Alpha Progression
Best way to get back into your gym routine!

Best way to get back into your gym routine!

During the height of the COVID pandemic, many people were unable to go to their local gyms. This was (hopefully) a unique circumstance, but there are many reasons why people might end up away from the gym for an extended period of time: an illness or injury, a change in job or location, or just losing motivation and neglecting to go to the gym regularly for a time.

After COVID specifically, many people saw themselves and their gym buddies with a beer belly and 20 lbs less muscle mass again. Probably most of them could not train as effectively as they could in the gym and had lost (some) muscle mass as a result.

This article will be about the best way to get back into training at the gym and what to consider when it comes to nutrition.

Especially when it comes to nutrition, there are a few peculiarities that will certainly not be clear to many, because they admittedly do not seem intuitive at first glance - for example, why you will gain weight despite being on maintenance calories.

Training

Let's get started by talking about your training. We're all so fired up for training that we'd like to settle right in at the gym with our sleeping bags for the next few weeks.

For the first workout we do 5 sets per exercise, going full throttle, and the next day Instagram is full of whining stories like "uhhhhhhh, I can't move at all, deadly muscle soreness." Probably not only the next day, but also for the next 1-2 weeks.

Each of us knows that this will happen. Nevertheless, most of us will COMPLETELY overdo it in the first training sessions back in the gym. If the fun in the first training sessions is worth so much to you that you accept the severe muscle soreness and the associated lack of muscle growth, then that's perfectly okay.

But if you want to build back as much muscle as possible as quickly as possible, then this is an absolutely unwise idea.

If you are VERY sore, you will not build muscle. This has been shown in many studies. Probably this is also the reason why many untrained people only start to build muscle when they have already been training for 4 or 5 weeks. Their body was not used to any stress and they overloaded it in the first few weeks.

After a few weeks, your body gets used to the new stimulus (the so-called "repeated bout effect"), the soreness lessens, and you build muscle.

Some muscle soreness is not bad - it may even be beneficial - but very severe muscle soreness is absolutely not good. Your body will just be busy repairing the major muscle damage so you can recover from the "accident."

But you will not build muscle mass. In addition, you will either have to postpone the next training session for the fatigued muscle group or you will not be able to provide an effective stimulus because you have no strength.

Some muscle soreness is not bad - it may even be beneficial - but very severe muscle soreness is absolutely not good.

Most people certainly do not train hard enough: they train irregularly and don't get close enough to muscular failure. NOW is the time to really take it easy when training, so you can start building muscle from the first week in the gym, not the second or third, when the soreness starts to subside.

No, this doesn't mean that you should now train easily for several months - by no means! However, give your body a chance to keep up by getting used to effective training in the gym again over a few weeks.

After all, most of us have a lot more options in the gym than at home: we can train the muscles from angles that are only possible with special machines and - of course - we can use heavier weights than at home.

This is effective, but only if our bodies can cope with it. We have a new racing car in front of us, so to speak, which we first have to break in, or else it will break down.

Slowly feel your way back to your pre-lockdown training workload!

What could this refamiliarization period look like in concrete terms? First create a training plan for about 5 weeks, with 4 weeks of hard training and one deload week. If you realize after the 4 weeks that you don't need the deload, just skip it.

You'll start the first week with only about 2 sets per exercise and leave about 3 reps in reserve for each set (so when you finish a set, leave 3 more reps in the tank before you would have reached muscular failure).

Then gradually increase the number of sets and the level of exertion, and in the last week do about 4 sets per exercise and do as many reps in each set as you can just about manage with proper form (so leave 0 RIR).

If you want to have such a periodized plan created or create it yourself, you can use the Alpha Progression App for this. Simply activate the advanced settings when creating the plan in the app and activate the set and RIR periodization and the planned deload options.

When the first training cycle is over, then you can consider whether you want to continue doing cycles with set and RIR periodization, or whether you want to keep the set and RIR count constant, or whether you want to track RIR at all.

Both methods have advantages and disadvantages, which we will not discuss in detail today. It is clear, however, that when returning to effective gym training, the method with set and RIR periodization is the best.

Start with only a few sets and a low effort level per set in the first week and then increase from week to week!

Also, take your time with the warm-up sets. If you haven't done a squat with a lot of weight for 8 weeks, it can be really dangerous. It's better to do one too many warm-up sets than one too few. But you will also notice that this is something you need.

Your technique will probably be very rusty. And - very important - don't expect to be able to use as much weight on the working sets as you did before the lockdown. Definitely start with less and see how it goes.

Do more warm-up sets than usual to refamiliarize yourself with proper technique and stay injury free!

Nutrition

What is there to consider with regards to diet? You need to interpret the change in your body weight differently than usual.

If your weight remains constant over the next few weeks, for example, it does NOT mean that you have been eating on maintenance calories. You were probably in a slight deficit. How, what, why? That's not possible!? Yes it can; it's called the Muscle Memory Effect!

