Sh!t Happens; Health as a Life-Long Pursuit
Have you ever fallen off the wagon with your fitness routine? Maybe you missed a day or two. Maybe you missed a week or more. Either way, you aren’t quite sure how to re-engage in training. The thought of how to jump back in makes you delay even longer.
Life gets in the way for most people. If you miss a workout periodically, or even a week of training, you are among the majority.
Our bodies fight change. Both change for the positive and change for the negative. It is why we can’t ruin our results overnight by overindulging in pizza, but also why we can’t grow muscle without progressively overloading. The key is focusing on the right things at the right stages of your re-entry into training.
What you SHOULD NOT focus on the first few weeks back after a hiatus:
What did I lift last time I did these exercises? They say if you aren’t adding weight, you aren’t getting stronger.
Where was I at in the progression of this training cycle and how can I build off of that today? They say if you don’t add reps each week, then you can’t build muscle.
Did I push myself to 10/10 effort? They say if you leave too many reps in the tank, then you are just wasting your time lifting.
If you are misguided with this type of thinking and you jump right back into training the way you did before, back when you were consistent each day for weeks or months on end, then you are going to be disappointed and likely hit an obstacle.
STACK WINS STEP-BY-STEP
Warm Up Properly: Make this the most important part of your time in the gym. This will help you shake off the rust and mentally arrive for your movement session. Remember we are using this time to move blood, work on your range of motion and stability, and ultimately make training sessions more effective and have fewer injuries.
Move Well: Our only goal here is to move with purpose and quality. Technique and form should be paramount, not intensity. No junk reps and nothing so hard that you can’t execute good form.
Lift Heavy-ish: I often see when people take time off and get behind in their training, they will opt to do cardio or some boot camp style workout to get back into things. Lifting weights should always be the priority when coming back. Remember to move with quality, but focus on lifting something that feels somewhat heavy– a 7/10 on the perceived effort scale. This keeps you safe as well as gets your brain and muscles stimulated.
Long term consistency isn’t measured over days, weeks, or even months. It is measured over years. A good training program is designed in such a way that you can jump in and out at any time; if you follow these steps, you can be on a path to progress, and build robust health and fitness in no time.
Try not to get caught up too much in the overwhelm of the day-to-day inconsistencies. They happen to all of us. Yes, even to us!
