Climbing the walls: Adding a keep fit game to my gaming time

While I’m no esports pro, I do enjoy a bit of the Football Manager and Fifa computer games – though they are detrimental to exercising.

Working from home now feels a bit like the norm and I am very much in a routine and feeling it, meaning by the time evening rolls around the last thing I feel like doing is another 30-minute YouTube workout.

And so I can continue enjoying my gaming (Elgin City SPL champions on Football Manager and Accrington Stanley European champions on Fifa, since you’re asking...) I have devised a little game to keep me moving.

For every victory I have, I do 10 repetitions of one exercise – helpfully picked from all the ones we have learned from Joe Wicks. If I draw, it’s 15. If I lose, it’s 20.

My wife has been gifted the power to decide what exercise it is I do – I don’t remember asking her, I think she may have just taken the role for her own glee – and unfortunately she is well aware that I hate burpees.

If you are not familiar with them, burpees are the frog-like exercise where you start from a standing position, squat down and place your hands on the floor in front of you before kicking your legs out and then in, finishing with a jump. The pros also incorporate a push-up I’m told (forget that!)

Joe Wicks described them like Marmite the other day – you either love them or hate them.

Well, if that is the case then I don’t understand how Marmite continues to sell because burpees are hell.

And my wife takes great enjoyment out of making me suffer – she saves the burpees for when she knows I have lost, so not only do I get the anguish of conceding a last-minute goal to lose, I then have to put my legs through burning pain.

On the flip side though, it is a great way to keep active, even at the times I don’t want to. Plus it does a pretty good job of making sure I get a decent sleep rather than continue my season into the small hours – who wants to be doing burpees and lunge jumps at 2am after all!?

I want to hear and see what you are up to sporting-wise during lockdown – the good and the bad – so email your pictures and videos to derek.bish@expressandstar.co.uk or contact me on Twitter @DerekBish_Star.

I will include the best ones in this column and retweet plenty of ideas that everyone can get involved with.