My 4 month recomp effort after 2 year pandemic hiatus

denise4god

New member
Hi everyone. I hope you're having a nice day.

I've been back at the gym focusing on recomping after a pandemic hiatus and wanted to share my results with you. I'm no longer doing progress photos, but have a lot videos of my lifting in the past few months and what you see in that first image is the screenshots of me deadlifting and squatting from begining to now for comparison. I'm going to try to be as detailed and forth coming as I can be, so sorry if this post gets super long!

My background:

30 year old cis-woman (turning 31 in a few weeks) with prior experience in strength traing in her twenties. My training before may have not been the most optimal. I didn't follow any structured programs for the majority of it and didn't have the best nutrition but I had some gains. I could squat 135lbs, deadlift 165lbs, bench 85lbs and do 3 chin ups. Here's some photos on how I looked back in November 2019. Also may be of interest to some, my first post on r/xxfitness after one year of lifting in 2017. When the pandemic hit, a lot of things were happening in my life and gyms were closed for a really long time. I became completely sedentary for two years and I could see the impact on my body. Even though I weighed almost the same (When I finally hopped on a scale, I had actually lost a few opunds), clothes were not fitting me the way they used to, too tight around my belly and thighs. I checked around September 2021 and I could only barely do a single chin up. My body constanly had random pains and aches and I'd pull a muscle in my neck from sitting all the time or I'd feel some back pain from just doing the dishes. My posture had also gotten worse. I missed working out but struggled to keep up an effective program at home. I decided I'll go back to the gym as soon as I can, so after getting 2 vaccine doses and gyms opening up and also moving to a new place, I signed up for a gym around November 2021. I also found an amazing online coach to help me with some of the foundations I had struggled in the past with. I'm talking about things like good technique, proper focused programming and the basics of nutritional requirements for strength and muscle.

How the progamming has worked with online coaching:

I feel like I've seen so many posts here on getting cookie cutter templates sold for online coaching and wanted to share with you guys how the experience was for me. I'm very happy with what I'm getting for a personalized program with online coaching.

I get my workout program for the week by my coach. We also do a weekly checkin.

I do a 3 days a week program focused on strength. I do two of my main lifts every session for a 3 to 8 rep range (squat, bench and deadlift) and 2 to 4 other accessory workouts afterwards that are in the 10 to 15 range. I film myself and upload so she can see my form. My coach has changed the structure and workouts a bit as we move along and she sees what I need. For instance after a few weeks, regular squats became tempo squats to focus on not falling into the bottom half of my squats and it has improved my technique so much!

Did I mention I used to get spasms in my neck and have terrible posture? Well after consulting with my doctor and a chiropractor the diagnosis was I'm firstly just very prone to rounding my shoulders and secondly I have tight upper traps. I aslo am hypermobile go figure! The verdict was I should focus on strengthening my posterior chain and shoulder stabilizers. After sharing this with my coach, again the progam changed to only 1 bench session a week to make room for other workouts like back extension and suitecase carries and also adding some rest day shoulder health work. It has so far made a big impact, I think part of the visual improvement I see is the posture improvement not just recomp.



Another note on online coaching, one of the best things that has come out if it, is the habit of filming my lifts. Most of the time I'm doing it to check for myself not just to send to my coach. As not so technically experienced lifter, so many little things that I wouldn't even notice, can be improved by just seeing my lift afterwards and trying to correct it the next set I do.

A sample day in my program:

Barbell bench: 70lbs 6x4

Barbell deadlift: 40kg 5x7

Back extension: 3 sets of 15

Dumbbell seated shoulder press: reverse pyramid sets 20lbs 6 reps|15lbs 10 reps|10lbs 8 reps

Knee pushups: 25 reps

One legged balance: hold for 10 deep breaths on each side. I do these to practice keeping the archs of my feet up and strong during my squats.



Nutrition:

I started tracking my calories and macros at first to get a benchmark idea. I was eating 2000Cal on a daily average and somewhere around 50-80 grams of protein. The goal was always to recomp, so I started increasing my protein intake slowly every week. First weeks I made it to 100 grams of protein and then I made it to 120 grams of protein a day. Right now I'm eating 130-140 grams of protein per day (not going any higher than this!). When I changed the macros initially and started eating more protein, it actually surpressed my apetite a lot and I was only eating 1600-1700Cal per day but now I'm back up to eating on average 1900-2000Cal everyday.

I've been wondering why I was not gaining weight if I was eating 2000Cal before and being totally sendentary compared to now that I lift regularly. My best guess is that I probably had a day or two every week that I would forget to eat much. When I get stressed out, I tend to skip meals so maybe wasn't truly eating 2000Cal if you look at the average.

My Lifts:

I'm not still lifting what I did pre pandemic, but honestly I think I'm getting there.

Squats: I'm squating 110lbs to below parrallel with good form these days and feel like I'm improving every week. Sure I may have squated with 135lbs on my back before pandemic but honestly did I do them to depth? I don't think so. :D

My deadlifts are at 55KG. Sorry for the sudden unit change, I use the olympic bumper plates at my gym for deadlifts and they're in Kilos.

