Malaysia is still under Restricted Movement Order (RMO), or Movement Control Order (MCO), or in other words, partial lockdown. We are just one step away from a national curfew or martial law. If you have been living under a rock and have not known what is happening outside your windows, we are under RMO/MCO/lockdown because of the COVID-19 situation which is worsening as the days go by. To be specific, we are under this condition to combat the worsening COVID-19 situation.

Why this is the best way to go? There are plenty of graphs and what not to be shown, but we are not going to do that here. All you need to know is it is very important that we practice social distancing and stay at home as much as possible to limit infection rate and risks.

Staying at home can be a drag for plenty though. We can understand that, especially for those social butterflies out there. We feel your pain, but at the same time I personally like staying indoors anyway. Still, it does get boring; you run out of games to play, run out of books to read, generally running out of things to do eventually.

It is quite a simple fix though. You can order books online now and buy games digitally. You do not need to step out of the house for all these for a while now. You can even get a movie on your couch with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, what not. Still, these things cost you money. There is something else you can do, for free – exercise.

The Right Tools Are Essential

We are saying that exercising can be fun, yes. Beyond that though, in the days where you can barely step out of your home, it is always important for you to keep yourselves active and healthy. By sitting around and working all the time while watching YouTube recipe videos, you tend to get lazy, and unhealthy.

We are pretty sure you have been eyeing those smartwatches and fitness trackers for some time now. It is the in thing these days anyway. At this time, you must be thinking; “maybe not now, maybe wait until this whole ‘stay at home’ thing blow over”. We are telling you that is the wrong mindset, because at this point the government is talking about extending the RMO/MOC/lockdown for another two weeks. Even the Olympics committee is looking to postpone the Tokyo Summer Olympics 2020 just to combat the pandemic that is the COVID-19.

Now is a good time as any to get a smartwatch or a fitness tracker. If you are planning to get one already, Garmin makes some great stuff (we can testify), and they are having some great promotions for their smart trackers now. For example, the Garmin Forerunner 245 and 245 music (one of my personal favourites, review coming soon) is on sale for MYR 1,299 and MYR 1,499 (originally MYR 1,450, and MYR 1,699) respectively. It will last you up to 7 days in normal smartwatch mode. It has GPS and built in music capabilities too. Be warned though, battery will drain within 6 hours if you turn both on.

The Garmin Forerunner not your cup of tea? Need something more basic? The Garmin Instinct would fit great with its ruggedness too. It is built to the U.S. military standards 810G to ensure that it still works in the most hostile environments. This would be perfect for you Spartan Challenge and Viper Challenge junkies. It has a battery life of up to 14 hours. It has GPS too of course, and that would last you u to 14 hours, 35 hours in UltraTac mode. You can get it in its plain body form, or tactical form (ATACS camo) for MYR 1,299 and MYR 1,450 (originally MYR 1,450 and MYR 1,599) respectively.

Nope? Need something more smartwatch like? Need touch screen? Something more elegant you can wear every day. There is the Garmin Venu, a pretty looking thing that has all the great Garmin features with a pretty AMOLED touch sensitive display. This smartwatch can last up to 5 days too, much better than almost anything with proper smartwatch functionalities in the market. Of course, the Garmin Venu also has GPS built into its svelte body and music storing capabilities. With both on, you get 6 hours of battery life. But you do not need more than that in your exercises. It is available now in plenty of colour combination options for MYR 1,599 (originally MYR 1,799). My personal favourite is the Blue Granite/Silver combination.

The Garmin smart trackers are on this discount until the 31^st of March 2020, that is when the lockdown order ends too. All the promotions are also coupled by Free Shipping by Garmin with FREESHIPPING code from their local distributor. Well, because, you know, you cannot go out; and retails are not open. Visit their online store now.

• 

• 

You have the Samsung Galaxy Watch or the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 that is now MYR 1,299 each. The Samsung Galaxy Watch, in my opinion, remains the best smartwatch that you can pair to your Android at this point. Of course they do not offer crazy one-week battery life. You get at most 3 days or so before needing a charge. Still, you get GPS, music storage, heart rate tracking, and activity monitor with them too. Plus, Samsung is participating in Lazada’s birthday promo on the 27^th March 2020

Or if you are an Apple user, you can always go back to the Apple Watch Series 5 currently. While we are not huge Apple fans, we have to admit that the Apple Watch has come a long way as a smartwatch option. The Apple Series 5 is a great smartwatch on its own with plenty of unique features like ECG monitoring, fall detection, and what not. Hey, it looks great too, in my opinion.

There are of course, plenty of options out there for you. There are more stuff in Garmin’s product range that might fit your preference better, or there are even great options from other people. There are also cheaper, more basic stuff out there. You just have to go into the interwebs and look.

Back to Basics

Back to keeping yourselves at home. There are plenty of exercise videos you can actually watch from YouTube to keep yourself active. A search of home exercises come up with a plethora of videos that might fit your needs at home, so we are not going to feature any video here.

If you are not into the exercising videos or instructional though, that is okay too. There are other ways to keep yourself active. Yes, we try to do them too.

For one, you can just make sure you walk around the house. While you might have set up your workstation at home to be as convenient as possible for you work wise, you should separate all the living stuff and work stuff. This ensures that you do not stay in one place for too long. Somehow this forces you to get up and walk around the house to get water, or tea, or even food. Maybe you should even put your smartphone further away from you so that you will walk up to it to answer if there are any calls. I know I am doing that. Only issue is, if you accidentally put it on silent or leave your headphones on. Of course, check in from time to time.

Who says you need weights to keep yourself active at home? Keeping yourself active at home can be just as simple as keeping yourself active in the office. You have water bottles you can use as weight to do your weight-lifts and what not. While it may not be as intensive or taxing on your body than those crazy home workouts you see on YouTube videos, it is still something you can do to keep your body moving.

Of course, since you actually have plenty of time at home now, since you do not have to travel to work on a daily basis (you free up at least an hour of your day, you have not considered the time you take to go out with your friends, for meals). You have at least that one hour to get proper exercises done. You can do your basic push-ups, sit-ups, crunches, and whatever not. Of course, there are some more effective exercises you can find from YouTube and what not.

Still do not want to do it in front of the TV? Garmin has something called a Squad Virtual Challenge. It is a community-based fitness and exercise program that is now online. Obviously you have to be a Garmin owner to take advantage, hence the promotions. But you get new regimes every two weeks from the Squad Virtual Challenge (for now), so you can do something different every two weeks or so to keep your workout sessions more varied.

There are also plenty of other workout regime subscriptions or community workout plans out there. Some are free, some are not. Some of them may work for you, some of them may not. It really depends on what you want out of your workout sessions too. So you should really look into it.

Going to the gym, or even going for an outdoor jog is not really an option at this time. You really have to find the time on your own to keep yourselves active. We also understand that it can get quite difficult since you are just staying at home most of the time. It is important to keep yourselves active though. An active lifestyle is a more productive lifestyle, trust me.