my workout routine. As of now, I have already incorporated them into the plan below.
Stretching
I never really enjoyed doing stretches, but I know how important they are. As I sit a lot throughout the day, I need to emphasize stretching to reduce my risk of injury from reduced mobility. Risking to offend dedicated stretchers, I won’t heavily focus on it while doing it, but rather commit to some stretches while watching online lessons or Netflix. It will be more of a relaxing exercise than a dedicated workout.
The Plan
In the following, I will show you how I have implemented the above principles into a weekly routine. You can, of course, start on another day with another exercise, too. But you should try not to repeat the same exercise on two consecutive days. When aiming for two workouts a day, I usually have one in the morning and one in the afternoon. If there are three workouts on one day, I will do one in the morning and two in the afternoon.
Monday
Yoga
Intervall Cardio
Sling Training
Tuesday
Pilates
Coordination
Stretching
Wednesday
Strength
Intervall Cardio
Thursday
Pilates
Sling Training
Coordination
Friday
Strength
Intervall Cardio
Stretching
Saturday
Intervall Cardio
Sling Training
Yoga
Sunday
Strength
Coordination
Final words
With all that effort, there still is a golden rule that has to be obeyed: You can’t out-train a bad diet.
Everyone is different when it comes to their nutritional needs and circumstances, but if you are a beginner, I advise you to keep it simple at first. Make sure that you are eating enough protein and drink enough water. When presented with a choice, aim for the one you deem more healthy. Also, cut out sugar and processed food as much as you can.
This is not ultimate nutrition advice, but a general orientation that can lead to a solid foundation. Usually, changing one part of your lifestyle for the better will benefit other parts, too. So if you are working out regularly, you will develop a taste for healthy and nutritious food because that’s what your body needs. But also, if you are struggling to follow a routine, try to start to eat healthily, and see if you can start to do more sports with the energy you now have at your disposal.
Lastly, when following such an intense routine, you have to listen to your body at all times. You will know best when it is time to take a break or to reduce the intensity of a workout. The goal is to improve your fitness and your overall lifestyle, not to hurt yourself. Still, it is necessary to push yourself out of your comfort zone sometimes.
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