A Guide To: Keep Fit and Active During a Pandemic
Exercising has always been difficult to fit into a teacher’s hectic schedule. The ongoing pandemic has made this even harder. Many teachers wonder how to make time for exercising and what they can do with the increase of covid. Some may feel like they can’t go to public places, such as gyms, to minimise mixing with others. This is due to the pressure of staying covid free to be able to go to work and ensuring that covid doesn’t pass on through school.
To help with this uncertainness, we have compiled a guide to help you keep fit and active during a pandemic. Reduce mixing with others outside of school and use the space the outdoors has to offer. Plus, we also have some tips on how to manage your time to include exercising within your busy schedule.
Dealing with changes
There have been so many changes in a short amount of time due to covid, especially for teachers. Teachers have had to adapt to a new way of teaching whilst limiting mixing with colleagues and pupils.
These can lead to feelings such as being overwhelmed. To combat this, target how you feel every day either about work, personal life or the impact certain changes have made. When you have targeted how you feel think of ways you can improve that feeling. Then complete the action to help with your emotional health. Some feelings may not be able to be resolved through exercise, however, exercise can help with a large range of emotions.
Making time in your day for exercise
As a teacher spare time is very limited between working in the classroom and marking. We understand that the little spare time you have should be spent doing what you love! However, there are small spaces where you can fit in exercise a few times a week to keep yourself fit, healthy and stress-free. This is important as exercise reduces anxiety and stress as well as boosts concentration.
These factors are vital for teachers working week to enable them to work to their best ability whilst feeling happy.
Create some time before or after work to squeeze a short amount of exercise into. Make sure to try and do exercise on the same days each week to build a routine. This helps exercise be a part of your routines in the morning or evening. This means you will be more likely to stick to exercising as it can become your daily routine.
The best way to ensure you fit exercise into your week is by scheduling exercising times as well as you time. It’s best to think about it as planning your classes. This will help it become a part of your routine and helps balance work life, time for yourself, and social life too. This leads to feeling better within yourself.
It is okay if you forget to exercise one day or you don’t feel in the mood. Also, you don’t have to do full workouts just small easy exercises can improve your fitness, health, and mental wellbeing.
If you find some time at least once a week, then you have achieved the goal of fitting exercise into your weeks. Plus, if you miss a day, you can always try the next and do a longer session!
Tips to get fit and active
We have sourced some amazing ways you can fit exercise into your busy schedule! Most exercises can be done in small amounts of time. Perfect for allowing time for yourself. You can also include socialising with others into some of them!
Be an early bird
A possible way to get some exercise into your hectic days is by getting up earlier than usual. You can do a long exercise (like a run) before you usually get up and get ready for work. This takes pure willpower to be able to motivate yourself to get up and keep fit and active but once you start to get into a routine of waking up earlier, it becomes easier.
This is due to your body clock adjusting to the time so waking up early becomes natural. Doing this is great as exercising isn’t an option after work sometimes because of various factors. These include piles of marking, feeling drained from a busy day, and having some you time.
If you get up late you can do a quicker exercise like jogging on the spot for ten minutes before getting ready. Doing something small counts just as much too!
Exercise whilst commuting
If possible, make exercise a part of your commute. You could walk instead of drive or even run or cycle. You could do this for both getting to school and going home. However, you will need to be prepared to take some extra clothes to change into once you get to school. Doing exercising on the way home is probably most logical as you can get home and have a shower. If you can’t be prepared for changing at school, take a short walk to get public transport instead. Then do a more intense workout on the way home like walking all the way home or running.
Go for walks
Even if you can’t walk as part of your commute, you can always find time to fit walks into your week. Walking is the best type of exercise for teachers. It is less time consuming and can be done anywhere. You can set how far you walk so if you have some more time, you can do a longer walk. But for when you are super busy, you can easily go for a short walk. Prehaps you could walk to a shop to get some food instead of driving.
Use the school
A great way to fit time in to get active is by using your school to exercise. Schools offer multiple activities for the kids that need teachers to accompany them too. These could be something simple like going on a school trip that’s in walking distance of your school. Volunteer to be one of the teachers assisting so you can get a walk in.
Exercise with your pupils
You could also do some exercises with your pupils. Get your class to do laps around the playground in break time and join in to get you moving. Try doing some yoga as a class between activities that you have planned for the day. This relaxes you as well as the children and is still doing small movements, stretching your muscles. To have more fun with your pupils, why not dance together to some music. This is still exercising and bringing enjoyment to the kids. It is a great way to shake the stress off for yourself too!
Make use of your desk
Some days teachers can be really pushed for time through all the marking and setting work for classes. You can create little time to exercise at your desk whilst doing these everyday tasks. It’s a great way to work out your arms and legs. Do some seated exercises such as leg lifts and twists, and chair running. These help to exercise the lower part of your body in a simple yet effective way.
To workout your arms, you could have little dumbbells in your desk draw. You can use these to strengthen your upper arm muscles. You could also do some simple arm stretches for a few minutes before continuing with your jobs.
If you have time near the end of breaks, you could take small walks to another part of the school. This is to gets you away from your desk. Even though exercising at your desk is a great way to fit it in your busy schedule, it’s not the best for your mental health. It’s important to take proper breaks away from any tasks and your desk.
Invite colleagues to exercise with you
Many teachers want to exercise but don’t have the time, or don’t want to go into crowded spaces due to the covid rise. Try scheduling a time after school for you and your colleagues to exercise together. You could even create a group that does this once a week. This will ensure that you aren’t mixing with strangers too much, lowering your chances of catching covid. It can also give you the confidence to exercise as you won’t be alone and it can be a time for socialising too.
To ensure you and your colleagues aren’t having to find a place to run the group, you could use the school. The hall can be used for activities like yoga/pilates, tennis, dodgeball etc.
This is a great place to use during the winter months when the weather is very unpredictable as you can keep safe, warm, and sheltered. As the weather improves, you could use the outdoor spaces of your school to do running, football, tennis etc. This ensures you get fresh air whilst exercising which further improves your state of mind.
Switch up the sports you do every week to keep yourself and your colleagues interested in exercising together. Plus, you may get an increase of colleagues joining one week due to a popular sport/activity that they want to participate in.
Join groups for teacher wellbeing
A good way to stay motivated to exercise is by joining a group that you pay for as you go. This could be a running group where you can socialise with others and make friends. If you want to be more distanced from others due to covid, you could join Zumba. Joining groups like this motivates you to go as you aren’t tied into paying monthly and they only occur once a week. Plus, there is no pressure if you can’t attend one week as you won’t waste money. You can freely join whenever you feel like it. On the stressful days you can miss it without any worries and have time for yourself.
It is harder than ever for teachers to get fit and active due to the pandemic and work too. Balancing work life and you time can be so difficult at times. You may feel like you will never have time to exercise. But by scheduling some time in for exercise as well as giving time for yourself, you can start to get active. Exercise brings so many benefits to your health. The most important is improving your mental wellbeing which is imperative for teachers. Sweat the stress away and go and get fit and active!
Remember, it is okay if you miss any exercise from time to time. It’s important to recharge and not push yourself to do some if you have had a strenuous day. Relax and unwind because there’s always another day to fit exercise in.
Further information to keep fit and active in a pandemic:
- https://www.understood.org/articles/en/practicing-self-care-during-coronavirus-5-tips-for-teachers
- https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/jun/10/five-ways-teachers-can-fit-exercise-around-work
- https://www.wgu.edu/heyteach/article/6-teacher-fitness-tips-busy-school-days1810.html
For advice to improve your mental wellbeing further, have a look at A guide to: Teacher wellbeing and mental health.
