Healthy Living Reflection #2

Healthy Living During Circuit Breaker

Due to the covid-19 quarantine measures in place since April, I have had to find new ways to continue working towards my goal – maintaining consistent exercise, in any form, at least three times a week to improve sports performance and overall well-being. Singapore’s circuit breaker regulations have caused for the mixed touch league to be cancelled, so I was only able to play one Raptors touch game in March. However, I wanted to ensure that I continue to remain active during this time. Here are some of the activities I did at home;

Remote Touch Training Online

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As part of the school’s remote sports training programme, I decided to join online touch training which provided workouts three times a week aimed to help us improve our endurance and muscular strength to keep fit for the season. I find that this would prove useful upon coming back to school in August and starting the touch shortly after. It was also a good opportunity to reconnect with the rest of the touch team members as we were able to do the workouts together via a Google Meet call. This has also forced me to remain committed to my goal as it became permanently a part of my weekly schedule.

Running / Cycling 

Alongside the weekly touch workouts, I began running 2 to 3 times a week. I would do varying distances, from 3 km to 6 km, depending on how I am feeling that day. However, my goal was to improve my 5km running time, which currently stands at 26:57 minutes, to 25 minutes and below. However, as the months progressed, and now going into summer, I started to lose interest in running. I still wanted to keep doing it to improve my stamina, but I reduced the number of runs per week to 1 to 2 times.

I would also go cycling at East Coast park maybe once or twice a week for 1 to 2 hours at a time. I found that this was also an enjoyable way to spend time outdoors while still continuing to exercise and keep fit.

 

Fitness Challenges / HIIT workouts 

Finally, I began to do my own personal exercise in the form of HIIT workouts, or high intensity interval training, which gets the heart rate up in short bursts. I found that this form was especially beneficial for touch as it will help to speed up my recovery time on the field. In the beginning of circuit breaker, I decided to start a 14 day workout challenge I found online as a way to ensure that I remain committed to maintaining consistent exercise. I found that during these two weeks my body was slowly starting to change and become leaner, but also my stamina and muscular endurance dramatically improved from doing the workouts everyday. I would normally do these workouts the most as they normally only take 35 to 40 minutes to complete but are still effective.

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