Returning to the gym:

With the ease of the stage 3 Government enforced restrictions now resuming to stage 2, some small gym facilities have been given the green light to reopen. If you find yourself returning back to the gym this week, I feel as though there are a few key things which need to be touched upon in order to make the rest of your week a much smoother experience. Granted, there will be soreness potentially like never before, but I feel it is very important to minimise your risk and within this blog I am going to let you know how to do so.

Perform the necessary warm up routine:

It’s a well known saying that poor preparation leads to poor performance, but with an 8 week hiatus from the gym, this cannot be said enough. I encourage you to do more mobility and release work than you may have ever done before, in order to prepare your body as best as possible. This will decrease your risk of injury and also give you an understanding of where you are at. There could be stiffness and movement restrictions that were not there before, so addressing this is paramount. Skipping this step and then hurting your back in the squat rack is really not going to be a good outcome. I’d encourage you to do a movement screening with your coach prior to jumping straight into things. This will give you and those around you a good understanding of where you are at before you get lifting.

Load and volume management:

It really should go without saying, but understanding that you have been away from the barbells for 8 weeks is going to have left a significant hole in your previous lifting achievements. Consider load management as harm minimisation. By not going as heavy and also performing less reps than normal, you can allow your body to adapt to this new found stimulus in the same way you would if you were learning a new exercise. The ability of the body to recover between sets and also between training days has been significantly diminished so you need to remember that before you stack the plates back on. Obviously injury is a risk, but so is not being able to recover from your initial sessions during the week and potentially doing less throughout the week than you’d like. Lowering your expectations and being kind to yourself throughout your transition back to the gym is going to be the key.

Be kind to yourself:

Whilst everyone is going to have had differing isolation experiences, one thing is for certain; we are different people than we were 8 weeks ago. A lot of people took to building garage gyms whilst others settled for light dumbbell and band workouts. Whatever you did, it wasn’t what you were doing 8 weeks ago and that has now resulted in a different person than you were back then. You may have gained or lost weight, gained or lost mobility but it will be highly unlikely that you haven’t lost strength. We all lost strength and we lost our routines that we took for granted. With the return to a new normal, it is important to take the small wins along the way and allow your mind frame to remain positive. Reach out to your gym buddies and coaches and ensure you are all in this together.

Prioritise recovery:

With an increase in output, there needs to be an increase in recovery and this comes in the form of active and passive modalities. Firstly, an active recovery session may now take the place of one of your scheduled strength sessions as you battle the new found soreness of returning to the gym. Picking up a solid mobility or flow style session every few days is going to enable you to come back even stronger than before. This is also a great way to manage your loading and volume per week as you are now stretching / rolling / getting a massage instead of doing that 4th or 5th session for the week. This doesn’t have to last forever, but I’d suggest that for the first 4 weeks of training, you consider it. Your passive recovery strategies are going to be your nutrition, hydration and sleep. These factors all need to be a huge priority if you want to get back into shape any time soon. Just like with any training program, these factors matter; but they do so now more than ever. Speaking with your coach about how to actually get through your first week of training would be very advisable.

Just remember, over time, you will make back your lost progress and then surpass your previous self. You have never rested this long and had this much time with your own thoughts before. You have now set new goals and have a bigger desire than ever to achieve them. This shift in mindset and new found growth is something we never knew we needed, but we got it anyway. Here’s to the second half of 2020 being far more enjoyable than the first.