It’s been a long hibernation away from the gym since the lockdown started, but fear not, it shouldn’t be to long now until we area all back in the gym and able to start moving some good weight again.

No doubt you’re excited to get back in, see your mates and start hitting the squat rack. This excitement is a great sign that you care about your health and training. So now’s a good time more than ever to be thinking about how to make the return to the gym a safe and seamless journey.

Your gym fitness has reduced. If you have been training at home for the past couple of months, no doubt its been with less weight and things like bands, body weight training etc. 

This is great and it is all we may have had access to, but it is a different stimulus to what you would have been getting in the gym. Research shows after a 2 to 3 week period we can start to see a drop in strength and fitness.

You won’t be able to start off where you left. Instead we need to take our time starting back and give our body a chance to re adapt. So having noted this there is a few basic things we can do to make the tranisiton smoother;

• Reduced load – we would recommend initially starting at 50% of the load you were doing. Doing 15 air squats wont be the same as unracking a barbell for a heavy set of 5. This will help with muscle damage and that DOMs feeling.

• Reduced sets & reps – another great way to let your body build up strength is by reducing the number of reps or sets you do. You might find that the movements feel hard at first, your tendons and connective tissue will need time to build back up the tolerance to hand the heavier loads.

• Reduced frequency – many of us love training and would be hitting the gym more days than not, and this is a great habit to have. But again, with giving our body some time to recover between training days this will not only help the muscles to repair but will aid in reducing our risk of injury.    

Don’t worry, it wont take as long as you may think to back hitting your previous numbers. So train smart and safe by following these few simple rules and we will see you soon.