If you have not had a well established home gym available to you in the last 8 weeks, then you may very well have lost muscle mass - especially the more advanced among you who need stronger training stimuli.

This is annoying, but not a disaster. You'll probably gain that muscle mass back after about 4 weeks of effective training in the gym.

Why does this happen so quickly? To put it very simply, the body seems to remember threats that occurred often in the past when you are exposed to such threats again. It remembers not only these threats, but also the adaptation with which it reacted to these threats.

In this case, the "threat" is the rigorous and effective training and the "adaptation" is the muscle building. This is the so-called muscle memory effect.

You will build muscle in the first few weeks about as well as an untrained person who is training intelligently. You will continue to build muscle rapidly until you are back to the muscle mass you had before the gym closed. This will take about 4 weeks. After that, unfortunately, your progress will slow back down to a normal rate again.

Due to the Muscle Memory Effect, you will build muscle exceptionally fast in the first few weeks after you return to the gym.

Now what does that have to do with your body weight changing in some weird way? 100 calories worth of muscle mass weighs more than 100 calories worth of fat mass. This is simply because muscle mass consists of more water and therefore has a lower calorie density than fat, because water has no calories.

So if you eat at maintenance level for the next few weeks, you will gain weight easily instead of maintaining your weight. "Maintenance calories" only means that you eat as many calories as you consume - e.g. within one day.

If you consume 3000 calories and then expend 3000 calories, then you have taken in exactly your maintenance calories. However, this does not mean that your body weight will remain constant.

The amount of body weight you gain depends on where those 3000 calories go. If the 3000 calories go to muscle mass, you will gain more weight than if they go to fat mass.

Since 100 calories of muscle mass weighs more than 100 calories of fat mass, this means that you will not necessarily keep your weight constant by consuming calories at maintenance level.

Through this muscle memory effect, you will build muscle and lose fat SIMULTANEOUSLY, just like an untrained person, if you eat on maintenance calories. That is to say, you will likely gain weight if you eat maintenance calories over the next few weeks.

By the way, in addition to the muscle memory effect, there is also the fact that you will store more water due to the stronger muscle soreness and also draw more water due to your possibly fuller glycogen stores.

By the way, in addition to the muscle memory effect, there is also the fact that you will store more water due to the stronger muscle soreness and also draw more water due to your possibly fuller glycogen stores.

Due to the muscle memory effect, stronger muscle soreness, and fuller glycogen stores, you will gain weight despite being on maintenance calories!

Of course, it is not at all bad that you gain weight due to these effects even with maintenance calories. You just need to know so that you don't draw the wrong conclusions when you look at the scale.

It would be absolutely pointless if you were already eating in a deficit and starving all day and then came to the wrong conclusion that you should eat even less because you misinterpreted the change on the scale.

Let's go over some interesting cases:

Now, if you start working out effectively in the gym again and eating on maintenance calories, you will gain weight easily, at least on a weekly average.

If you eat in excess, you will gain weight faster than you normally would if you ate the same amount under more typical circumstances.

If you eat in a deficit, you will lose weight more slowly than you normally would if you were in the same deficit.

Or, for a moment, based on the change in weight:

If you are only gaining a slight amount of weight, then you are probably on maintenance calories.

If your weight stays constant, then you are in a slight deficit.

If you are losing weight easily, then you are in a moderate to large deficit.

Of course, this only applies to the initial period until you have your original muscle mass back, and is assuming that you are already somewhat advanced. As an untrained person or a beginner, this ALWAYS applies to effective training!

Many people end up putting on some fat when they spend time away from the gym, and will have probably also lost some muscle mass and now want to reverse that. If this is the case with you and you would like to orient yourself on the scale, then do the following:

Make sure your weight stays roughly constant for the next 4 weeks. Then you will be in a small deficit that will allow you to build muscle and lose fat at the same time (thanks to the muscle memory effect). The focus here is somewhat on fat loss because you are eating in a small deficit.

In the first few weeks of effective training, don't let the number on the scale freak you out. Instead, concentrate on getting back into training well, improving, and of course having fun!

Conclusion

Even though we'd all kind of like to, don't completely destroy yourself if you start working out at the gym again now!

To avoid too much muscle soreness and thus be able to build muscle better, start off with just a few sets and a low effort level per set in the first week and then slowly work your way back up over about 4 weeks.

With the Alpha Progression App you can let us create such a periodized plan for you, or you can create it yourself in the app.

If you want to lose some fat and regain the muscle mass you've lost, it's best to just make sure your body weight stays roughly constant for the next 4 weeks.

This means that you should eat in a slight deficit so that you can (re)build muscle and lose fat at the same time.

If you want to record, evaluate, and optimize your training, download the Alpha Progression app here.