Bench: This was the one lift that seems like I didn't lose a lot of strength on in two years off, I guess the bi weekly "let me do a few pushups see if I still got it" had some role to play. I was able to bench a clean 80lbs a few weeks ago, but based on my shoulder health requirements, I'm back to benching 70lbs and focusing on increasing the reps for now.

Recomp, progress measurement and weight fluctuation:

Back in December, I weighed 125lbs. I don't have a scale at home, I weighed myself once or twice a week at the gym. My focus has been to maintain my weight. I'm overall really happy with my 4 month progress. I can see I've gained muscle and lost fat based on my strength and the screenshots from my lift videos I shared earlier. I now weigh somewhere around 123-124lbs, so exactly what I weighed around 2017, but probably a bit more muscle or I would hope since I'm lifting very close to what I did at 128lbs. :)

Where I wanna go from here:

Longevity and a sustainable liftestyle is my biggest priority while I enjoy lifting and getting stronger. I'm already comitted to eventually bulking when I hit a plateau. I want to see how strong I can get! For now I would love to find the time in the day to add some moderate intensity cardio into the mix at least once a week. After that I would also love to move to a 4 day lifting program but I have to see if that fits into my schedule.

Now if this was 5 years ago I may have already decided on some numbers I want to hit in the gym or a body fat percentage I want. But after many years of being too goal oriented and driving myself into anxiety, I just want to give it the most I can and enjoy the process. I'll celeberate the strength gains as they come. :)
 
@denise4god This was a really good write up and pretty awesome progress. Our journeys are so similar. Had around the same precovid numbers, I also took a huge break during lock downs and just go back to it in december.
I am almost back to my precovid stats, and even got better squat mobility this time around. But I must have progressed to fast because I'm experiencing knee pains from quad tendonitis and poor glute activations I'm trying to fix now. So I think I'll need to slow it down and focus on some rehab for a while.

Also, im pretty sure we go to the same gym based on the background in your photos! If you're interested to chat or meet up at the gym, please feel free DM me!

Keep it up!!
 
@earletammo That’s funny because when I had a bit more belly fat they were my preferred leggings because they didn’t give me muffin top. Now that I’m a bit leaner I prefer my other leggings more!
 
@denise4god It's tough to say, but it looks like not only is your body a little (noticeably) different, but your posture is different as well. The stance in your most recent photo just displays much greater confidence and presence to me. Great work.
 
@denise4god As someone who also took a two year pandemic hiatus and lost all muscle definition, this is very motivating. Great work recovering your gains!
 
@denise4god Great work on the recomp! I'm on the same journey myself after a 2 year break but started back up in April 2021. I feel worlds better now that I'm lifting regularly again.
 
@denise4god Thanks for taking the time to post, this is very encouraging and helpful for me! We're the same age and have almost the same height/weight/build. My plans are to drop another 5 pounds, complete a training program for a half Marathon, then focus on lifting and gain some muscle. I'm curious about your online coach, would you mind sharing how you found/picked a trainer or what company they work for, also how much did this cost you?
Fantastic results for 4 months of work! Thanks!
 
@nxcess Thanks, I have another response higher up with a bit more details, but basically I signed up for my local strength gym (they’re focused on powerlifting, olympic weight lifting and strongman) and asked them to recommend me someone. I pay 220 CAD a month.
 
@denise4god This gives me so much hope. My story is similar to yours in just about everything from strength training in my twenties to becoming sedentary during Covid. I also got an online trainer recently and my workouts are very similar to the sample you provided. It’s been a month of consistently working out but I don’t see any changes on the scale. It made me feel a little defeated but I’m hoping I’m trading fat for muscle if I am staying the same weight. So I’ll keep going! Thanks for sharing.
 
@denise4god That is some impressive progress! I've tried trainers that didn't really do much for me with in-person gym sessions, so I never even considered online coaching. How did you go about looking for your coach? What clued you in that she would be good?
 
@gospelchannel Full honest story is that a while before the pandemic, I noticed this cool strength and powerlifting gym local to me because Stefi Cohen visited and shared it on her instagram. I really wanted to try it out then, but was too nervous going to a place like that where everyone seemed like a pro. But after two years of being a total shut in, when I wanted to join a gym I thought, why not? So I signed up there and during the tour asked the owner to recommend someone. I figured he won’t lead me a stray.

My coach left a positive first impression with me from the very beginning when I had an intro session. I told her I want to get strong, build muscle, especially would love to have a jacked upper body and her response to that was actually focusing on what I asked and what my needs are. I think it was pretty cool she didn’t try to force me to eat a certain way or workout a certain way and was trying to work with what can fit my life.
 
@denise4god Great results! Just came off a year-long recomp and my results aren't that impressive. I am with them because I have a lot of limitations and did what I could.

Can't wait to see you next update!
 
@tinywings I do thoracic spine related movements and foam roller stuff. Sorry not good with these workout names!

Then I do pec minor release and trap release with a tennis ball where I massage these muscles and dig into sore spots and then do stretches for the same muscles.
 
@denise4god Wow, awesome progress!! Thank you for sharing the details of your recomp! How did you manage to get so much protein in during the day? I feel like I struggle to get anything close to 100 grams.
 
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