Hiya. I hope you are all coping ok with lockdown etc and managing to keep yourself motivated.
Anyway today I have decided to take on board an idea one of you gave me. Someone asked me how I am keeping myself fit and healthy during quarantine and that is what I’m writing about today! Enjoy!

First of all I want to put it out there by saying you don’t have to do what I do. I do a lot of sport in general and if I wasn’t keeping fit, when I go back to sport I will not be as good as I was. Don’t feel pressured to do these things just because I do!! 🙂

Family

Back when we first went into lockdown, our family decided to set a challenge. We live at the bottom of a hill in a small village and are very grateful and lucky to have large amount of countryside to exercise in.
On one of our family walks my mum came up with the idea to do a ‘Hill Challenge’.
The aim was/is for all of us to separately set a time for how long it takes us to get from home to the top of the hill. Then over the course of lockdown we have to try and reduce our time and whoever reduces their time by the most, gets to choose a restaurant to have a meal at after this is all over.
My first time was set at 17mins and over the next weeks I reduced it by 5mins and my time now stands at 12 minutes. I am currently leading the challenge.
The idea was that it would help us keep fit and help us all want to keep fit, to push ourselves. My attitude (being incredibly competitive). is that I just want to win!

Setting Goals + Charity Runs

Setting challenges are a good way to keep fit and I have been setting myself personal ones too. I recently took up running and with my birthday money, purchased a FitBit. I am hoping that by the time lockdown ends, I will have beaten previous times and hopefully am able to run further. As we live on a hill I have been doing shorter but more difficult runs up the hills around us. Hill training is incredibly good for your body. It increases your leg and core strength and helps build up stamina. I am lucky to have a 3K route from my house that is steep up hill, downhill to the village and then uphill back home. I also have a very good 5K that has some good hills in it too!
Another challenge is to try and raise some money for charity. This coming Sunday (17th May) my mum and I are taking part in the Eve Appeal’s 5K challenge. The aim to is to raise £20 for each person who will run, walk or however they want to do a 5K. It isn’t huge but it makes you want to exercise as you know it will benefit other people!

CLUB

I am part of a hockey club who have set up a programme for the U18 girls. It is a 5 week programme and you have lots of different things to do. Each week there is a compulsory exercise and then other exercises to do optionally.
The compulsory exercises tend to be things like a 5K as fast as you can, 15min time trial, 4 mins on, 2 mins off, 3K/4K as fast as you can etc etc. We then send in our times and results each week and they put it in a table of results to see how we improve in the coming weeks.
It is a nice thing to do as you know that everyone else is doing it so it almost makes you feel as if you are doing it as a team. The aim of it is to make sure we are all as fit as we were when we left so that when we go back we can step onto the pitch as if we never stepped off it.

Cycling

My bike has also been a very useful thing to help me keep fit. Right at the beginning of lockdown my sister, mum and I headed out to buy some new bikes with our holiday money we now don’t need. We have been very fortunate to have some great cycle routes all around where we live and we can go so far in not a very long time. The other day, my mum and I cycled to St Andrews, ran a 5K round the Old Course and cycled home again. Having a bike makes keeping fit a lot easier and more accessible.

YouTube

YouTube workouts and programmes have been excellent too! After every run or cycle, I have come home to do a stretch using YouTube on our Apple TV. If you don’t have Apple TV you can always just use YouTube on your own device. Stretching is very important and it has really helped keep me on form as I often get shin splints from doing a lot of hard court sport.
I also have hopped on the Chloe Ting trend and am doing her 4 week summer shred programme on her website: Chloe Ting 2020 Summer Shred Challenge
I am only 5 days in and have not seen results yet but I always feel good after the workouts and I surprisingly enjoy them!

Another surprise is that I am actually eating better. I know that people go on about eating a lot during quarantine but I am eating healthier than I usually would. If you think about it, I eat a lot at school and always have dessert at lunch. Whilst we have been at home I have been having smaller, more nutritious lunches and have limited my between meal snacks. Drinking water is very important and water is all I am drinking at the moment.
I usually try and do my exercise for the day 2-4 hours after I have eaten my lunch as that is when you burn the most calories and it tends to be cooler than exercising in the heat of the day.

Also it means you have let your lunch digest and you are less likely to have a stitch, especially if you have a glass of water and stretch before you go run/cycle/workout.

These things are all what I do and have been doing to keep myself fit during quarantine!
Obviously this isn’t a blog of me telling you how to keep fit. These are just things I have been doing to keep myself as sporty as I usually am. I make sure to do something each day no matter how big or small and have found them good ways to distract me from the more negative aspects of lockdown.

Hope you are all doing ok and I’ll write again soon!

Stay safe!

Martha B x