Returning to Exercise After a Long Lay Off

Returning to Exercise

Some of the people I have trained over the years have been returning to exercise after a long lay off. I myself had to phase in my returning to exercise after I broke my hand in January 2013.

There are a few things to consider if you want to make returning to to exercise successful, including building your programme around the most appropriate exercises and making sure a few fundamental movement issues are addressed.

Read the list below and implement the advice to get your return to exercise off to a flyer!

1. Flexibility and mobility.

We lead sedentary lives now – driving more than we walk, sitting more than we stand, hunching forward to use a keyboard etc. All of these take their toll on our mobility – muscles shorten and tighten and our soft tissue (muscles, ligaments, tendons) quality deteriorates through lack of use.

We need to address mobility first – make sure you are stretched thoroughly, massaged well and moving as you should.

As indulgent as it may sound, going for a sports massage ahead of a return to the gym can actually be a good thing – it will improve tissue quality by removing knots in the muscle, making it more supple. Additionally, a massage will improve blood flow and help remove any built-up waste products in the tissues.

2. Functional strength.

We hear a lot about functional strength and movement in the fitness world – it seems to be a bit of a buzz word actually, this ‘functional’ thing. Personally I see functional exercises as those that help us to achieve proper safe and effective movement that helps us in everyday life – it serves a function. I believe functional movement to be individual to the person, meaning functional exercise for one person might be improving posture, whereas for another it might be rehabilitation-based.

For people returning to exercise, I would address stability through the core, hips, glutes and knees by focusing on core exercises, posterior chain exercises (exercises using the back, glutes, hamstrings, calf muscles) and lower body exercises such as bodyweight lunges and squats.

If your time away from the gym has involved lots of sitting, it is likely that you are suffering a weakness in the posterior chain, meaning the best exercises to select would be those that ‘wake up’ the muscles you are wanting to train.

Good examples include…

• Swiss ball or TRX hamstring curls
• Glute bridges
• Kettlebell Swings

3. The path of least resistance.

The last thing anyone should be worried about upon their return to exercise is their strength numbers. Start with a low-weight circuit to re-educate your muscles. Focus on recruiting the right muscles in the right order on your exercises. As we have discussed previously on the blog, form is of paramount importance when weight training.

A simple yet effective bodyweight circuit when returning to exercise after a long lay-off would look something like this…

• Inverted Rows
• Push Ups
• Alternating Lunges
• Plank
• Rotational Pulls

This workout covers different movement patters and the set numbers, rep ranges and rest periods could be played around with to bring about a required intensity. The focus should be on movement quality and musculature recruitment however, rather than simply training to fatigue.

When you are happy with your movement ability, you could move on to a more advanced group of exercises such as…

• Pull ups
• Feet elevated Push Ups
• Split Squats
• Dips
• Swiss Ball Plank
• Jump Squats

These would provide an added level of difficulty and would prepare you well for lifting weights again. They are all legitimate, testing exercises in their own right, so don’t assume bodyweight exercises are an easy way out – they certainly aren’t! They are however, exercises without an external balance bias – there is no added weight to destabilise your balance, so if your movement isn’t stable through your joints without added weight, it would be much worse with the extra load.

4. Realistic expectations.

It is safe to assume that the first session back will be much tougher than you remember. You are unlikely to be able to lift as much, as often or as well, but be patient – these abilities return, you just have to work for it!

Get the basics right early on and you will be back to fitness quickly, as long as you do things well. Don’t push and push, trying to regain lost strength too quickly – you are more likely to injure yourself, or burn out too soon. You have to build up a tolerance to exercise.

A return to training will also probably bring about DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness). Don’t let this put you off, simply up your quality protein intake and drink lots of water. Finally, stay on the move – the blood flow will help you feel better more quickly than if you were sedentary!

These are a few things to consider when making your return to the gym, so take the advice, use it and make your return to exercise a successful and long lasting one!