This is an installment of Pandemic Purchases, a special series of personal essays about the items bought in the last year that brought the most value and joy to our lives and work while living in lockdown.
The exercise conundrum I faced in the pandemic was hardly unique: A thirtysomething city-dweller who once funneled obscene amounts of money to ClassPass for the privilege of taking boutique fitness classes suddenly found herself with nary a gym to attend; no pliés to pulse in barre, no hills to climb in spin, no shared gloves—a COVID-era horror!—to don for boxing.
For weeks at a time, if I wanted a class, it had to be virtual. (Hong Kong, where I live, had sporadic gym closures.) But it was hard to give up the variety of workouts that I’d achieved in the Before Times. And adding hulks of equipment wasn’t an option since space in Hong Kong—valued at nearly $2,000 per square foot—is at a premium. Sure, I had a mat and some resistance bands, but I learned early in the pandemic that yoga wouldn’t cut it. No number of sun salutations was going to get me to a state of zen when the world was on fire. What I needed was a more unrestrained outlet—and a good sweat. I needed to lift heavy things.
Adjustable dumbbells probably don’t top any list of best engineering feats, but in my book, they’re a contender. The set of NutroOne adjustable dumbbells I ordered in December take up a whole foot and a half of space; I could easily shove them in a closet if I had one. They offer 16 different weight options, from five pounds to 45 pounds. I can go from 28-pound deadlifts to 15-pound shoulder presses with five satisfying clicks of the handle. Each dumbbell has a base that holds any unused weight, so there are no plates to trip over and no clamps to misplace.
If I’m being honest, the weights probably would have collected dust if I hadn’t also discovered the Peloton app around the same time. (Yes, I joined the Peloton cult along with millions of others.) The hundreds of strength classes—lower body, upper body, full body, core—satisfy my need for variety for a subscription that costs about a tenth of what I was paying for ClassPass every month, and I can customize the dumbbells to fit whatever weight the instructor calls for.
So most mornings, I stand my coffee table on its end to make room for my daily lifting routine. I grab my dumbbells and click my way through a workout, with a Peloton instructor yelling words of affirmation or their own brand of nonsense—“Get that glazed-doughnut look!”— from my phone, which I prop up on my couch.
When I’m done, I’m dripping with sweat and fueled with enough endorphins to take on if not the world, at least another day of slogging through a global pandemic. I tuck my dumbbells back in their spot underneath my dining room table. Sure, they’ll need a new home if I ever host a dinner party, but in a city that still bans public gatherings larger than four, that may be a problem for 2022.