Its been over a month since I’ve been to the gym. Have lost muscle and gained fat-great for a skinny-fat guy. Looking for a program that would prep me for training again. I have a tendency to go overboard and injure something. Probably know what to do but its difficult for me to just go to the gym and lift “easy”. Was thinking of doing full body workouts 3x week. Anyone have a good “getting back” in shape routine? Need to gain about 5iibs of muscle back and lose the gut.
thanks.
I would say the fastest way to put on some muscle would be to hit compound lifts heavy. If you tend to get injured doing them, you must be doing something wrong.
How old are you? If just one month off caused you to atrophy, then you sound estrogen dominant to me.
[quote]happydog48 wrote:
How old are you? If just one month off caused you to atrophy, then you sound estrogen dominant to me.[/quote]
True. There is no way a person’s body can de-condition in one month! I’m just getting back into hitting the gym hard after one year of re-habbing from brain surgery. I did gain 8 pounds of fat, but I was surprized at what I was able to do, even after a year’s lay-off. And I’m a 54 year old female.
[quote]happydog48 wrote:
How old are you? If just one month off caused you to atrophy, then you sound estrogen dominant to me.[/quote]
- Trust me, t-levels are high. Was on on a super clean diet, High intensity training and plenty o supplements. Got sinus infection before holidays, stopped all training, ate every holiday cookie, cakes and other assorted crap. Try it, its great!
Always have been all or nothing with training and diet. Gym=clean diet. No gym=eat every piece of crap food i never do when training is in check.
I realize it will take me a week or two to straighten out but this kind of change really changes your conditioning!
I think you’re confusing issues. Not to be pedantic, but “losing muscle” would be atrophy (a loss of muscle mass) and unless you’re literally starving you aren’t going to have an appreciable loss of muscle mass in a month. Loss of “pump” isn’t atrophy and one or two workouts should fix that.
When most people say “condition” they mean cardio-vascular fitness and it shouldn’t take you more than a week to regain fitness after one month of layoff.
The other possible factor would be loss of strength, which has more to do with CNS response than muscle size. Again, it shouldn’t take more than a week to regain your strength doing your normal routine.
I can’t imagine that you would need to do anything special to “prep” other than lift smart (proper warmup for every lift, good form, etc.) which you should be doing every time you train anyway. Don’t try to lift your one rep maximum the first time you pick up the bar… but stuff like that is really just not being foolish. My advice: Don’t be a fool.
[quote]happydog48 wrote:
I think you’re confusing issues. Not to be pedantic, but “losing muscle” would be atrophy (a loss of muscle mass) and unless you’re literally starving you aren’t going to have an appreciable loss of muscle mass in a month. Loss of “pump” isn’t atrophy and one or two workouts should fix that.
When most people say “condition” they mean cardio-vascular fitness and it shouldn’t take you more than a week to regain fitness after one month of layoff.
The other possible factor would be loss of strength, which has more to do with CNS response than muscle size. Again, it shouldn’t take more than a week to regain your strength doing your normal routine.
I can’t imagine that you would need to do anything special to “prep” other than lift smart (proper warmup for every lift, good form, etc.) which you should be doing every time you train anyway. Don’t try to lift your one rep maximum the first time you pick up the bar… but stuff like that is really just not being foolish. My advice: Don’t be a fool.[/quote]
I’m with the dog…
I’m coming back from knee surgery myself and after about two months off, I started back this week with high volume calisthenics. Pull ups, push ups, sit ups, BW squats… you know the deal. I just started back with the weights, but my version of “getting back” consists of high intensity/lower load stuff with supplemental absolute strength stuff. Just to be able to sprint again is my goal.
The question for you is, what are you getting back to? Either way, I lost muscular volume during the time off, like happydog said, but not much strength or cardio-stamina, both of which are coming back quick.
Relax and go train.
Off topic: This is one awesome bod just to the right here… hopefully meaning my E2 is down. Blood test results are coming back soon. Thanks again.