Getting Back Into The Gym After A Long Break
So you took some extended time off and are getting back into the gym after a long break.
Maybe you were injured. Took the kiddies on a cross-country trip to Wally World. Laid up in a hospital bed from your promiscuous ways finally catching up with you. Or just said fuck it and let laziness kick your ass.
Whatever the cause of your layoff, you’re on the comeback road and ready to make your triumphant return to Gainsville.1See what I did there?!
Good for you!
But before you attempt to pick up where you left off, there are a few things to consider…
Muscle is physiologically expensive for the body to build and maintain. So the moment it’s not needed — like when you take an extended break from using those muscles to lift heavy ass shit — the body rids itself of it by slowing down the metabolic processes necessary for its upkeep. This is what’s known as muscle atrophy, the loss of size and strength from a lack of movement or as a result of disease.
Additionally, breaks lasting longer than a week bring about the loss of neural training adaptations. What happens is that when you perform any movement, like bench pressing, the brain and the correct muscles and nerves all have to communicate with each other to execute the task. With continued repetition, these communication channels strengthen to the point that the movement becomes almost automatic. With disuse, these motor neuron pathways erode.
What this means is that, depending on how long you were gone, you shouldn’t jump back into your routine as if your body is flowing with the power of Greyskull. It more than likely isn’t. So using the weights you were using before? Your body in all likelihood just isn’t capable of it.2Not that you were that strong before, because you weren’t!
Regardless of your amount of time away from the gym, especially if it’s extended, the above is why you shouldn’t return and train with the same weights at the same intensity that you did prior to stopping.
So what the fuck are you supposed to do then?
Well, if you have an interest in not putting yourself back on the shelf for even more rest by injuring yourself or suffering debilitating soreness, your best bet is to decrease everything (e.g. weight, volume, intensity) and gradually work your way up over a span of training sessions.
For example, let’s imagine that your normal leg day consists of five movements each done for four sets and 12 reps.3I know, you doing legs. The hilarity! Anywaaaayyyyyyy… Then out of nowhere, a global pandemic strikes that forces the closure of not only your gym but ALL the gyms across the country to help stop the spread of a virus. To add a bit of realism to this completely made-up scenario, let’s make up a scary name for the virus.
Hmmmm…that’s it!
Let’s call it “COVID-19”.
Oooooooh, scary!!!
…
Now, three months later when quarantine is over, your first leg day may consist of 3 out of 5 of the movements in your normal workout. In addition to fewer exercises, you’d also perform them with less weight and less reps and less sets. So of the five movements you normally do, let’s say one is a barbell squat that you last performed with 315 lbs for quarter reps. On your first day back, you’d squat maybe 225 lbs for 3 sets of 8 reps. Over the following sessions, you’d gradually increase one, two, or all three of the variables until you’re back to squatting 315 lbs with shitty form for 4 sets of 12 imaginary reps.
Unless you’re dabbling in the dark arts, it’s impossible to pinpoint the exact date when you’ll go from Prince Adam back to He-Man status. All that can be said is that you should regain size and strength much quicker than the first time around due to muscle memory. Exactly how fast you get your gains back will depend on your age, gender, health, length of time away, and fitness level prior to your hiatus.4For example, a 21-year-old man with testosterone coursing through him will return to form sooner than a 59-year-old postmenopausal woman with the same training history and time away from the gym.
While it’s hard to nail down exactly when you’ll resume lifting your previous poundages, there’s a general rule of thumb. If you take 3-5 days off, you’ll return to normal within 2-3 days of resumed training because not enough time will have passed to start losing gains. For a break lasting beyond a week, you should expect a return to form in double the amount of time that you stopped training for. So if you stopped working out consistently for a month, it should take you about 2 months of consistent effort to get back to looking like yourself again and using the same amount of weight you were using before the intermission.5The longer and longer a break lasts past a month or two, the less dependable the general rule of thumb is because you lose more and more neural adaptations and muscle, bringing you closer and closer to beginner status.
Until that time, there’s only one rule: hold your horses!!!
As for cardio…
After about three weeks removed from aerobic activity, research suggests you’ll experience a 7 percent drop in VO2 max. VO2 max is the measure of oxygen consumption during intense exercise, so it falling means you’ll run out of breath faster than you did before. After three months, the decline will stabilize at 16 percent below your normal training level.
The same rules for weights apply to your cardio comeback.
Rather than picking up at your previous intensity, ease your way back into it. So if you took a few months off from your running routine, for example, then start by walking for your first few sessions back. Once you can do that without feeling like you need a lung transplant, perform intervals at a light jog. Keep decreasing the walk intervals and bumping up the pace and length of the jog intervals until you can jog for your entire workout at your former speed.6The less time removed from cardio, the less regressions. For example, if you only take a week off, your first few sessions might be at a light then moderate jog before being able to ratchet up the intensity again.
The failure of many to bounce back from an extended hiatus usually amounts to impatience. They think they should be able to take 6 months off and then go back to the gym for a week and be right where they were when they left off. They then become discouraged when they get hurt, have DOMS, or are nowhere near where they think they should be, all resulting in their finding themselves in a stupor that builds to the point of them eventually quitting. That situation is avoidable.
To escape it from happening to you, all you have to do is not operate under the assumption that fitness is instantaneous. It’s not, just like everything else in life.
So don’t be like everyone else who expects things to happen at the snap of a finger.
If not for me, then do it for your poor mother who’s been telling you not to follow what the crowd does…
…sage wisdom you ignored and now have a tramp stamp in Chinese characters that don’t mean what you thought they meant, which forever serves as a reminder of your failure to listen to sage advice!
Glossary: atrophy, barbell, bench press, cardio, COVID-19, exercise, fitness, gym, intensity, leg day, lifting form, muscle, muscle soreness, reps, squat, routine, work out, workout
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