How to save muscle when I can't go to the gym for a couple weeks?

[Spank]

So my life has taken a turn for the hectic. I won't be able to go to the gym for a few weeks so I can catch up on work and stay up to date with school :(
I have 3 old sets of dumbells (15lb, 20lb, and 35lb), an ab wheel, and a pull up bar.
If I do a shitty full body circuit a couple of times a day, will I at least maintain?
I have a desk job and work from home. If I sit too long I lose focus and become unproductive anyways, so these garbage full body circuits give me a baby pump and wake me up.
I'm wondering if I can get away with this and maybe 2 gym days a week doing heavy squat/OH press then heavy DB bench/deadlift/some Heavy row variation With cardio both days.

When I first went back to school I lost 20 pounds the first 2 semesters because I couldn't get my work life balance together, and I really don't want to lose all the work and money I spent growing over the last 6 months because of a shitty situation.

Has anyone had success with minimizing gym time just to maintain LBM??? What did you do?

I should be able to get back into the swing of things in a month (3-4 1.5-2 hour gym sessions/week)

I know my lifts will go down, I just don't want to drop too much weight or slowly reverse recomp lol
Please halp

[Scope75]

Diet diet diet....

Keep that diet tight and those fullbody sessions are better than nothing.

Also a reverse recomp is a DEcomp. Lol

[somm]

When I couldn't get to the gym alot last summer, because of work, I just used the pull-up bar and d-bells that I have at the house. If you use your imagination you can work alot of body parts! For tri's, i'd pull two chairs close together and do dips. I loved focusing on the pull up bar. I'd try to add one more pull up every week and got up to 24 without stopping and thats pretty good for me. So yeah its totally do-able, and like Scope said,....really watch your diet well!

[weekend]

Buy a dip bar if you have $50...

But with just the equipment you have now you could get swole. I know I could. Don't do a shitty full body routine. Do a fucking awesome one.

I'll post some example workouts you could do when I'm less tired

[O.N.]

EPIC GAINZ!

Enhanced Exercise Capacity In an earlier study by Wayne State University they were able to show that (-)-epicatechin enhances exercise capacity and was able to maintain exercise-induced improved capillarity and mitochondrial capacity, even when exercise regimens are discontinued. (4)

This basically means that if you were to stop training for a month you wouldn't lose much of your exercise capacity.


4. (-)-Epicatechin maintains endurance training adaptation in mice after 14 days of detraining.
Hüttemann M, Lee I, Malek MH. FASEB J. 2012 Apr;26(4):1413-22. doi: 10.1096/fj.11-196154. Epub 2011 Dec 16.

[English]

If diet remains good and hormone balance remains stable (which you can ensure is the case by clean living and keeping stress to a minimum) then you just need to do the right type of exercises to maintain, and your own body weight is more than sufficient to do so.
1- Plyometrics is probably no. 1. Google it if unsure, but basically, powerful explosive movements using your body weight will have the same if not better effect than lifting at the gym. You try jump lunges, jumping high as you can and touching the ground when you land, bending all the way down, chances are you will get to 30 and want to die. Do 3 or 4 sets of those once a day. That will maintain calves, quads and hams.
2- Like the other guys say, buy a pull up bar, but do full exposive pull ups, not the half assed ones people do trying to get the 20 or 30 in a row. Extend arms fully and when you pull up, do it explosively and powerfully, let yourself down all the way so you are not bouncing, repeat. If you do this, you will only achieve 70% of what you would have done had you done the swinging half assed ones. As you know, less reps and more power = more muscle bulk
3- Apply same principle to all other exercises and use a weights vest to maximise power and reduce reps if your joints can take it.

Question - How do the thighs of pro sprinters, and even soccer players look? Answer: Pretty fucking good!

Footballers in particular often do not weights at all, it is just that their job involves short powerful sprints most days (AKA plyometrics)

Hence, apply the same principles to all major body parts, and you will at least maintain.

[Spank]

I don't know how well I can control stress at this time, which directly translates to carb cravings for me :/
I'll definitely consider creative ways to do some dips. I actually just rented some office space and will be hiring someone part time, to hopefully give me back some of my life. I won't be making a lot of $$ anymore, but cash is worthless if I'm miserable all the time....
I guess I should've opened a gym if I wanted to start a business and have time to lift seriously, while tryimg to finish school. I'm shedding even more than when i was on Lol
Thank you guys for all the advice! It's always a priveledge to not have to start from scratch and work trial and error.