Once all the shows on Netflix have been watched, homework at least glanced at and maybe even a page or two of a book was read, then what? Being stuck at home can be boring at times especially when there seems to be nothing to do, but what if you could fill the time and come out of quarantine looking like you could beat coronavirus with your bare hands—washing before and after, of course. This would involve the task of working out.
Along with everything else in the world right now, fitness is changing too. With gyms closed it can be easy to make the excuse that there’s nowhere to work out. Personal trainer Henry Aviles from Victory Athletics in Temecula disagrees.
“The best equipment on the planet is the human body,” Aviles said, “Humans were hunters/gatherers and we didn’t need things to make us strong, we just lived life and our active lifestyles made us strong.”
A big part of this is creativity, Aviles said. Doing things at home and outside is much healthier than a gym atmosphere. Kimberle Austin, certified nutritionist and online fitness trainer, has been encouraging this kind of activity years before quarantine made it the only option. Austin calls this “Fitness without Walls” and has committed to finding ways to get in shape and maintain a routine without ever having to go to a gym. Her routine sounds deceptively easy: walk or run one mile every day and do some kind of exercise -push ups, sit ups, burpees, planks or a combination of these- for 10 minutes three times a day.
Austin has committed to this lifestyle and is a living example of its success “I’ve been running a mile or more every day for 1600 days… it builds a routine and I have so much more energy.”
So if getting and staying in shape is that easy, why doesn’t everyone do it? Ethan Buck, PLNU freshman business major, has been working out every day he doesn’t surf ever since he started college. Buck said that over the summer before coming to Loma he would try to work out every day but something would come up like getting sick, or twisting an ankle and he would be out of it for a week or two.
“Once you’re out of the cycle it’s really hard to get back into it, so when I started working out consistently I would start saying ‘Ok, it doesn’t even matter if I’m feeling like crap, I’m just gonna go to the gym and work out,’” Buck said.
Adding on to this commitment, if there was ever a day he felt particularly lethargic, Buck said he would look up Arnold Schwarzenegger motivational videos to get inspired. Austin attests to this method of looking to other people for help to stay motivated. Accountability, whether with a coach or friend, is an essential part of keeping up a fitness routine.
“If you want to go fast, do it alone. If you want to go far, do it together,” Austin said.
But before all of this the most important step in staying motivated and committed is to figure out why you want to work out in the first place, according to Aviles. This will be the main factor that will drive your decision to keep going even on the days when you don’t feel like it.
“Ask yourself why you’re doing it, write those goals and reasons down, and then just do it,” Aviles said.
So grab a pencil and paper, turn on some Schwarzeneggger, or whoever you watch for motivation, and grab a friend who “will pump *clap* you up” because now is the perfect time to start a routine that you can continue even after more episodes of Tiger King come out.
Written By: Noah Harrel
Steve Anderson 
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