Sev­er­al ex­er­cise and fit­ness en­thu­si­asts in T&T were elat­ed when May 10 sig­nalled the pub­lic's re­turn to out­door phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty: run­ning, walk­ing, hik­ing.

There re­mained the rec­om­mend­ed re­stric­tions, wear­ing a mask (ex­cept for high-in­ten­si­ty ex­er­cise), no groups larg­er than five per­sons, and the main­te­nance of so­cial dis­tanc­ing.

Posts and sta­tus­es filled with dis­tance and time read­outs and sweaty self­ies bom­bard­ed the so­cial me­dia net­works the fol­low­ing day. How­ev­er, much to the dis­may of gym users and con­tact sports ath­letes and coach­es, they would not be able to re­sume their usu­al gym or sports ac­tiv­i­ties.

Phase two of T&T's re­open­ing be­gan on May 21. Still, gyms and con­tacts sports re­mained off the list of busi­ness­es and ac­tiv­i­ties that got the nod to re­sume op­er­a­tions. As a coach and in­struc­tor, I can un­der­stand the dis­ap­point­ment and frus­tra­tion. It has been two months since the doors of Fine Line Fight Fac­to­ry closed. We had been ex­cit­ed­ly look­ing for­ward to re­sum­ing prac­tice.

Al­though ath­letes and recre­ation­al par­tic­i­pants are en­joy­ing the on­line ses­sions, they are get­ting rest­less. They are itch­ing for the 're­al thing' and are ea­ger to re­turn to the gym. Al­so, a closed busi­ness means no in­come and no funds to pay the rent.

But, we un­der­stand the de­ci­sions un­der­tak­en by the gov­ern­ment since it is cru­cial to main­tain the health and safe­ty of our ath­letes, fam­i­lies, and our­selves. Some gym fa­nat­ics ar­gued that since restau­rants were opened, then gyms should have al­so been al­lowed to re­turn busi­ness. Per­haps they did not con­sid­er that chefs and ven­dors can wear a mask more com­fort­able than some­one rep­ping out bench press­es or squats. Or that one can­not train through de­liv­ery or curb­side pick­up.

In the mean­time, coach­es and ath­letes can pre­pare how they will re­sume train­ing. To avoid in­jury and fur­ther down­time, one should be care­ful about how they re­turn to sport af­ter this quar­an­tine/lock­down pe­ri­od. Many are cur­rent­ly con­duct­ing and par­tic­i­pat­ing in on­line ses­sions; there­fore, the tran­si­tion to 'nor­mal' prac­tice should not be too dif­fi­cult. How­ev­er, for those who have been idle or did not have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to main­tain their fit­ness, there are some things to con­sid­er.

A grad­ual restart is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed. Like the pe­ri­odiza­tion con­cept, one should start with a prepara­to­ry phase. It mere­ly means be­gin with more vol­ume and less in­ten­si­ty. A good sug­ges­tion for those who were in­ac­tive since the lock­down is that now would be an ex­cel­lent time to warm up those mus­cles and re-in­tro­duce them to work­ing out! Get those kilo­me­tres and miles in - run­ning is a good sup­ple­ment for any sport.

Be mind­ful, though; it may not be wise to tar­get a very long run im­me­di­ate­ly, even at a low in­ten­si­ty. Start with what you are com­fort­able with and then in­crease the dis­tance each time you put those run­ning shoes on. The next step would be to de­crease the time on those miles.

An­oth­er ex­cel­lent way to gain or main­tain fit­ness is per­form­ing cal­is­then­ics. Ac­cord­ing to shape.com, "cal­is­then­ics is re­sis­tance train­ing with your own body­weight." For ex­am­ple, pushups, pull-ups, squats, burpees, lunges, jump­ing jacks, etc or just about any ex­er­cise per­formed with­out ex­ter­nal weight re­sis­tance.

Caliath­let­ics.com states that these ex­er­cis­es will help a per­son to build mus­cles, get lean­er, burn fat, stay flex­i­ble (in­di­rect­ly), and de­vel­op strength, ex­plo­sive­ness, and body con­trol. It is al­so im­por­tant to be­gin these ex­er­cis­es grad­u­al­ly. Aim for prop­er form and tech­nique be­fore fo­cus­ing on more reps and sets.

Pre-COVID, I trained on an av­er­age four times a week. A mix of box­ing (punch­bag), run­ning, and weight-lift­ing. As a for­mer ath­lete who strives to main­tain a de­cent lev­el of fit­ness, even I fell vic­tim to lethar­gy dur­ing the first few weeks of the lock­down. The man­i­fes­ta­tion of two and a half pounds on the scale was proof. How­ev­er, hav­ing to teach my col­leagues, clients, and ath­letes on­line, I was pret­ty much forced to get up and get go­ing.

That meant I had cal­is­then­ics ses­sions, in var­i­ous forms - Taba­ta, HITT (High-in­ten­si­ty in­ter­val train­ing) – at least five times a week, some­times twice a day. I had to start slow­ly, as did my charges. A month lat­er, there was an over­all im­prove­ment in the car­dio­vas­cu­lar en­durance and strength of my on­line stu­dents and my­self as well. And the two and a half pounds has since dis­ap­peared off the scale.

But, how would I fare when I re­turned to my usu­al ten-round ses­sion on the bags? Would I be able to start as I left off, or would I have to take it slow­ly?

A few days ago, I got the op­por­tu­ni­ty to find out. En­sur­ing I had three bot­tles of wa­ter on stand­by, I wrapped my hands, donned box­ing boots, and grabbed a jump rope. There was a de­lay as I de­bat­ed whether to set the timer for two or three min­utes of work time. I de­cid­ed to com­pro­mise; I'd do 2.30 work time, with a minute rest pe­ri­od. Start care­ful­ly. That first round seemed rather long, and the rest pe­ri­od was much short­er than I an­tic­i­pat­ed. A quick check on the timer re­vealed that I'd se­lect­ed the wrong time pre­set.

Af­ter my warm-up, I al­ter­nat­ed be­tween the kick and up­per­cut bags through­out ten high-paced rounds of three-minute work time and 30 sec­onds rest. Sur­pris­ing­ly, my punch­es felt strong, and my kicks even stronger. Fa­tigue rarely both­ered me. I felt gid­dy more from de­light rather than the heat and hu­mid­i­ty present at 1.30 pm. I think it was be­cause I felt strong and con­di­tioned; the ef­fects of cal­is­then­ics and even­tu­al con­sis­tent train­ing dur­ing the lock­down had paid off.