Summer's Over. Get to Work!!!

Since September is now in full force, Labor Day weekend is simply a distant memory of mowed lawns, sledge-hammered fences, puppy dogs and ice-cold beers on the deck, and fall is staring us in the face in all its golden leaf/late sunrise/kids going back to school anger. And to top it all off, you have to get your ass back to the gym, baby!!!

So for everyone who decided to take the past 8-12 weeks off from putting in a hard effort in the gym, just think, the abs that were there in spring time?? They want to come out and play. The heavy bar that you were toying with? It got stubborn, and needs to be taught a lesson. Get after it!

Here’s some good news for everyone. In a recent issue of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, one study HERE compared the results of training groups of people in endurance exercise and resistance training for 24 weeks, then made them stop training for an additional 24 weeks and measured how much of a drop-off in performance they had. They found that the endurance group improved their VO2 max the most (SHOCKING!!) and that the resistance group had the biggest increase in upper body and lower body strength (GASP!!!),the endurance group actually got bigger (Cardio Bunnies: Huh??), and both wound up showing training-specific improvements that held up after the de-training period. The resistance training group held on to strength gains better than the endurance training group held on to improvements in cardio performance.

What this means is that you need not fear the reaper when entering into the squat cage after spending time away. The work you did in the winter and spring will still be there to a degree in the fall, and will only require a workout or two to get back into the full swing of it just like it was yesterday that you were pulling PR’s left right and center while looking jacked and swole and getting creeped on by members of the opposite sex everywhere you went (or same-sex, whatever, I don’t judge).

Let’s be real for a second. If you’ve spent appreciable time away from the gym, You know you’re going to be sore when you go back for the first few workouts. I mean, it’s going to feel like someone’s trying to cauterise the inside of your nostrils with a light saber, and once you’re down on the toilet, you better be prepared to stay a while. But now that September is here, everyone is getting back into old routines, so YOU should get back in the gym on a regular basis.

Call it a perk of the job, but I’ve never spent any real time “away” from working out. I’ve switched my workouts up frequently, and a lot of it depends on the weather and the availability of doing things outside versus facing a mind-numbing windchill that could actually kill you if you’re outside for more than 10 minutes. When it’s above freezing, I bike, run, and tend to train more upper body movements with some lower body to keep strong I’ve found if I do any real leg training on a day when I’m biking to and from work (every day possible), or running a group in the evenings, I’m dragging my butt on dead legs. I can still get my swole on for the upper body and core with no issues, so I can run like the wind and not feel like a member of the short-bus crew.

In the winter I ramp up lower body training, and start working on more max-weight sets and start throwing around more plates than a dishwasher at Dennys. I mean it’s like the Swedish Chef from the Muppets in there, man!! Dumbells ricocheting off the walls, elastics shooting across the room, chains clanging, angry hate-filled music on the iPod. It’s a beautiful thing.

So what’s my game plan for getting back into the heavies? Well, considering we’re in an unseasonable warm spell right now, my plan is to flip off Old Man Winter and kick him in the face as long as possible and delay the inevitable with my fingers in my ears and screaming “LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA” until I’m hoarse and blind. So there. Once the weather turns too cold to bike in each morning (I’m unleashing a string of turrets-like profanity at the computer screen just thinking about it), I’ll start ramping into triples and singles of deadlifts, front squats and other fun ways to slowly crush myself. The good news is that an entire year of no appreciable back pain might actually mean some pretty cool numbers this winter.

In closing, it’s September. Now shut up and get in the gym.

Sincerely, your favorite neighborhood trainer