How To Come Back Stronger Than Ever After Time Away From The Gym

Whether you’ve been away for a month, or a year…

You can still come back stronger than ever.

Ben squatted 300 pounds, and deadlifted over 400 pounds after just 3 months working with Digital Barbell.

Now, before I break my hand patting myself on the back and making it sound like we work miracles, let me rewind.

Ben got into lifting weights back in 2017. Before then he’d never even been in a gym, let alone put a heavy barbell on his back.

He joined a strength-focused gym in Philadephia where he and his wife own a popular wedding photography business.

He got bit by the lifting bug and was super consistent with his workouts. His form improved, his strength improved, and everything was cruising right along.

Until it wasn’t.

March, 2020…

Lockdowns.

Stay home.

Wash your groceries.

Gyms closed, with no immediate plans to reopen.

Ughh…

Eventually, gyms did reopen, but Ben found it tough to get back into a consistent groove of training like he enjoyed pre-COVID.

His strength, fitness, and body composition suffered as a result.

That was until he reached out to us for coaching in November of 2022.

Ben and his wife were moving soon, so we got on the phone and hatched a plan to get him training again. His program would be based on his goals, his schedule, and where his abilities were at the time.

Once the move was complete, Ben joined a local gym that had everything we’d need. A squat rack, a barbell, weights, dumbbells, and a machine or two. Nothing fancy.

We started simple with a 3-day per week program knowing that if we built consistency we could soon move to 4 days a week.

The workouts were, and continue to be simple, yet challenging. Because well… That’s what works!

We started light, so I could see how Ben’s form was, see where his strength was, and to keep him from being so sore that he couldn’t use the restroom.

Most people lose quite a bit of strength after taking a couple of years off, so it’s important to meet yourself where you are.

The good news is that strength returns more quickly the second time around.

Luckily for me, Ben is very coachable and has made my job pretty easy.

I guided Ben on how much weight to lift, made small tweaks to his technique through form check videos submitted in our app, and we moved to 4 workouts per week after the first month.

Little by little we added weight each week, taking advantage of progressive overload, which works every single time for safely building strength.

In Ben’s words:

“I think something that has helped me greatly, is knowing the weights to lift on a weekly basis. The way we have been slowly adding each week really seems to be producing results.”

After nearly 3 months of solid consistency, Ben’s lifts just kept going up and up. And even without making huge changes to his diet he was seeing more muscle size, and definition, and was feeling fitter overall.

One day Ben reached out and asked if we could test his one-rep maxes to get a sense of how much progress he had made.

“Let’s do it!” I replied.

Ben had a trip coming up to celebrate his 40th birthday, so I planned his training so that we could use the travel week as a deload before Max-Out week.

I wrote Ben some simple workouts he could do on vacation using just a Theraband. As a matter of fact, Ben said this:

“This is the first time I have ever in my life worked out on vacation, so I am taking that as a win!”

Once Ben got back home I had him hit 2 low-volume, higher-intensity lifting workouts to make sure he was primed to perform. Feel free to steal this technique next time you plan to max-out.

Ben messaged me through our coaching app the weekend before his Monday session to tell me that he’s never been so excited to go to the gym before. That sure felt good as his coach! Let’s gooooo!

It was game day. The first day of Max-Out week. To make sure he could perform his best on the two heaviest lifts (squat and deadlift), I had Ben squat on Monday, and deadlift on Thursday. We also tested his 1RM bench press and overhead strict press with the barbell.

After 3 months of training, Ben’s squat strength had gone up and up. His work sets went from 155lbs on day 1 (it was too easy), to nearly 250lbs with plenty more left in the tank.

After his warm-up sets, he hit 260, and 275lbs respectively with relative ease. Could he hit 300lbs? You bet he did! A huge milestone lift, and I estimate that 315lbs would have gone up that day too.

On the same day, he hit a personal best of 200lbs on the bench press, which has always been a relative weakness compared to his leg strength.

Thursday came, and it was time to deadlift. Ben had previous experience with trap-bar deadlifts, so we’ve stuck with that variation so far.

Warm up: done

345lbs flew up. 375, no problem.

405? 4 plates on each side?

You bet!

Click the video below to watch both reps:

Friday Ben put up 130lbs on the overhead barbell press which is extremely respectable, especially considering that he’d never trained the lift until we started working together.

I love this comment that Ben sent me after he finished out the week:

”I had a goal of 200/300/400lbs in my head for bench/squat/deadlift when we started together, so it’s pretty sweet to have hit them all in just 3 months.”

How freaking cool is that?

Besides the opportunity to brag about one of my clients, I wanted to tell Ben’s story to inspire you.

I think a lot of people took a huge punch to the gut when the lockdowns hit.

Consistency became a struggle, results disappeared, and motivation went away quickly.

Maybe you’re still there now?

Maybe you’re in a slump, or maybe you’ve never even touched a weight.

There’s absolutely no reason you can’t do exactly what Ben did just 3 months ago.

If you start today, there’s no telling where you can be before you know it.

But you have to start, and you have to keep going.

If we can be a part of that journey, we’re happy to help.

Apply for coaching today, and let’s go!

Jonathan