We did not do the typical time fillers.

We did not watch filmstrips or movies. Or read the next chapter silently and do a worksheet about it.

In tenth grade Contemporary American History, we took note after note as Mr. Leroy Seip told story after story. One about how Poland temporarily thwarted Germany at the onset of WWII elucidates the attribute you need to create the coronavirus workout mentioned in the title.

Resourcefulness.

According to Mr. Seip, Poland didn’t have any tanks to battle Germany’s, so the Germans expected to occupy Warsaw within days of the declaration of war. But the Poles used what they had to delay the fall of their capital by nearly a month, giving their citizens time to flee in the wake of the blitzkrieg.

What did they have? Horses. Plenty of horses.

And horses run faster than manually operated gun turrets can turn.

So they strapped machine guns to them, rode circles around the tanks, shot at the tracks that propelled them, and immobilized them. (Hmm. So much for the dumb Polack jokes.)

In the second of the Fitness Master articles dedicated to the coronavirus, I suggested you use the downtime created by it to increase the time and intensity of your workouts. Since health clubs are currently closed, that suggestion may strike you as a poor one.

But it’s not - not if you’re as resourceful as those horse-riding, machine-gun toting Poles.

What follows is a potential exercise for a stuck-at-home weightlifting workout that could challenge any Cross Fit crazy, yet accommodate the laziest of the lazy. I know it as Canoe Twists, but some call it Wood Choppers.

To begin, make the hands-together arm motion used to paddle a canoe but do so standing. As you paddle to the right, lift your right knee so that your hands and knee nearly meet.

Touch your foot to the floor as the paddle stroke ends while twisting your torso to the right. Now move your right hand from the bottom to the top of the imaginary paddle and perform the same motion to the left.

It might feel awkward at first, but once it feels comfortable, it’s a great exercise to start your workout. Or end it. Or tax your lungs. Or make your abs burn.

The movement can be that versatile - if you’re resourceful.

When I first performed this exercise, I did so to enhance the separation and detail in my abs. I did it shirtless in the summer, watching intently in a mirror.

Along with contracting my abs forcefully, I would keep my arms and legs tense and move them slowly. Once my foot touched the floor, I would inhale maximally, exhale totally, contract the abs again, and begin rep number two, with the goal of completing 25.

In any season but summer, it’s too chilly in my basement to go shirtless, so the Canoe Twists used to be mothballed. But that chill was doing more than keeping my torso covered; it was making it hard to properly warmup.

So I did the Canoe Twists fully dressed but at a faster pace, without contracting the abs quite as intensely, without pausing when my foot touched the floor - without stopping at 25. Doing 50 reps fast, performing a lower back exercise easily but immediately next, and doing both a total of three times became my new warmup.

During the cycling offseason, I devote one weightlifting workout to my legs. For that, I need a more intense warmup, so the reps of the three sets Canoe Twists increases to 100.

Finally, if you add weight to the Canoe Twists motion, you can make your abs grow.

Even though your abs are mostly slow-twitch muscles and respond best to high-repetition sets, you can shock them into growth by occasionally reducing the reps and increasing the resistance. So one day, I grabbed an antiquated 6.6-pound plastic-coated dumbbell, held it as if it were the paddle, and did the slow summertime version of the exercise.

Not bad. I could really feel the abs.

But do you know what allows you to work the muscles even harder? Using two 5-pound ankle weights fastened together by their Velcro straps to create a floppy paddle.

Because of the flop of the weight with each rep, these 10 pounds feel heavier than they are and allows you - if you push the pace - to do a surprisingly intense, gasping-for-breath set.

The versatility of Canoe Twists is proof that you can create a killer workout in the confines of your home - or one to make your less-than-great level of fitness a bit greater.

You just need to be resourceful. Tomorrow’s column will illustrate another exercise and more ways to do so.