How to keep your physique under quarantine

It can be really easy for your fitness to take a backseat when thrust into a new life situation - new job, new baby, new home. Or, being quarantined. Can’t stop scrolling through social media? Don’t want to turn off the TV? Need the afternoon nap? Understandable, but maintaining fitness right now is more important than ever.

Here’s how to keep it all together.

1. Stick to your schedule

There’s no more commute, there are kids home from school, and work hours are blurred. Everyone’s schedule is turned upside down. One of the single best ways to stay on track with your fitness is to keep your workouts and eating schedules the same, says Stan from ONEFIT. “If you always work out in the morning or at night, try to stick to that,” he says. While there’s a lot of things we cannot control right now, the time we dedicate to ourselves for a workout can be.

Try “Get Tight!” in the Peak Physique collection by Stan.

2. Switch up your reps

“If you have weights, keep up with your strength training program, says Mat from Forzag Fitness. Strength training is essential for strong and lean muscles to keep your body composition on point. Mat’s suggested strategy is to go for repetitions in the 12-15 range, or what he likes to call, ‘the muscle-building cardio’ range. According to him, this is the perfect spot to maintain (and even improve) that physique by simultaneously building muscle and burning fat.

Try “Sculpting Lean Arms” in the Peak Physique collection by Mat.

3. Add an extra day of cardio

Chances are good that your daily steps are way down since the lockdown. “We tend to be less active during quarantine,” says Mat. To offset the decrease in activity, Mat suggests increasing cardio days and emphasizing HIIT training. “By increasing the intensity of our cardio, we’re able to stay lean and keep body fat down,” he says. Take regular walks (while responsibly social distancing, of course) and make sure to keep a super-tough HIIT cardio workout in the calendar too.

4. Don’t skimp on the protein

There’s no question that diet is one of the trickiest things to figure out when it comes to the physique. The good news is: now you’ve got plenty of time to figure it out. “This is a great time to focus on diet, meal prep, or plan for a healthier diet,” says Mat. Instead of letting things slip, take on the challenge of tightening things up. “We don’t have control over a lot of things during this time, but we can control what we put in our mouths and how we fuel our bodies,” says Stan. He recommends sticking to natural, unprocessed foods, and prioritizing protein to maintain muscular strength and size.

For a series of healthy diet options, check out “The Essentials” on NEOU.