I was lucky to get resistance bands and those have been working well at least.

Having a long ass commute and a dog to attend to meant my life was pretty much office and home. I was always too exhausted to consider a serious workout routine. However, since shelter-in-place started I've lost a ton of weight, gotten amazing sleep and never felt physically better. I've been working out daily and walking/hiking on the weekends, if anything, just to get out of my house.

I've also cooked all my meals because I've made it a personal goal to get abs by the end of the year. So I want to know what I'm putting in my body.

This has become a life changing moment for me, so I don't see any reason why this wouldn't be true for others. If the pandemic threw you off your old daily routines, and that's your only reason for giving up healthy habits, were you really committed in the first place? What would have happened if you simply moved or started a family or some other life changing event in the future? Would you just give up your routine then?

This reality seems heavily biased by people with long commutes.

Unfortunately most companies that I have worked with (or might work with) seem to have adopted productivity-killing open plan offices, which are absolutely terrible.

Even when I spend 8 hours in a horrible open plan office, I end up doing most of my actual work at home. The office hours are simply to keep supervisors happy, to attend mandatory (often unnecessary) meetings, and to remain visible.

I was in the same boat and I recommend taking a look at the Stock and Shipping Thread in Reddit's /r/homegym subreddit. [1] I joined their discord/stream for a few weeks and was able to be on top of gym equipment re-stocks and got what I needed pretty quickly, cost being MSRP.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/homegym/comments/i5ect0/stock_and_s...

If you're just interested in general fitness, no equipment needed, there are any number of online workouts to follow that will give you a great whole body + cardio workout using nothing more than your body weight.

(though I bought both a spinning bike and a set of dumbbells at the beginning of quarantine... I've finally reached the point where the dumbbells aren't quite heavy enough for everything, so I've been watching eBay for a good deal on additional weight plates since as you noted, it's hard to find workout equipment)

(Btw, yoga with adriene is a very good YouTube yoga channel)

I've been thinking about writing an app to let me turn some of these follow alongs into an interval timer where I could just say the name of the pose (so I could do other things while doing the yoga). Then I could always click on the pose to go back to the video. Does that sound of interest?

Similarly, one friend is double my level in Ring Fit and we send photos back and forth egging each other on, and another friend is constantly sending me YouTube videos of how to do perfect plays in Just Dance and showing me her score and has hacked the group play mode to work remote by streaming the host screen by video call.

How could someone not find a schedule that works for them now that they just need to turn on YouTube whereas previously they had to go visit a gym or a trainer? It's way easier now, as the Forbes article states.

My answer to that question is having children while no longer being able to outsource childcare.

You can also use children like a kettlebell. They love it and it's a great workout. The two year old also loves to help me with push-ups and planks by climbing on or under me.

> Definitely not my experience. I was going to the gym regularly before: lifting weights and cycling. Post pandemic I've lost 5 pounds thanks to cycling outdoors, swimming outdoors, lugging heavy bags camping in the wilderness, Ring Fit, Just Dance, Box VR, Audica, Beat Saber, yoga and pilates TV shows, and first one set of resistance bands and now a second more advanced set. Started doing acroyoga with my girlfriend, which is a blast.

Am I reading this wrong? You said "definitely not my experience" and then validated everything he said. Looks more like "definitely my experience".

My wife is just like you. She went from daily workouts in the gym to daily workouts with Nike Training, running outdoors, and Yoga with Down Dog. I'm in the other camp, I went from very regular (but not daily) training in the gym and schedule-permitting Muay Thai to a month of depression to a few weeks of inconsistent home workouts before I finally fell into a great routine that's close to my wife's but with more weight training. My wife had made fitness a big part of her life for years and she was used to changing it up; I had a routine that I was happy with but it was a struggle to even get there and when it changed, I had a really hard time building up momentum again.

These are just a couple anecdotes, everyone is different, but I know more people whose experiences are closer to mine than my wife's or yours. It probably has a lot to do with the circles we all travel in -- I don't know a lot of people who were very fit before COVID so I'm less likely to know them now -- but I don't think we should overlook how challenging it is to change fitness habits. I think we're entering a great age of home fitness options but I'm not convinced that it's going to radically transform the health of as many people as the companies operating in this space would like it to.

The pandemic has really not been conducive to me remaining fit. Young kids complicate things massively.

Also have no friends right now and not the best time to make any... so things are going great :)

You can only do so much social motivation over Zoom.

I put 0 pressure on myself to hit goals, I just run / do pushups / walk briskly, but I make sure to use the commute time on that rather than working more or browsing the internet.

I didn't start off this way though. At the beginning I was paralyzed, staring at my phone and laptop screen. I was tragically distracted and just... stuck. Doomscrolling is the new word that I can totally relate to. I was swirling in emotion.

But I just decided I'd had enough one day. It was actually a goofy book that some rando twitter handle sent me one day that gave a step by step "leveling up" process. It was one of those right place, right time things so I just went with it.

I started meditating with the "Waking Up" app, drinking water, working out, and kicked my side project back off. It's been a real journey now that I've decided to use this extra time for good rather than just emoting.

At the beginning of the quarantine, I bought a spinning bike (I've been thinking about getting one for over a year, but going to the gym spinning classes a couple times a week was relatively convenient since the gym was near work). I also invested in a set of dumbbells.

Now I work out 5 days a week -- alternating between spinning and strength training. If I miss the morning exercise for any reason, it's easy to fit in a 15 minute session sometime during the day, something that was much harder to do when I was going to the gym for exercise.

