Returning To The Gym After Illness
Last March I penned a detailed article on guidelines for coming back to training after getting sick and missing workouts. Today’s piece is a short story that builds on that article and assumes you’ve read it, so if you haven’t, check it out before going further.
Read it? Good.
One of my big lessons in coming back from being sick after I'd started serious strength training, was back in 2013. I had completed a Novice Linear Progression, and then over the next months, worked up to 425x5x5 squats on Texas Method volume day.
I don’t have footage of that volume workout but I think this the Intensity Day I did later that week, 490 for 3 sets of 2 on the squat, which correlates well to that being the week I would have squatted 425x5x5 on volume day earlier that week. These were all firsts, PRs at the time:
I then got sick, not severe but a pretty bad one as these annoying seasonal things go, nasty nasal congestion and sinus pressure and all that fun stuff, and I missed a whole week of training. Finally after a week, the acute symptoms were gone, so I went back in, expecting I'd do something like 405 for 3 sets of 5. Seems reasonable right?
Take 5% off the bar and
Drop a couple sets, to reduce the volume by 40%
The symptoms were gone, but I knew I had missed a week and been sick - so I thought a small deload in intensity and a larger but moderate reduction in volume would be reasonable for my first day back.
LOL LMAO EVEN
I got under the bar and barely made 315x5. Not only was it hard, but I was exhausted afterwards, and even my stubborn self knew that was the end of my squatting for the day. I had nothing left.
I was distraught. I had done 425x5x5 just two weeks prior. AND MY SYMPTOMS ARE ALL GONE?!?!?
I learned two very important things that day.
When you miss time for being sick, it’s not the same as just missing workouts. The illness can take a toll on your body that takes time to recover from.
That recovery is not always complete when the acute symptoms are gone, but often takes longer until you are completely physically back to your pre-illness capability.
These are important lessons, which I started paying more attention to, both when it happened to me again in the future, as well as when clients would get sick and come back. They provided the initial lesson from which my framework and guidelines in the original article from last year emerged.
Don’t ignore my hard-earned lesson when you get sick. Come back realistically, not how you’d like to, and you’ll be better off in the short and long runs.