KEEPING fit at home is one thing mountaineers and hillwalkers can do to make their return to the hills safe and injury free.

Here, Jamie Smith, development manager for ClimbScotland, shares some key advice which people can follow during lockdown

Habits

The first thing I want to talk to you about is habits. We all have habits that we perform every single day, we make cups of tea, we brush our teeth, we have a glass of water. What I want to show you is a way we can take advantage of these current habits, to make new habits. So, let’s take my example of drinking tea.

While I’m waiting for my tea to brew, I can practice doing push ups. Over time doing push-ups will become a new habit attached on to my old habit of making tea.

Practice

The next point is, I would like you to think of these exercises as practice not training. In training it’s easy to get bogged down by sets and reps but these are not important for practice. In practice, we aren’t concentrating on how many reps we can do but rather on the movement itself.

Practice is as much about increasing our own body awareness as it is about performing the exercise. Try and do these exercises slowly and with focus. Ask yourself questions like, where am I generating tension in my body now?

If you’re struggling to focus as the exercise is too easy or too hard, each video will show you some variations that you may find easier or harder.

Form

The last point I want to talk about is Form.

No-one’s form is perfect when they’re starting out with a new exercise. We all find it difficult doing something new, so don’t beat yourself up about it and more importantly don’t give up in frustration.

Difficulty gives an opportunity to improve.

In each of the video’s we’ll give you some pointers to help improve your form. We need feedback in order to make adjustments to improve this form. We can do this using body awareness like I mentioned earlier but it can also be useful to video ourselves doing these exercises, to see if we can spot any issues.

So there you have it, three things to keep in mind when doing these exercises:

Use old habits to create new habits; these exercises are an opportunity to practice movement; form takes time and practice to develop.

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