Coming back to the gym after a long hiatus is a strange feeling. You are either weaker than before or you are fit in a different way (maybe you didn’t work out while your gym membership was down, but you ran a lot) but you still remember your old weights, your old steps, your old routines.
Jumping back as if you never left is a recipe for disappointment and possibly even injury. Fortunately, the human body is resilient and adaptable. Follow these tips and you’ll soon be back to your old routine.
Run up over time
If you repeat yourself, such as B. Running, your greatest risk is not what you do on a given day, but rather the total amount of work you do. Beginner injuries are far more common than experienced runnersand most running injuries are overuse injuries – the kind that creep on you over time.
As we discussed in Our guide to injury prevention as a beginnerYou don’t really have to worry too much about your shape or your shoe choices. What’s more important is keeping most of your running at an easy, slow pace and increasing your overall workload over time, rather than jumping straight to your run every day.
Other repetitive activities can follow the same pattern. If you decide you want to swim 50 laps every morning, don’t be surprised if your shoulders hurt after a week in a row. Rather than fast-forwarding straight to your goal routine, start doing shorter workouts a few times a week and then gradually increasing yourself a little each week while you are still feeling good.
G / O Media can receive a commission
Don’t try to get the most out of your first day
Testing your strength is fun, but it’s probably best to think about testing days as a privilege that you deserve through the hard work of training.
You can injure yourself lifting heavy weights incorrectly, but something heavy is not enough to create a risk of injury. Rather, your body adapts to the loads you put on it. So what you are lifting should be something that you have trained for.
If you’ve done a lot of squatting around 170, 180, 190 pounds, asking your body to 200 pounds isn’t too much of a leap. But if you squat zero pounds and then charge 200, your body may not be ready for it.
Instead of trying to test your strength right away, first give your body a basic level of work for a while so it can adjust. You will still make profits during this time, so do not rush. In a matter of weeks you will feel like you again.
Expect an improvement
So you have to hold back your first day at the gym. Too bad. But don’t get so attached to this fact that you forget to challenge yourself.
The truth is, beginners can make huge gains pretty quickly in almost any area of fitness, whether it’s strength, speed, endurance, or anything else. And if you had previous experience and are now getting back to the beginner numbers, you will likely be able to make the same gains even faster.
Make a plan. You may not know exactly how quickly you will improve. So make it a goal to listen to your body – not just to find out your limits, but also to see if you can possibly do more than expected. Try adding a little weight each week and see what happens. Add a few notches to your resistance on the elliptical. Sign up for the intermediate class when the beginner has felt good. You will never find out what to do until you try.
Build consistency
We’ve already established that there are no prizes for setting personal records on your first day at the gym. So how can you rate your efforts?
I like to think of it this way: your goal at this point is to build consistency. Staying in tune with your efforts is the foundation upon which profits are built. So instead of thinking, “How much can I lift today?” or “How high can I go up the rankings in this class?” ask yourself, “How does this help me build consistency?”
If you have a specific answer to this question – such as, “I’m doing the beginner’s course three times this week and I’m going to sign up for two beginners’ sessions and an intermediate level next week – you are in control of the process and you’re off to a good start.
