Many of us are probably thinking the same thing: When our gym reopens and we get under that barbell, the heavy weight we lifted easily just a few months ago will feel like it can break us in half. Sets of squats with 400, 300, and even 200 pounds will be a thing of the past — welcome to the new normal.
For those living in states that haven’t allowed gyms to reopen, the fact of the matter is that we’ll be a little bit weaker when we set foot in an iron paradise than we were when the coronavirus shut them down in March (unless you have a fully-stocked home gym that is).
Thinking about how long it can take to get back to a “new normal” can make us sweat. So how long will that take, and what will our workouts look like when we step back into the gym?
It all depends on where we were when the doors closed.
We start to lose strength and muscle two to five months after we stop lifting. The longer we’ve been regularly training, the longer it takes to weaken. If you’ve only lifted for two months, you’ll quickly lose what you’ve built.
But whether we’ve been training for a lifetime or just started six months ago, we can regain much of our strength and muscle after just a few weeks of consistency thanks to muscle memory.
Jesse Irizarry, CSCS, is a strength coach and writer. He has close to 15 years of professional experience. He began as a college strength and conditioning coach and moved on to found JDI Barbell, NYC’s leading dedicated strength and conditioning gym specializing in foundational principle-based strength training, Olympic Weightlifting, powerlifting, and combat sports. Jesse has competed in strength sports like powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting but also enjoys and practices everything from Muay Thai, to different Yoga practices, to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, to trail runs and hiking. You can check out more of his writing on his website JDIStrength.com.
There’s two parts to this. The first involves neural pathways that are set when we learn new motor skills. When learning new motor skills (squat, deadlift, etc.) we think through each step. Eventually we can execute them automatically with very little thought. The longer we’ve practiced, the more deep-seated the skill is.
So, given the same time off, someone who has only practiced the deadlift for five months will feel more awkward and uncertain the first day back to lifting than someone who’s practiced for 10 years. But once the neural pathway is set, the skill will return quickly.
Rebuilding muscle is a different process. The more we strength train and develop muscle, the more nuclei are transferred to muscle fibers by what’s called satellite cells. Satellite cells are switched on through weight training. These added nuclei control the proteins that make muscles bigger and stay put even if we stop training. These added nuclei speed up the rebuild of muscle when we resume training.
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Is Your Body Ready?
How we’ve spent our time in quarantine will control how quickly we can build back up to the standards we hold ourselves to at the gym. If you regularly did slow and controlled bodyweight exercises your soft tissues (your joints and ligaments) are probably ready and prepared to handle some volume with weights as soon as you walk into the gym.
On the other hand, if you’ve done zero training during quarantine you’re going to need to devote some time to conditioning your body. The soft tissues need to be stressed appropriately to become and remain pliable and tough. This is a precondition for heavy weight training, unless we want to start racking up injuries. Not only that, but muscles need to be stretched through full range of motion under tension, often to keep its integrity.
If you skip this part, you may do more harm than good. Maybe you won’t get hurt but you’ll need to take a couple of steps back at some point. So, take some time now to do upper- and lower-bodyweight exercises with slow controlled tempos so you don’t need to spend as much time conditioning your body when you get back to the gym and you can go to work lifting weights.
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Make Phases
If we have a goal in mind to load the bar up to the same number we were lifting before the lockdown, we need to be strategic on planning out our training so we can reach this benchmark sooner. We can and should create phases of training, each focusing on developing just one or two aspects of strength and fitness at a time. We can use two distinct phases.
The first phase addresses the need to focus on general exercise, muscle building, and the ability to handle stress. Even if our goal is building a big 1 –rep-max for the deadlift again, we have to build up the muscles that make this possible and re-establish the stability and coordination for our body to make this massive effort.
Build muscle, general strength, and stability through exercises like lunges and single leg RDLs. Want to bench press heavy again? Do some overhead dumbbell press to get the shoulders strong and muscular. Spend two to four weeks with this as the focus.
After, you can shift to more focused strength training directed toward practicing and adding weight to the exercises you’re most interested in improving. Spend another two to four weeks slowly but regularly progressing and, because of the base you’ve already created during the last phase, you should be handling the weight you want to by the end of this second phase.
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Brush Up On Each Skill
To rebuild confidence to lift weights we used to, we have to build our base again and then get to work on the specifics of the skill. Remember that every lift and exercise we do in the gym is a motor skill. If we plan on practicing the individual components of skill in movement like stability, balance, and fluidity we’ll start pushing or pulling heavy weight sooner.
Using a barbell squat as an example again, we can start practicing the skills of balance and tension needed to squat heavy by doing a goblet squat where we hold a dumbbell or kettlebell in front of our bodies.
Holding a weight like this, however light, retrains us on how to keep appropriate tension in our upper backs and trunk while also allowing us to focus on the points of pressure and balance on our feet. The weight held out in front at chest height acts as a counterweight to help our knees and hips track properly as we go down into and come out of the squat. These abilities need to happen without thought when we squat a heavy barbell. So, we can practice them and think about them with the goblet squat first.
The same holds true for a deadlift or any upper-body compound exercise. If you plan out which areas of the skill you need work in, then focus on them first, you’ll ready yourself sooner to get under that heavy bar.
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Avoiding Injury
Starting fist with workouts that build muscle and build up general strength helps get us back into lifting shape quickly. We need to make sure of something else, though. We can’t have any setbacks. There are a few things we can do to keep from injuries in the first two phases of training to keep from any hiccups.
The first is to use weights that we previously thought of as warm-ups as working weight sets for a little while. In that first phase of general strength and fitness we discussed, this won’t be too hard. Still it may seem like we aren’t doing much, but if we get hurt because we pushed it too soon, we won’t be doing anything at all, again.
The second is to spend as much time warming up as you do with your work sets. The muscles and joints need time to grow resilient again, even if you’ve been doing bodyweight exercises. During the first couple of weeks back at the gym, spend at least half your workout time getting the body warm with general movement, mobilizing, bodyweight movements, and sets with light dumbbells or empty barbells.
The third is to keep the volume low. However many sets and reps you think you should do for the first couple of weeks, cut it in half. Most people understand that it’s foolish to go too heavy too soon but think that it’s OK to do a bunch of sets of ten to twelve reps for exercises on day one.
Three sets of five reps will do. Too much volume too soon will make you so sore and stiff that if you do decide to come back later in the week for another workout you’re movement quality will degrade so drastically that you’ll begin compensating in weird ways. Do this too much and you’ve created issues that could lead to injury.
It’s frustrating to feel like all of your hard work has been for nothing. Especially if taking time off was not your choice. But your hard work wasn’t for nothing. Your body has stored the patterns, potential strength, and ability to regain muscle. And it will all come back quicker than you think, if you focus on the right things and trust the process.
