How to Get Back Into Training After a Break

Taking time away from training happens.

You go on holiday. Work gets busy. You get ill. You have children. You pick up an injury. Or sometimes you simply fall out of the habit.

Then comes the surprisingly difficult bit:

Getting started again.

When you've trained consistently for months or years, exercise becomes part of your routine. Once that routine is broken, returning can feel much harder than it probably should.

And the longer you've been away, the easier it is to make the mistake of trying to immediately become the person you were before the break.

You don't need to.

Your first objective is much simpler:

Start training again.

1. Re-establish Your Goal

Before worrying about programmes, exercises or how much weight is on the bar, ask yourself:

What am I actually trying to achieve?

Your answer might have changed since you last trained consistently.

Perhaps you still want to get stronger.

Maybe you want to lose some body fat.

Run a particular distance.

Get your first pull-up.

Or perhaps life is particularly hectic and your current goal is simply:

Train twice every week.

That's a perfectly legitimate goal.

Try to establish what you want, why it matters to you and how you'll know you're making progress.

That gives your training some direction again.

2. Accept Where You Are Now

Depending on how long you've been away, you might not immediately be as strong or fit as you were before.

That's fine.

You haven't failed. You've just had some time away from training.

If you kept a training log, have a look at what you were doing previously—but treat those numbers as information rather than targets you have to hit on your first session back.

If you previously squatted 100kg and 80kg now feels heavy, train with 80kg.

If you used to run 5km comfortably and currently need to alternate between running and walking, do that.

The same applies to bodyweight or other measurements.

You can measure them if the information is useful to you.

But you don't need to punish yourself for what the number says.

Establish where you are, then work from there.

3. Don't Try to Make Up for Lost Time

This is one of the biggest mistakes I see.

You've missed three weeks of training, so your first week back suddenly contains:

Five workouts.

A new diet.

10,000 steps every day.

No alcohol.

No chocolate.

And an enthusiastic promise that this time you're going to stretch every morning.

By Thursday you're exhausted.

You don't need to compensate for the training you didn't do.

You need to make the next session happen.

Your first few workouts back should probably leave you feeling as though you could have done more.

You can increase the weights, volume and intensity as your body readjusts.

There's no prize for making yourself unable to walk after your first squat session in a month.

4. Compare Yourself to Yesterday, Not Six Months Ago

Your previous best performances can be useful reference points.

They shouldn't become something you beat yourself up with.

If you're constantly comparing every session with the strongest or fittest you've ever been, returning to training can become unnecessarily demoralising.

Instead, shorten the timeframe.

What can you improve from where you are now?

One more repetition.

A slightly heavier weight.

Another five minutes of walking.

Turning up for your second workout of the week.

Sometimes progress isn't even physical.

If you haven't exercised for three months and you go to the gym for 30 minutes:

That's progress.

Then do it again.

5. Find Your Rhythm Before Chasing Performance

This is probably the most important part.

Adherence comes first.

The perfect programme is useless if you don't do it.

Look at your actual week and decide where training realistically fits.

Not your imaginary week where you wake up at 5am every morning feeling enormously motivated.

Your real one.

If you can reliably train twice per week, start with twice.

If you know Tuesday and Thursday evenings work, protect those times.

Try to identify what normally stops you training and solve those problems before they happen.

Your initial target isn't necessarily:

“Get fit.”

It's:

“Become somebody who trains regularly again.”

Once the routine is established, we can do much more with it.

6. Don't Go Straight Back to Your Old Training Volume

Your previous programme might eventually become appropriate again.

That doesn't mean you need to complete all of it during your first week back.

Start with manageable weights and fewer total sets if necessary.

Give yourself a few sessions to see how your body responds.

You'll often find that things return more quickly than you expect.

And that's another reason not to rush.

You don't need to prove how fit you used to be.

Build from what you can do now.

7. Keep Your Nutrition Simple

This probably isn't the moment to completely overhaul your diet either.

If you're simultaneously rebuilding your training routine, tracking every gram of carbohydrate and weighing every ingredient may simply create another barrier.

Start with some useful fundamentals:

Drink enough fluid.

Include a useful source of protein with your main meals.

Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables.

Include fibre-rich foods regularly.

Build most of your diet around nutritious foods while leaving room for foods you simply enjoy.

Once those habits are reasonably consistent, you can get more specific if your goals require it.

8. Don't Wait for Motivation

Motivation is fantastic when it turns up.

Unfortunately, it's unreliable.

You don't need to feel incredibly enthusiastic about training every time you do it.

Sometimes you'll have a fantastic session.

Sometimes you'll walk into the gym feeling tired, do 30 minutes of perfectly adequate training and go home.

Both count.

The decent workout you actually do will always beat the perfect workout you don't.

How Quickly Will My Strength and Fitness Come Back?

There's no universal timeframe.

It depends on how long you've been away, what you were doing previously, why you stopped and what you've been doing during the break.

The reassuring part is that you're not starting from scratch.

Someone returning to training has previous experience and adaptations to build upon. Strength and muscle that have been lost during a period away can often be regained more quickly than they were originally developed.

But don't turn that into another deadline.

Let it happen.

Your First Week Back

If you've been struggling to restart, make this deliberately easy.

Choose two opportunities to exercise this week.

Put them in your diary.

Turn up.

Do a sensible amount of work.

Go home.

That's it.

Don't worry about creating the perfect twelve-week transformation.

Get one week right.

Then do another.

The Bottom Line

Getting back into training isn't about immediately returning to your previous best.

It's about rebuilding the behaviours that allowed you to get there in the first place.

Establish where you are.

Set a useful goal.

Start conservatively.

Make training fit your actual life.

Keep your nutrition simple.

And above everything else:

Keep showing up.

Performance can come later.

First, rebuild the habit.