Shelter-In-Place Exercise Regimen

We all know how important exercise is in our lives . We also know, at least if we are reminded, that there are many kinds of exercise other than what happens in the gym, many different muscles which each need their turns, all of which require a variety of activities to fit the bill. Under shelter-in-place orders, one often has to become creative to accomplish it all.

I've been thinking I haven't been getting any exercise these last several weeks. So I decided to keep tracek of what I actually do, under what circumstances, and how often. Following is a compilation, as well as I can make it, considering a somewhat swiss cheese memory.

Most frequent is a trip down the hall to the bathroom. If you have to ask the reason(s), your memory is in even worse shape than mine. Nevermind. Distance is usually from my chair in the living room to the bathroom, although it can often be combined with many or most of the following exercises. Let's just call that efficiency. After all, efficiency was one of the principles making isometrics a fad. Pushing or pulling two things against each other gives twice the workout for one.

Next most frequent is the trip either to or from the kitchen. 90% of these trips are getting food, returning food either to the refrigerator or the garbage, returning used dishes. Sometimes they involve a return trip to remove something from the microwave, as there has been a return to the living room during cooking time, just to exercise those sitting/standing muscles. Occasionally these trips
 involve hand washing, depending on the sloppiness of the food in question, or the amount of capsaicin remaining on fingers. Hopefully that latter issue is discovered before the fingers go in the eyes. Um, nose too.

Not that I do that, of course. Ever. Purely a hypothetical example.

Ahem.

Now that weather allows, there is a once daily trip around inside the house to open windows, followed by a later one to close them. This exercise will soon be replaced by an early trip to close windows followed by a late one to reopen them as the comfortable part of the day changes. It has been noted that this exercise is often combined with such things as a trip to the bathroom, kitchen, or even one to the den for filing paperwork or procuring stamps and envelopes. These last do not get their own slot since they are always combined with at least one other exercise, and I'm not going to cheat! They may, however, include extra hand and arm exercises, useful in providing balance to one's regimen. One must always be mindful of being well-rounded. One's exercise regimen should be also.

Three for four times a week there is an evening trip out to the garbage can. There is never more than one trip, as all that needs to go out can be carried in a single trip. A few extra steps may be added, along with a slow stretch to lean back and look at the sky in search of whatever can be found there. This of course follows the long stretching dip to ground level, the lift of the lid, swing of bag(s) over to the hole, release of bag(s) and of lid, and return to full stand. On rare occasions, there may be an extra turn-pause-turn to scope out the neighborhood, although there is never anything much in the way of a reward for that extra aside from maintaining balance.

Twice a month there is a series of trips to fill the recycle can, return the smaller containers to their spot inside the house, then return to the can, lift the lid and with a controlled but powerful series of fist impact motions, secure the lid in place. This is actually an excellent exercise, as sun and rectangular shape have combined to warp both can and lid to quite a challenging combination of bad angles. Following that, the can is walked down the end of the driveway. This particular series of exercises are finished, as are many of the others, by the lowering of the body into the living room chair, doing leg raises while controlling the lever which is the end goal for foot positioning. It is never sufficient to just walk back and forth. Legs and glutes need their own bit of cross-training.

While it has not been mentioned that the vast majority of these exercises also include the major lift out of the chair to a full stand at the start of the exercise, it should be assumed. This is hands-down the most often employed exercise available in the house!

Small muscle exercises are also useful for maintaining conditioning these days. Throughout the day there are the finger strengthening exercises employed while managing the TV remote, pulling the lamp chain, using the cell phone, surfing or posting on the web. Larger muscles are also employed, such as lifting the laptop from its table onto the lap and back again. While much less frequent than the accompanying finger exercises, they must not be undervalued, as they are a necessary part of the process. There are also the frequent stretches required to accomplish locating and reaching for the proper charging cables, nail clippers, blood pressure cuff, pen and paper, and - neither last nor least -  miscellaneous items which might be covering and hiding Steve's phone. In fact, in his role of encouraging exercise, his phone is often employed in such activity. He's really a big help.

Once a week or so, there is an actual daylight trip around the yard. Because it is daylight, another exercise precedes it: a shower. This is one of the few exercises which requires frequent lifting of the arms above the shoulders, another necessary stretch. In turn, it is followed by a series of grooming and dressing exercises. During this process one can manage a whole series of facial exercises as one looks in the mirror and practices reacting to what one sees, or imagine one sees, reflected there.

