Working Out At Home Benefits Us Mentally As Much As Physically.

For decades I’ve stated that working out keeps me sane. That’s not entirely an exaggeration.

Like most creatives —I’m a writer, a photographer, a fine artist as well as graphic artist— I freelance in most cases, and at various times in my experience work opportunities have more or less dried up, leaving me worried. I might have been worrying when I walked into the gym back then, but soon after, and for hours following my leaving the gym, much if not most worry evaporated because, “workout.”

Working out clears your mind. Working out is a great way to get out of your own head, but even more immediately rewarding is seeing the pump you get, the sweat glistening, and meeting the challenge of completing the workout.

I moved to a rural area in 2005 where the closest gym was an hour’s drive away. That’s when I resigned myself to working out at home 2 or 3 times a week as I could not hack every day spending 2 hours driving so as to complete a 90 minute workout. I bought a doorway chin-up bar, a pair of 20-lb. dumbbells and a $25 set of fitness bands. I scoured YouTube for videos to get ideas of how to adapt to the new (for me) dynamic of working out at home.

Because I had that skill set based on actively researching, then building a routine, I am not complaining as many gym addicts are during this crisis. I have the wherewithal to get in a good workout that approaches 90% of what I do in the gym.

I have long recommended YouTube for this but people in the past excused themselves for not having the time to wade through a lot of videos. The majority now do indeed have the time. If you don’t know where to start, go to Google and search “best home workout videos Youtube” “best fitness band workout videos Youtube” and similar such phrases to get a running start.