Fitness
How to Survive a Layoff
Haven't worked out in two months? two years? two decades? Take the turbulence out of your return with these simple strategies
By Lou Schuler; Photographs by Jake Versoza
Maybe your ex-wife got the treadmill in the divorce settlement. Or the bank foreclosed on your home gym. Or your personal trainer was overthrown in a violent coup. Doesn't matter. You've laid off your exercise program, your gut is growing faster than the Bush administration's budget deficit, and you want your abs back.
Lucky for you, the comeback plan we've created is pretty simple—no headhunters, no credit checks, no HR jobinatrix administering a psychological exam.
But a comeback may not happen as fast as you expected. You may remember that you were the go-to guy when your college roommates needed a keg hauled to the second floor, but your muscles, tendons, and ligaments have developed a case of amnesia. If you try to get it back too soon—whether "it" is muscle, strength, or the ability to dance like a Cossack—you'll get hurt and end up with less of it than you have now.
Follow this plan, though, and you can achieve the shape you remember—even if your memory is playing tricks and you were never really in shape at all.
The Layoff: 1-4 Weeks
You haven't lost much—if anything. A Spanish study published in 2000 found that lifters didn't lose strength after four weeks without exercise, and a 1999 Australian study showed no decline in resting metabolism after three weeks of inactivity, indicating that no muscle was lost.
In fact, if the break lasted just one or two weeks, you may have done your body a favor. "These periodic layoffs work wonders," says Dave Pearson, PhD, CSCS, of Ball State University. "Most men find they can actually lift more when they return to the gym."
The 10 Percent Solution: You don't really need to make any adjustments in the weight room after a week or two without exercise. If you've been out 3-4 weeks, Pearson sug-gests taking 10 percent off the top. That is, use 10 percent less weight than you'd normally use for most exercises. You may also want to cut a set from each exercise. So if you normally do four sets of bench presses with 185 pounds, you could do three sets with 165.
The Layoff: 1-6 Months
How much you've lost depends on how well trained you were before the layoff. If you worked out diligently for years, you've taken a hit, but you have something left. Otherwise, you may be back where you started.
Either way, you should be able to get back in shape within five weeks, says Alwyn Cosgrove, CSCS, a strength coach in Newhall, California. "But you can't just wing it. You have to have a plan," says Cosgrove.
And you have to stick with that plan. Many men fall victim to "mission creep" when they return to the gym. Let's say you have a written plan requiring one set of curls at the end of a workout. But you feel so good that you do three sets, and maybe throw in some lateral raises to finish with a good pump.
The next time in the gym, you feel flat—stale—and you wonder how that happened after just one workout. The answer: You did more work than your body was prepared to do, and you took too little time to recover.
The Minus-Five-Repetition Rule:
Cosgrove has a unique system for keeping your enthusiasm in check while ensuring fast and steady results. You can choose any training plan. Then you're going to do less work in each set than your body can handle—a lot less at first, a little less later. Here's how it works:
For any exercise, you probably have a pretty good idea of how many repetitions you can do with a given weight. So put your memory to work as you devise a rebound strategy. Let's say your routine calls for a set of 10 bench presses, and before your layoff, you would've used 135 pounds for those 10 repetitions. Cosgrove's system requires that you select a weight that you're sure you could've lifted 15 times before your layoff. You'll still do 10 repetitions, but you'll use a weight you would normally use for 15.
That's week 1: minus-five repetitions. Week 2 is minus four, week 3 is minus three, week 4 is minus two, and week 5 is minus one. At week 6, you'll be using your prelayoff weights. So if the routine calls for sets of 10 bench presses, you use 135 pounds. Which means you should be using heavier weights than before in week 7 and beyond.
The Layoff: More Than six Months
Sorry, but you're a beginner again. You have to think of your body as a completely deconditioned blob of ectoplasm, even if it doesn't look quite that bad to the naked eye. Fortunately, Juan Carlos Santana, CSCS, a trainer and owner of the Institute of Human Performance, in Boca Raton, Florida, believes you can easily get back to where you once belonged in 12-18 weeks, as long as you stick to a disciplined schedule. The key: Start with a firm goal. Let's say that during the prime of your XFL career (four weeks) you did squats using 225 pounds, and let's assume you want to become strong enough to work with that kind of weight again. Here's how.
First 4-6 Weeks: Work up to 60 percent of your final goal for 8-10 repetitions. So by the end of this period, you want to do squats with 135. Where you start is up to you, although 40-50 percent is a safe choice.
Second 4-6 Weeks: Work up to 80 percent of your goal for 6-8 reps. So you start this period using 135 pounds and end it using 180.
Third 4-6 Weeks: Start with 80 percent and end with 100 percent of your goal for 4-6 repetitions.
» Fitness archive
Men's Health Philippines - January 2006 Issue
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