I don't think I'll ever return to the gym now that I've experienced the convenience of working out at home in a virtual online class.

But that's me. There are a few people from work that live near me and one of them looks 15 years older in every way imaginable.

People definitely thought they were going to jump into home fitness with both feet, but just like New Year's resolutions, I doubt that many of them stuck with it.

If I had to guess, there are two groups of people who are taking advantage of the quarantine to better their fitness routine: people who were already serious, and already had a home gym; and people who are doing something that doesn't take a whole lot of equipment, like yoga.

Fitness-wise, there's only so much you can do with a 4-8-month-old in a third-floor apartment, but jogging a couple miles with a stroller is kind of nice at any rate.

People overestimate how much and how hard they have to work to make a positive impact on their fitness. You don't need to join Crossfit, run ten miles a day, or lift for forty-five minutes, five days a week.

For someone who is sedentary, jogging a couple of miles with a stroller is a huge improvement. So is twenty minutes of yoga.

Consistency is more important than going all-out, all the time.

I will say that I really wish I could lift weights or at least do pull-ups right now because I'm getting all kinds of random aches I don't get when my upper body's in shape.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodyweight_exercise

I think people have to get more creative with their physical fitness. You don't need freeweights to achieve great results.

Here is an excellent guide:

https://yoga-horizons.com/pdfs/Fatmans-Guide-to-Cable-Traini...

https://store.trxtraining.com/trx-full-body-workout-bundle/

I got these ones before lockdown panic - though I use them with my pull up bar which allows one to do a lot more exercise than if you're stuck with a door block you. The pull up bar doesnt leave any marks though I also have an old house with solid wood frames i've wondered hw secure it would be resting on the lip of a cheap mdf narrow frame

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0787N367J/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

Between that, push-ups, planks, going for a walk, and running up some stairs, you can keep a baseline of fitness which isn’t too shabby.

I found it really energises me in the morning and obviously it’s done wonders for my overall health and fitness.

Experiences are so varied across the board. It wouldn't surprise me if overall people, like me, were worse off in general health terms.

I'm one of those people that has fitness goals met mostly through routine and access to the gym. There are no gyms within 20The complete dynamiting of my child's summer schedule, WFH, and everything else has made it so that there is no routine any more.

Like you, I think I'm finally making a little progress towards rebuilding, but there's been a couple pretty rough patches along the way.

Plus it’s not like I can stop. I already got a little cauliflower ear. It’s blackbelt or bust now :)

She’s lost almost 20 pounds and counting, healthily, and currently weighs less than she has in 30 years; her doctor halved her blood pressure medicine a couple weeks ago, and predicts she’ll be able to stop it entirely soon — once again something she’s been on for 30 years; her blood work came back with flying colors; and she went on her first actual grueling hike in her life a couple weeks ago.

She has a new lease on life due to the pandemic: a window of opportunity where she didn’t have to work to live. Now she’s ready to return to work, with her new habits, and never look back.

It was generally more tiring with kids at home, but specifically I had more time to exercise and when we went outside as familly I as adult had waaay more chance to move too. Since there were no kids outside, we went to place where I could do sport too more often.

For instance, I had a friend who was avidly taking muay thai lessons for the last few years give it up for the time being since it's not feasible to recreate that experience in his own 1BR.

A lot of people are doing what they can with freeweights and online classes but it's just not the same.

I’m doing great, thanks for asking. I drink good whiskey on my porch while I watch the bomb ass explosive sunsets that Florida is so famous for. I shoot projectile weapons into an earthen berm. I listen to my favorite synthwave playlists. I eat good food. I go to the beach.

Just because I’m fat doesn’t mean I’m doing poorly. In fact I’m willing to bet that I’m happier than most posers who go around telling everyone that they do CrossFit. (That my iPhone has capitalized CrossFit is alarming in itself...)

Once I realized that working out was more about regular effort than anything else, I quickly gained a lot of benefit. Pre-covid, I was mostly into weightlifting and martial arts, and these days it's a lot of bodyweight workouts and using the rowing machine but the details don't matter very much so much as being active. I've gone from never going out to do things to now knowing I can go run a 5k, join in on rock climbing or whatever (and generally not even be sore afterwards).

I also enjoy sitting on my porch though I typically prefer margaritas. When it comes to the range, I've found there are a lot more activities I feel comfortable doing now - not just static target shooting but full length training courses, stress drills, etc. It's also nice to go to the beach and get a certain amount of positive looks. My SO enjoys that I work out as well.

Exercise does not "make you" happy anymore than eating chocolate does - it may bring pleasure in itself but that's a side benefit. Rather, the primary benefit is now being able to do _whatever_ strikes your fancy and generally deal with significantly less health woes and limitations. It's a nice experience that when you visit your doctor, you get a high five and told your blood pressure and vitals are good.

Now maybe it isn't a source of insecurity, but it still looks like it is.

And even following the link to gym equipment has: " From companies that strictly provide a software platform that enables video workouts to hardware companies that facilitate live group workouts, the wide range of options available to consumers is plentiful.

Peloton, one of the more notable names in the industry, experienced a 66% surge in sales earlier in the year as more consumers became willing to shell out thousands of dollars for hardware that connects someone to live classes and other riders.

Tonal, another in-home hardware fitness company, told reporters back in March that the company’s sales tripled at one point in the early days of March when people were being encouraged to stay home more regularly. "

So really the article is more about remote classes and training and tech to facilitate them, not home gym equipment. So comments about this lifestyle appealing to new people or not are more on topic than topics about buying home weights.