'Keeping on top of your fitness goals while on lockdown can feel like a daunting task, especially with all the different information, ‘quick fixes’ and number of live workouts to follow out there. Here, Ultimate Performance Global Director of Sales Mark Bohannon guides you through staying active in isolation.

It is completely understandable that you are becoming confused, frustrated and at your wits ends just trying to decide which method to follow. Hopefully, I can shed some light on 3 of the key things you should be doing in order to ensure you progress on your fitness journey over the next number of weeks. 

Before we address the ‘training’ piece of the puzzle, it is important for us to discuss nutrition as this is going to lay the foundation for your success over the coming weeks and getting this right will make the training that much easier. 

Routine is important, especially when it comes to nutrition and being out of one can make it that little bit harder to stick to a plan. So, the first thing you need to do is set a routine and make a plan. 

Sit down with a pen and paper to plan your meals for the next day along with when you are planning to eat them, making sure to prioritise real foods over any processed ones. Remain strict with your timings and do not allow yourself to snack in between meals, we are all in the unique position now where we are spending the majority of our time just a few seconds away from the fridge or cupboard and it makes much easier for us to snack on extra calories than ever before. 

Now there are tons of different nutrition methods to follow which would be a whole separate lengthy topic, however just sticking to this very simple overview of nutrition you will be surprised to see the difference it will make. 

The second thing to look at is the decrease in energy output which you are probably experiencing from spending the majority of your time in the home. All of those little tasks you perform in your normal day to day routine like walking to the train station, popping out on your lunch to walk for a coffee and even just walking up those few flights of stairs at the office all equate to extra calories being burned throughout the day. 

It is important that you set some new movement goals to make sure you are still burning extra calories throughout the day as part of your daily routine. If you are working from home try to take phone calls standing up or even better plug in some headphones and go for a walk around the garden while on the phone. Making sure you are standing up to stretch your legs every hour or so can make a huge difference over the course of a day. The big one here is to make sure you are getting out to move your body for some kind of a walk or even a run once a day to make up for all the activity you are losing out on from being sat at home for most of the day. Set yourself a goal you can be consistent with. If you have a smartwatch or even using your phone set yourself a step goal or if you don’t have access to that set yourself a goal of how many minutes you will spend each day out walking. 

The final piece of the puzzle, and the one that people typically push to the front of the queue, is exercise. Not to downplay the importance of this aspect of your fitness routine but it will have  far less positive impact on your overall goals if you are not implementing either of the prior points to this one. That being said, a good training plan can be the difference between just ticking over while in lockdown vs getting further than you ever anticipated during these challenging times. 

The key to a successful training plan is to have exactly that - a plan that you will execute over a period of time and repeat each week with the goal of getting progressively better. Random workouts are fun and great to keep you active, however if you want to progress towards your fitness goals then you need to ensure you are progressing each week. Set yourself a couple of workouts which you will rotate between each day with the goal of progressing from week to week. A simple idea could be that part of your plan has you completing as many press-ups as possible in a 1 minute time cap and each workout you try to improve on your previous score while maintaining good technique and form.

If you’re interested in staying active with Ultimate Performance you can join their daily workouts live on instagram at @upfitnesslive and @up_north_pt.