Throughout the last few months, it has definitely been harder to find motivation to exercise and stay active on a daily basis. School work was overwhelming, online school was tiring and staying home all day definitely didn’t help. As months went on, I found myself adapting to daily routines, or rather weekly routines. I started spending an hour at the gym 4 times a week to stay healthy, and on some days where I couldn’t find motivation, I had the support of my parents or my sibling to push me to go down to the gym or to the pool. Activity is a huge part of CAS, and teachers will never fail to remind us of that. It is essential especially now that we stay home all day sitting and looking at our screens to find time to stretch and work our muscles.
I started off with a basic routine where I would run or walk for a few minutes, then work on my whole body to ensure that all of my muscles would stay in shape. It helped my a lot physically and mentally to have a routine, especially one that included leaving my room and not having to stay seated for a while. As I had mentioned in my goals, I wanted to attempt to use the extra time in the mornings that we had since we started at 8:30 instead of 7:30, however, it was difficult to do so as I found myself sleeping later than usual due to the amount of work we had to do. I found a different time that I could use as a specific time slot to stay active, and that was during my free blocks for French. This ensured that I would go to the gym at least 3 times a week, and once on the weekends, and for around an hour each time.
The hardest part of staying active was finding the motivation to get into a routine of it. I have always enjoyed exercising in the gym as it is a time to focus on yourself and avoid your surroundings, it also helps me focus once I get to work later on which I have found extremely beneficial.
What I hope to improve on in the future is to push myself harder. I have been exercising to my own pace, without really pushing myself to my limits. This image is an example of the goals I try to set for myself. As weeks went on, I took pictures of how much I ran/ walked and in how many minutes I did so. My goal recently has been trying to get to 2km in the least possible time, as cardio in physical activity is very important to stay fit.