Obviously when Covid 19 took the world down, and destroyed life as we knew it at the time pretty much everything we ever did took the ‘from home’ title. Working out from home initially was obviously a good thing. There was a novelty about it, it was new and we kept seeing how people were using initiative to create effective ways to train. My personal favourite was probably the wheelie bin back squat but other variations did pop up every now and then.

The beauty about all of this new hybrid working or flexible working is that it can be a valuable asset, if something pops up in the new normal day to day life, its really quite simple to be able to just work from home, and as it happens now, working out from home is no different.

At the time when people weren’t allowed into the office, and they had to work from home the take-up on becoming more active was actually quite high. Cycle retailers amongst other exercise equipment outlets report huge increases in turnover during this period. We as a fitness provider saw the price of equipment rising on a daily basis.

With all that said, now everyone is a little more used to it, is working out from home as effective as it was when it first came about? Ultimately, if its the difference between getting some training into the diary, and burning calories or not burning calories it can only be a good thing. With all the good stuff to come out of this ‘from home’ stuff, it still doesn’t strike me as being the most productive. Yes, I know people get a little more time back so they can allocate it towards things they’d rather be doing but there’s a lot you miss out on. Just like with work, there’s something about going somewhere to train, the social atmosphere and seeing people you don’t always see, and that was taken away with the whole ‘from home’ mentality, because it became about yourself, a screen of some description, watching someone else do something in front of a screen, and meetings are pretty much the same now.

The things you miss out on in the training world are the specialist equipment, amongst other things. Obviously, we did well to source equipment early on as lockdown first hit to help our own clients keep up with their training purely by way of maintenance. We’re two years on from that, and yes, the majority have returned to going out to gyms to train but there’s still a large proportion of people still stuck doing the same 20 minute quick fix every other day, with equipment, weights, and at intensities that are no longer a challenge. The lack of challenge also serves as a lack of progressive overload stressing the body, which basically rolls down to a lack of progress and may actually stimulate regression where the individual actually starts to revert back to a state closer to when they started out.

Above all else I think most people understand that we want people to be productive with their time. We want to help the time crunched exerciser to be able to execute the most beneficial, up to date training that will achieve results with the little time they have, but its like anything else on that front and the best way is to  get on board with something you have to turn up to. Something to keep you accountable. It is a well known fact that a schedule or routine improves accountability, and improving accountability in turn improves the quality of the results you seek.

If you’re still working out from home, I strongly urge you use this as a fallback option. Find somewhere established. Somewhere committed to delivering results to people like you, at an intensity you can deal with for the long term.