Top Tips For Making Your Return To The Gym
The gyms are finally back in Scotland and like many people in Glasgow and throughout the country you may well be doing your first training session for quite sometime.
Here are some top tips for making your return to training and getting off to the best possible start you can.
Have a plan and execute it
Even before lockdown how often have you seen people in the gym randomly make things up as they go a long and make no progress month on month, year on year.
To get off to the best start possible have your training program in place so you have a clear plan for moving forward and focus your efforts towards achieving your goals.
Start light and progress sensibly
Chances are you haven't done much training lately or have been training in a way very different from how you would have trained in the gym.
Your body will be desensitised to the kind of training you will be doing when you get back in the gym and so you won't be able to lift as heavy, tolerate as much volume and you are probably going to be quite sore the next week or two.
We recommend:
🔹Starting back light (50-60% of max is a good guide for big lifts).
🔹Use less volume (for example, 2 sets instead of 3, less overall exercises or train 3 days instead of 4 for a few weeks).
🔹Progress in small increments week on week (for example, adding a little bit of weight week on week, adding more reps/sets or additional training days as you build back up).
Prioritise recovery modalities
To get the most out of your training and minimise the impact of the impending soreness we recommend you:
🔹Try and get sufficient sleep (7-8 hours).
🔹Get a good structure in place for your nutrition to facilitate recovery and working towards your goals.
🔹Make some time for mobility work.
🔹Consider getting a massage or using other similar services to aid recovery.
Overall, have fun and enjoy making the most of getting back in the gym to train!
Hopefully you find these tips helpful and can implement them into your plan for getting back to training. If you want more guidance or to be part of a friendly and supportive group of people to get back to it, we offer Personal Training in Glasgow and run the ever popular Learn To Lift Bootcamp Glasgow. Click the links to find out more.
Enjoy team!
