Detraining and Plan of Attack Going Forward...

Hello,

I am a 30 yr old male 72in and currently 180lbs. I have been in the gym for 5 years (strength training for 3 years), and made some great progress this year from March to November 2017. I was receiving programming and coaching from Cody Lefever using the GZCL method. I had been detrained at the beginning of coaching, and we took my squat from 185 to 315x5, bench 125 to 215x4, and deadlift 245 to 405x3, and my body weight went from 170 to 210.

Recently, I have been unable to train for over a month now due to stress, sickness, and dealing with finishing my BSN, taking NCLEX-RN, and landing a job at a local Emergency Department (my dream job). My body weight dropped from 210 to 180, and it is safe to assume I lost a majority of my strength. I detrain really fast when I am stressed, sick, and not able to train and eat…go figure. I am putting together my home gym, and plan to get back onto a program as soon as possible. I purchased the BB Medicine Master Template to get back on track.

My plan was to run the bridge because of my training history, but now I am leaning more toward the BB medicine novice progression that is in the templates. In past instances where I have detrained it usually takes about 12 weeks for me to regain most everything that I lost as long as I am eating enough calories.

Should I run the 12 week BBM novice progression, adding more weight in the first 4 weeks, and then slow it down as I become acclimated to training again? Or should I run the bridge 1-2 times, and use the 1@8 to gauge my progression forward?

I have used RPE training in the past with success, and have unfortunately detrained and regained about 3 times during the last 3 years due to prior Military obligations (Navy Hospital Corpsman 2010-2015 OEF 14-1), so I have been here before.

I will constantly re-assess my progress either way.

Inb4 it sounds like I am giving report/SBAR…

Thanks for your input!

I would do the novice linear progression without adding “more weight” in the first 4 weeks. I would start at a weight where the bar speed slows down during the set, but is manageable.

1 Like