During the lockdown, many people didn’t train at all, and we felt sad for them. Hard to believe, but it is still not so difficult to keep your muscles if you continue to workout at home and follow these simple rules:

Make sure you eat adequate protein

Dietary Reference Intake report advise the following range

If you are an inactive grown-up, absorb 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight (0.36 grams per pound). It equals 53 grams of protein per day for an average 65 kg woman or 100 grams of protein daily for 80 kg man

If you are an athlete, increase your intake up to 2.2 kg of protein per kilogram of body weight (1 gram per pound), depending on your physical activity level. So the same 65kg woman may eat up to 140 grams of protein and 80kg man 180 grams if they train hard.

Same amount of protein is required to maintain the muscles you have already got even if you do not train..

Increase the intensity of you home workouts

It is really great if you have a pair of dumbbells or at least a mini band. In this case you can multiple incorporate methods to make the exercises more difficult rather than simply using heavier loads for the base movements.

You can try single-leg work, slowing the eccentric part, adding pauses, pulses, banded repetitions & deficits.

Pyramids may be less effective as you do not have enough loads, but you can still go near failure for the most of the time

Progressive overload is the king

As long as you’re pushing your sets really hard and use the progressive overload principle for the main lifts, you will still get a hypertrophic response and maintain your strength.

It’s a nice idea to take a step back every 5-6 months to give a break from heavy lifting, it would be one week in and week out.

Here are the most popular ways to utilize progressive overload which can be useful at home:

- Add load if possible
- Enlarge the number of repetitions in one set
- Increase the number of sets (up to 5 sets max)
- Work on a proper form

For example your starting workout plan for for the lower body may include 3-4 dumbbell exercises like shown below





And remember it is much harder to achieve slender muscular body and much easier to keep it that way with less efforts.