We’re having a real summer of sport here in the UK. The Lionesses’ win has inspired generations of women to kick a ball; our best athletes are in Birmingham for the Commonwealth Games and The Hundred cricket tournament is underway in London. Anyone who’s into all this sporting lark is out there, swimming, kicking and lifting their way through August.

Except, I’m not. I’m actually back at home, resuming my lockdown fitness regimen. This time, however, it’s not Covid that’s got me re-downloading my favourite fitness app and rolling out the yoga mat in my tiny living room.

Last year, when restrictions were still in place, my partner and I used to start every day either with a run, or a FIIT workout – alternating between upper and lower body strength sessions, pilates and bodyweight energisers. In the evenings, we’d close our laptops, head out for a walk and then turn down the lights for a pre-dinner yin yoga class. 

Now that pubs are back open, we’re back in the office and our social lives have resumed, neither of us are as fastidious as we once were. I’m doing the least gym work I’ve done for about five years – heading to one class a week and spending the rest of my time commuter cycling or errand running to keep a basic level of fitness.

And despite missing the sense of achievement you get after a heavy workout, I’ve not managed to get back into the gym. That’s a problem: runners need to strength train to stay injury-free. It’s also a good idea to work those power muscles if you want to be able to run faster.

Strength training is also important as you age. 32 is hardly old, but it’s important to keep putting the bones under pressure to avoid issues like osteoarthritis later down the line. And then there’s the community aspect of travelling to a communal space to exercise. Whether you’ve made friends with people at the gym or not, simply doing a class can build that feeling of connection – something many of us are missing in our lives. That’s all to say that I want to go to the gym… but there’s a kind of mental block in the way. 

The other day, I returned home one day to see my partner burpeeing in the bedroom in front of FIIT’s Gede Foster. I wasn’t exactly over the moon: our flat is weeny, not sound-proofed and the sound of that app is about as nostalgic as hearing Chris Whitty saying “next slide please”.

But, seeing him returning to our old routine did inspire me to give it a go. I browsed the new workouts, chose an intermediate leg plan and had the strongest DOMS for days after. I can’t remember the last time it hurt to sit down on the loo (that’s probably more a sign of my deconditioning than how tough the workout was, but still!).

Since then, I’ve tried to do a living room workout most mornings. If I’ve got a run planned, I’ll do a workout before heading out and, miraculously, that seems to have stopped the excruciating tendon pain that normally takes 10 minutes to work through at the start of a run. Before cycling to the office, I can squeeze in a 25-minute upper body session – without needing to wake up any earlier. And when working from home, a 10 minute full-body energiser is as good as a cup of coffee.

I still love an in-studio yoga session but if I can’t get there, there’s nothing like closing the curtains, lighting a candle and stretching next to my bed.

Lockdown changed the way many of us exercise, move and relate to fitness. And while it might have stopped many women from exercising, for others, it’ll have made it more accessible than ever. Having gone through two years of finding space to exercise, I’m a veteran of working out in tiny spaces, and making the most of whatever window of time I have available. My skills in actually getting up mega early to get to a gym before work are all but gone – but give me 30 minutes to work up a serious sweat from home before commuting in, and I’m a dab hand.

Gyms are amazing places, and I maintain that you’ll never get a better class workout than at places like The Foundry or Blok. But purely for making sure I manage to get a bit of strength work in every week, there’s nothing like a home workout. Fitness should fit into our lives; I’m done (for now) trying to squeeze life around the gym. By the time winter comes round, I’ll probably spend more time at the gym and in studio classes – when it’s too grim to relax outside and too cold to work from home.

In the meantime, while the weather is good, that lockdown workout regimen is working just fine. Those expensive dumbbells I bought in lockdown two? They’re my best investment to date. 

Images: Getty