Remember that time we were quarantined and we tried to maintain our gains despite being locked inside of our houses without equipment?

Here's an incredibly far-fetched scenario that'd never come to pass in real life, but let's pretend for fun:

What if the government forced us to stay inside of our homes for six-months? What if going to the gym wasn't possible? How would you train with minimal equipment while quarantined?

Let's pretend today is April 1, 2020 and I haven't made contact with the outside world since March 15, nor will I be able to make contact with the outside world anytime soon — the earliest possible date being April 30, 2020 even though everyone knows quarantine will extend into June, at minimum…

let's also pretend Instagram influencers are panic posting home workouts in a desperate attempt to remain relevant, in lieu of being unable to post nearly nude beach selfies with captions that have nothing to do with the posted picture. they don’t know what to worry about more: (a) losing their gains, or (b) losing their followers.

in this highly fictionalized scenario, I have a home gym. i have the potential to usurp these sad sad Instagram influencers. i could get shredded. i could go b.e.a.s.t.m.o.d.e.

instead, i opt to self-medicate with beer and other medicinal* substances, in order to help my overthinking nerd brain cope with the reason i'm quarantined: someone on the other side of the world ate a bat and now a strange virus is plotting to murder me and everyone i love.

anyways…

the first rule of quarantine is to do no harm.

if you're quarantined and training from home, don't overload yourself with bunch of stuff you aren't used to doing, especially if said stuff is high(er) impact. if you haven't done any jump squats in the past year, now isn't the time to do 100 jump squats per day… unless you want to sleep on a COVID-19 infested pillow in a COVID-19 infested hospital after having torn your Achilles tendon.

(btw, COVID-19 is the silly name i'm giving to this fictitious murderous virus.)

this isn't to say you CAN'T do stuff you normally don't do, or that you shouldn't do stuff you normally don't do… being quarantined is great reason to explore things you otherwise wouldn't.

but.

have a brain.

maybe don't do backflips in your backyard. maybe wear shoes, just in case you drop a nickle on your tootsies. maybe don't do anything inverted on your plastic door frame pull-up bar…

the second rule of quarantine is to adapt (as best as you can).

prior to the global shutdown, Steve Kamb (of NerdFitness.com) did basic barbell and bodyweight training four days per week. i know this because he pays me to tell him what to do.

each of his training days revolved around one or two meat ‘n tater exercises, done with strength (lifting more weight) intent. so one day he did weighted chin-ups, the next day he did deadlifts, the next day he did… you get the idea.

you can't do this sort of training without a barbell, but you can do something similar (with minimal equipment).

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instead of heavy weighted squats, explore cossack squats and pistol squats… shrimp squats and dragon squats if you're next level.

instead of deadlifts, explore single-leg glute bridges and single-leg bridge hamstring curls (put a paper plate under your foot).

instead of heavy presses, explore handstands, handstand push-ups, russian push-ups (paper plate under feet), side-to-side push-ups…

instead of heavy pulls… buy a door frame pull-up bar. and then explore side-to-side pull-ups, archer pull-ups, one-arm pull-ups, and bodyweight rows (loop a long towel around the pull-up bar).

(if you get my weekly email column, you'd have a door frame pull-up bar because i predicted quarantine and told you to buy one, so you'd be prepared for this very fictitious scenario.)

also explore gymnastics-based exercises, like planches, levers, hollowbody holds, archbody holds, etc…

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i could go on, but if you really tried to learn some of these bodyweight exercises, you'd be busy for the next five years. you might not even go back to the gym after quarantine gets lifted.

THIS IS NICE, BUT I NEED A PROGRAM.

the second component: a more traditional “split” routine. done four days per week.

Steve doesn't realize this, but, i knew, despite being quarantined, life wasn't going to go perfectly. i created the daily program so he'd have something to breeze through in 10-15 minutes, if all else failed… just to maintain his current abilities. below is his actual program.

✱

the third rule of quarantine is to (maybe) do new things.

if you don't want to do a band-aid barbell/bodyweight program, i understand. i hate “workout” culture; people flailing around with no purpose beyond flailing around. doesn't make sense to me.

if you're anything like me, you probably have a bunch of things you're interested in, that you've never explored, for one reason or another.

like, hey, oh, yeah, maybe i should try to improve how quickly i can run one mile. that'd be interesting. like, just run one mile. and then, over time, i try to run it quicker. that'd only take like ten minutes out of my day. yeah. cool.

or, like, hey, oh, yeah, maybe i should try to become more mobile. perhaps i have all the squatting strength i'll ever need, and i should now strive to have the level of control needed to put my foot into my mouth (without using my hands for assistance), just in case i ever misplace my toenail clippers.

if you're usually all strength and muscle in the gym, maybe you use this time to experiment and explore something you've wanted to, but haven't… because when everything goes back to normal (and it will, eventually, probably not as early as you think, probably not until there's a vaccine), you're going to crawl back into the gym and do what you've done for the past five years.

imagine, for the next three months, you really buckled down and tried to fix that chronic knee pain you've been having. or, maybe, you spend all of your time improving handstands. or, maybe you lower your resting heart rate and…

just remember rule one: don't be an idiot. baby steps. prepare yourself adequately, if you're doing something you don't normally do. don't do something that's gonna cause more problems…

what i'm saying is: don't use a pair of dirty underwear as a scarf to protect yourself from COVID-19. even if it works, you're gonna get pink eye.

the fourth rule of quarantine is to relax.

Don't beat yourself up if you aren't heavily motivated to “live your best life” right now. a bunch of people are using COVID-19 as their self-improvement Call to Adventure. Gross. Only a self-righteous narcissistic nerf hearder would turn a global pandemic into a personal matter.

Don't let Brian make you feel bad. Despite what he says, he hasn't stayed in shape all these years because he knew “something like this” was going to happen. he got through his 6 o'clock cardio sessions by daydreaming about sheila's lips, not covid.

if you're feeling anxious and weird and confused, maybe the best thing you can do for yourself right now is… not much. maybe you just need to take some long slow appropriately socially distanced walks. or maybe you need to grab a chair and sit outside on your tiny patio, with a beer in hand, taking deep breaths slowly through your nose. or maybe you need to hop on Skype or Zoom or Snapchat or Whatever and power hour with your crew.

this could be the only time in history when it's socially acceptable to sit on the couch and watch movies, while having absolutely no idea what day of the week it is.

so.