Program choice after hernia op

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

37 M, 185 lb, 17% BF

I discovered barbell training about a year ago. LP took my squat from 190 lb to 285 lb.

I deloaded twice and hit plateau in July of this year. I began the TM and was getting frustrated after about 3 weeks. Around that time, I was diagnosed with an umbilical hernia. I had it for a long time. Just finally asked a doctor about it.

From July to now I haven’t barbell trained. I had the procedure this morning and it went well. I’m looking at six weeks of recovery before getting back under the bar.

My question is part programming and part recovery. What program should I run when I get back in the gym? My goal is to get strong and get big. I’m a long time ectomorph hard gainer.

Also, what can I do during recovery that will prevent further atrophy and muscle loss? I’ve been eating at a deficit to drop weight ahead of the surplus I’ll be on when I’m back in the gym. My doctor told me no lifting more than 25 lb for at least the next week.

I was thinking to start a LP in 6 weeks to recover my strength loss. After that, the Bridge (version?) followed by GPP Hypertrophy. Long term, I’m thinking to oscillate between hypertrophy and strength programs. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks for all you do.

2

Max,

Thanks for this and welcome back.

My thoughts below:

  1. It doesn’t matter what program you run, as you will have then be detrained for close to 5 months. I’d recommend the Bridge, GPP endurance, or 3 day hypertrophy template.
  2. Ectomorph isn’t really a thing that reliably predicts outcomes/response to training. I find it to be self defeating in most cases.
  3. I probably wouldn’t eat in a deficit while your BMR is higher from surgery recovery. That would be a good way to lose LBM when not training so…I wouldn’t do that. Being as active as possible otherwise would be the recommendation.