Grooming rarely requires more than a single trip to the closet, but always more arm lifting. Combined with puling our and pushing in drawers, ones arms can get a really valuable workout! Often this also requires reaching down to the floor to grab discarded items of clothing, followed by the lift to place them into the clothes hamper. Occasionally arm lifts are so extreme that they involve an extra walk down the hall to include Steve in the process of turning the back of a collar to its appropriate position. This can actually involve several tries, enabling both partners to get some unanticipated exercise, often followed by more facial exercise, particularly in the lips.

Once one is prepared for the appearance in public, there are more exercises. These involve stretches to locate the camera case and bring it into useful range, then manipulating both zippers into position where the lid can be lifted and the camera removed, then using those same zippers to close the case before the final stretch to replace the case. These keep fingertips in shape for the more frequent keyboarding uses, which i turn keep the fingertips in shape for manipulating zippers. It becomes a very productive feedback loop.

Now one of the big exercises begins.

There is walking around the yard to locate subjects suitable for shooting, repositioning to enable various positions from which to capture the desired images. and occasional pushes against the house to facilitate the previous activities without losing one's balance and falling into something very omnipresent and stabby. Balance exercises also come into play simply as one walks across the rocks covering the yard. It's fabulous for that. There is the occasional rock relocation and weed pulling to enable a satisfactory photo. Occasionally, though rarely, there is even a repeat of this whole cycle of exercises, justified merely by the claim of needing better light.

For variety, after one's shower, there can be an actual outing! While car doors are extremely heavy, they are generally well enough balanced that it rarely pulls a muscle in the process of opening or closing. Deep knee bends allow one to enter the car, and the process can be reversed with a full body workout. Neck swivels, eye positional shifts, and various arm and leg movements are all employed in getting to the destination and locating an open parking slot. A long hike often follows, though if one thinks it hasn't quite done the trick, one can always pretend lack of memory of the location of several list items and wind up panting after a pleasant cardio workout by the time the check-out is in sight.

Much lifting is involved once there, collection items, removing them from cart to conveyor belt, placing bags back in the cart, and after the hike out to the car, placing them inside. If that's not enough, one can also refuse offers of help to empty the car once home and make several trips in and out. Items can also be sorted, placed in a variety of locations at a variety of heights, opening and closing a variety  of doors. This is truly the major exercise of the week.

But one is still not done. Those bags can now be distributed to the various garbage and trash collection receptacles around the house, replacing the full ones needing to go out curbside, thus completing a full cycle.

The use of these purchased items employ more exercises, often involved in other trips around the house previously mentioned. If by some miracle there were TP, it could involve a trip to the bathroom, a deep bend to place said fictional TP under the sink, and the opening and closing of the doors involved. However, this is often also used as a regular bathroom trip, so only the storage exercises count here. Same for prescriptions, toiletries, and other neverminds. Remember: no cheating in the count!

There are also all the exercises needed in preparing food items for consumption, whether scooping through frozen ice cream, opening boxes and microwaving the contents, spreading toppings on toast, pouring beverages from their bottles or by pushing the bar on the freezer for cold water. one of the most delicate series of exercises is transporting these items without spillage into the living room as each is ready. Note that all the above include opening and closing of often heavy doors, often multiple times.

Exercise even happens in the depth of sleep. Blankets get moved up or down, depending on temperature changes. There are all the whole body rolls throughout the night, depending on how uncomfortable pressure on any given point becomes, or how cool/warm the pillow has become. All this seems to be in aid of that supreme exercise of the day: lifting one full human body from a low horizontal position, first to a full sit-up, then to a full stand. This last also serves as a full rapid start of the first trek to the bathroom of the day, and the next cycle of exercising.

There is also the option many mornings of a strong cardio workout, but this cannot be planned ahead of time as it requires waking suddenly out of a nightmare. It can be debated whether one wishes for the benefits of that particular workout or desire to fill in for it by substituting other exercises. Again, I remind you it is not often an actual choice, and one quickly realizes upon fully waking that the car is not actually lost and life is not as scary as one's unconscious would have you believe.

Oh, didn't I mention cleaning? You're very observant.