03.02.2021
Photo: Edgar Pfrogner, NN
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Heiko Ziemainz is not only a sports psychologist and research assistant at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, but also motivates professional athletes to perform. So if anyone can answer that question, it’s him. An interview about virtual courses, realistic objectives and the question of whether good equipment is important.
Mr. Ziemainz, Corona has demotivated many people. You are a sports psychologist – can you at least get yourself to exercise regularly?
Since I already did individual sports regularly before Corona, it was relatively easy for me to keep up my sports quota. In addition, I have a dog at home that has to go for a walk at least twice a day. So I have a certain amount of exercise time.
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Before Corona, however, many did sport in a group, around once a week in a club. What is your advice to these people who now have to reorient themselves more strongly?
It’s not that easy when you are completely on your own. However, due to the experience of the first lockdown in the spring, many clubs have launched some online offers to keep their club members engaged. As a rule, you will find good offers where you can see your training colleagues at least virtually.
Fixed dates and routines
Can such offers have a motivating effect?
Even if you only do sports in a virtual group, you sweat “together” to yourself. You have fun doing it because one or the other might crack a joke and funny situations arise. It is also very important that I have a fixed appointment, which means that there is a certain regularity or routine. Something like that can help. Alternatively, I can also meet up with friends or acquaintances online.
What if I can’t do anything with such digital meetings?
Doing sports outside at a corresponding distance, that still works. I can either do sports together with my household, or with a friend or acquaintance with the appropriate distance. Some do that, who then jog, go for a walk or ride a bike. Cross-country skiing has also worked really well in the last few weeks.
Do I understand you correctly: The most important thing is to create new routines?
It’s about fixed times. It’s different when I say “Okay, I’ll do sports sometime during the day tomorrow and see if I can pull myself up” or when I meet my boyfriend at a location or online at 4pm. Then I have a fixed appointment, which must be just as important to me as a doctor’s appointment or daily brushing of teeth. The point is that sport has to be a meaningful story for me. And with a fixed date, the whole thing becomes more important.
Don’t do too much
What do you recommend to people whose everyday life has become more chaotic due to home office and childcare, in order to actually take this freedom for sports?
It is particularly important not to undertake too much. Lots of people make this mistake. It doesn’t have to be 40 to 60 minutes of jogging, ten to 15 minutes can be enough. If I do this regularly every day, I can add up to a considerable amount of exercise over the week. So it’s about setting realistic goals given the time available. Sometimes you can also combine this with the family, for example when the children sit around homeschooling all morning and then go for a walk in the forest together.
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What do you think of the many online sports platforms that have sprung up recently?
Among other things, these platforms can help those who live in a single household or are involved in families or work and therefore only have time for exercise in the evening. For example, you can use the platform to have appropriate workouts sent to you and carry out independently. But then you also have to deliver and enter what you have achieved. If the online coach requests the results, this increases the commitment.
Can an online coach really replace the trainer on site?
It depends on whether you are more of the digital type or not. There are people for whom it is enough if they can communicate with a trainer via video. Others, on the other hand, need the personal and the local contact, that is a bit type-dependent. In addition, certain movement corrections cannot be made online, or only with great difficulty.
A question of equipment?
Can good, but often expensive, equipment help to motivate me – or is it just a matter of my head?
Motivation is of course very much dependent on whether things give me fun and joy or stimulate my curiosity. And good equipment can do just that: I wouldn’t buy it if I didn’t have a certain curiosity about how it works and whether I will have fun with it. So it can be a trigger. But you shouldn’t expect it to train itself then. You have to set goals and really embed that in a routine. Maybe even with someone who has the same equipment. This opens up further possibilities such as participation in virtual bike races or runs.
What if I don’t have the money to buy new equipment and no jogging trails nearby because I live in the city?
Personally, I am an advocate of the fact that you don’t need a lot of materials to keep fit. Fitness exercises with your own body weight or with two water bottles that you use as weights are sufficient. In other words, materials that you have at home anyway without having to make major purchases. Such workouts with simple or few materials are also available online, for example from health insurances, with monetary benefits or bonus programs as an incentive. So if you don’t want to organize yourself, you are in good hands. And many clubs also offer gymnastics courses as online events.
How is it later – once you have successfully pulled yourself up, then from then on it also works with regular exercise?
That too depends crucially on the objective and whether I manage to incorporate my routines into everyday life and achieve a certain regularity – like brushing my teeth. If that works and I no longer see exercise as a necessary evil, but rather associate positive things with exercise and sport, then it is of course much easier to keep pulling yourself up to do it. Ultimately, the key is to recognize the positive, then I’ve already achieved a lot.
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Corona reduces movement
It is often said that the lack of exercise is exacerbated by Corona. Are you going with that?
It is the everyday movement that disappears. If I work in the home office now, I don’t have to go to the bus or to the office floor. Shopping is also reduced to the bare minimum, strolling through the shops on the weekend is no longer necessary. Corona is therefore doing a lot to ensure that movement is reduced. Incidentally, current studies show that people who had already moved a lot before Corona are now moving even more.
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How come?
Because these people now have more flexibility to accommodate their movement. For example, you no longer have to drive to or from work for half an hour. That is an hour that you have more time to use for other things. For those people who already had problems anyway, who preferred “coaching” to jogging, it doesn’t make the situation any easier for them. With them it is actually the case that they move even less now. But it was already a social problem that is now even more glaring.
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