Covid-19 workouts: A full-body at-home training program to keep you sane during lockdown

Quarantine workouts: Covid-19 Full Body Program for Muscle Growth and Strength During Lockdown

All you need here is a simple barbell. And not a huge Olympic bar that you won't be able to fit anywhere in your house or apartment, but a smaller version. Here's what we mean:

Olympic bars are 2.2 metres, and the above is only 130 cm and you can take off and add weight as you please. Some of our staff with 10+ years of weight lifting experience have been utilising this barbell during the Covid-19 induced lockdowns, and with great success!

The barbell comes with 2 x 2.5 kg plates, 2 x 5 kg plates, and 2 x 1.25 plates. With the weights on, the barbell weighs about 18-20 kilograms in total. But be aware: they are quite heavy and can damage tiles or floorboards, so be sure to use them on the grass or a solid flooring foundation.

The workout we'll be doing is mainly compound movements -- there's no slacking off here! Just old-fashioned hard work. We'll be aiming for 12-15 reps. Now sure, your reps will be higher here than if you were going to the gym, but there's no reason to be alarmed! This is because higher reps have still been shown to grow muscle. Just make sure you're pushing yourself, and not just performing 12-15 reps and placing the weight down. For some exercises you'll be able to do more reps than 12-15 reps and doing this is important, as you need to make sure you're meeting all three principles of muscle growth:

We'll be having two days off here -- Sunday and Thursdays will be spent recovering.

So, here's what muscle groups we'll be working on each particular day:

You can see we're not going for a Monday chest workout, and a Tuesday back workout. This is because we don't have enough weight and/or a variety of exercises to perform as we do in the gym. Secondly, and more importantly, it's not the best way to approach muscle growth. This is because research shows muscle protein synthesis levels return to normal after 48 hours, meaning a given muscle group trained 48 hours earlier can be trained again! Such is a great benefit of this full-body workout approach.

Moreover, you'll notice that within this program, quads, chest, and hamstrings will all be trained three times. And there will be 12 sets for each by the end of the week. This is not a happy accident: research shows that 10-20 sets per week are a good range when muscle growth is the goal.

So let's look at our first-day training together:

Monday: Chest, quads, back, hamstrings

Aim for 12-15 reps (and do more on all days where you can)

Tuesday: Shoulders, triceps, glutes, biceps

Aim for 12-15 reps per set

Wednesday: Quads, chest, back, hamstrings

Aim for 12-15 reps.

Thursday: Rest.

Friday: Repeat Monday

Aim for 12-15 reps.

Saturday: Shoulders, triceps, rear delts, biceps

Aim for 12-15 reps.

Sunday: Rest.

And let us say, that's a difficult program for any lifter regardless of experience! The weight may be lighter than you're used to, but by performing more reps and going close to muscle failure, you're still making great in-roads. It's certainly harder than lifting 6-8 reps in a gym, surrounded by people, and with music blaring! Higher reps to muscle failure are much tougher. But when performed correctly, this is a great alternative for us in this difficult Covid-19 era.

Be sure to stick to your protein requirements and get 8 hours of rest for optimal growth and recovery.

Covid-19 might be here to stay, but so is our determination, workout plans, and muscle growth/maintenance!