Even as New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham extended an emergency "stay at home" order through April 30 to stop the spread of COVID-19, Eddy County residents should find it important to stay healthy both mentally and physically.

Fortunately a few gyms and exercise facilities in Eddy County found creative ways to keep area residents active and as healthy as possible.

Body Evolution

Body Evolution initially had outdoor personal training sessions, limited to five people and made sure to sanitize the equipment after each use before the gym was forced to shut down that creative approach. Now Body Evolution is switching to online and streaming exercise programs.

Aaron Ruiz, sales manager, marketing director and personal trainer for Body Evolution, suggested anyone interested in the workouts to message Body Evolution either via Facebook or Instagram to confirm the workout times for the current week. The two current online course offerings were cross training sessions and yoga classes.

"We're having our instructors do different workouts," Ruiz said. "We don't have a set schedule yet, but we're letting our trainers pick their times because they have their own set of followers."

Ruiz noted that both cross training and yoga sessions typically take place both Tuesday and Thursday. While no cross training times are set, Ruiz said the yoga classes are Tuesdays at 6 p.m. and Thursdays at 7 p.m.

Cheer and Tumble Athletics

Cheer and Tumble Athletics will keeps its doors closed during the pandemic but decided to offer daily exercise challenges to make sure Carlsbad's residents can stay in shape at home.

On CTA's Facebook page a new exercise challenge is presented each day. Using #cheerandtumbleathletics, everyone was welcome to send a video of a completed daily challenge.

Past challenges ranged from burpee sets to physically spelling names one letter at a time.

At the end of every week, a winner is selected from those who completed the challenges and receive a prize.

TaNessa Sedillo, the owner of Cheer and Tumble Athletics, decided to start this video challenge when restrictions on gatherings were put in place in the middle of March.

"We have over 250 kids at our gym," Sedillo said. "Our goal is to keep them active every single day and off screens as much as possible. The minute everyone said everyone is staying at home we stressed that kids would just be in front of TV's and iPads and we really want them doing something.

"We figure if we offered challenges and offered prizes we'd be able to get more participation from not just our students but their siblings and even their parents."

The prizes initially were gift baskets that included fun stay-at-home activities but with the new restrictions on congregating, Cheer and Tumble switched to Amazon gift cards.

"We want anybody and everybody to do these," Sedillo said. "We're trying to keep (the challenges) simple and fun so that a two-year-old can do it and a 50-year old can do it. We try to do things that work core muscles and coordination but are also fun."

Matthew Asher can be reached at 575-628-5524, masher@currentargus.com or @Caveman_Masher on Twitter. Support award-winning local journalism. Subscribe to the Current-Argus today.