Thirteen Days Of Fitness

One of the biggest changes COVID wrought for me was losing access to my gym. It was closed for about six months and even after it reopened, I made the difficult decision to cancel my membership. This was not a small thing for me as I had been a regular (3-4 times per week) gym-goer for about 20 years. While my gym was closed, I started doing at-home classes through LES MILLS, whose branded classes were ones I had done at various gyms and was familiar with. I soon realized (with the benefit of working from home for more than a year) that working out at home was both more convenient (working out when I wanted to) and cheaper (a LES MILLS subscription is $13 a month, my gym was $70) that what I had been doing. Yes, I did miss the camaraderie of group fitness and the competitiveness of working out with people younger than me, HOWEVER, I was not prepared to risk my health for whatever benefit those things offered.

So how did I do it? For about $100 I bought an array of hand weights and I cleared out a roughly 15x15 area in my basement to work out. In other words, if I could figure out how to jerry rig a part of my house to work out and for not much money, so can you. I also came to realize that the convenience of working out at home resulted in my working out more. I now work out six days on, one day off (most of the time) and just finished thirteen days in a row while I was off from work for the holidays. Here is what I did:

Dec. 22 - Grit Athletic 37

Dec. 23 - Grit Strength 34

Dec. 24 - Grit Athletic 28

Dec. 25 - Body Combat 80

Dec. 26 - Grit Strength 36

Dec. 27 - Body Combat 88

Dec. 28 - Grit Strength 38

Dec. 29 - Body Attack 116 (30 min.)

Dec. 30 - Grit Strength 28

Dec. 31 - Body Attack 114 (30 min.)

Jan. 1 - Grit Cardio 36

Jan. 2 - Grit Strength 39

Jan. 3 - Body Combat 80

One of the things I like about LES MILLS is the variety of classes. The "grit" programs are high intensity interval training (HIIT) classes in three varieties - cardio, strength (weight training), and athletic (which usually has a combo of cardio and strength), body combat is basically kick boxing, and body attack, is HIIT-adjacent and mostly cardio focused. In other words, you can mix things up and always feel like you are getting a good workout. I am sure there are other companies offering similar types of workouts, but LES MILLS is the one I use. 

Best of luck to all trying to reach their fitness goals!