You had your workouts dialed in. You were lifting, going to group classes, running, biking. Something. Maybe even a few things. Maybe even close to all of the things.

And then COVID-19 happened.

Now your routine is messed up, your gym is closed, and your days are all over the place. (Well, actually they’re all mostly in one place–your house–but you know what I mean.)

Reality is? This is probably going to be the new reality for quite some time. We may be dealing with the ebbs and flows of shutdowns, social distancing, and virus surges for the better part of the next 12-18 months as we wait on a vaccine. None of this is to be alarmist and of course we hope for better outcomes, but as of this writing COVID-19 appears to be a persistent, disruptive enemy.

As a fitness coach, I can tell you that even in the best of times I want my clients to be fairly adaptive–able to substitute movements as needed, willing to accept very good in place of perfect, and above all to just keep moving. Now, in these worst of times, the ability to adapt and push our fitness forward may be one of our most potent hedges against this new enemy, especially if we heed its lessons and adjust our best practices. As Bruce Lee famously noted, one survives by bending with the wind, not stiffening against its gale.

Over the next several installments in this series, we’ll outline some of the old ways we’ve approached our fitness routines and suggest some adaptations in response to our new reality. As we do this, I want to be clear that none of what we discuss should be construed as medical advice, but where possible we will make connections between extant medical and public health advice and the outlook adjustments we’ll be calling the New Rules of Fitness.

We’ll begin the next installment with New Rule #1: Protect Your Minimums. We hope you’ll join us, and in the meantime we send all of our best wishes for health and wellness