For those of you who've taken a long time off, then came back

[HandsomeMick]

How did you find it?

I ask because I've recently started training Muay Thai regularly again after around 15 months off. I fought twice in 2015 then moved to powerlifting, bulked up 22kg and had my fun there. Now I'm back and wow, it's hard. I can see everything I want to do, I can technically do it, but I get so tired, so quickly it's almost embarrassing. I'm training 5 days a week now to sort it out, but it's moving at a snails pace, or it seems to be. Sparring is the worst - if someone pushes the pace on me I'm gagging by the end of the round. I've been back for roughly six weeks. My weight isn't shifting, which is also a concern.

How about you guys? How long did it take you to get back some semblance of normality?

Apologies if this is in the wrong section.

 

[selfcritical]

You increased the oxygen demands of your body by packing on a bunch of muscle, and focused on a sport that is basically at the opposite end of adaptation from aerobic endurance, so a lot of what you had built up atrophied. Is normal.

As for your weight, you may simply not have the aerobic capacity to do enough work to generate a big caloric deficit, or just be eating enough to offset it.

If you want to accelerate the timeline of being able to use your skills, dedicate your outside of practice time to very low intensity cardio. The more aerobic recovery you have, the more skill work you'll be able to do during practice.


The other good news is that keeping your strength should be relatively easy- maintenance strength work has been shown to require only about 1/3 the volume you used in your previous microcycles

 

[j123]

I'm the opposite, I took about 3 years off from lifting. During the 3 years I've been on and off, I actually bought into the "do cardio, lifting is bad" BS, didn't know how to count calories and macros then, did a starvation diet to make weight for fights BS, and recently (last year) realized how wrong it was.

I've been more serious about it since Nov, and I'm about 2/3rds of what I was then, I'm surprised it's coming back faster than I thought.

 

[HandsomeMick]

I'm the opposite, I took about 3 years off from lifting. During the 3 years I've been on and off, I actually bought into the "do cardio, lifting is bad" BS, didn't know how to count calories and macros then, did a starvation diet to make weight for fights BS, and recently (last year) realized how wrong it was.

I've been more serious about it since Nov, and I'm about 2/3rds of what I was then, I'm surprised it's coming back faster than I thought.

I think it's easier to jump from fighting to lifting than the other way around, at least that's what I've found from yoyoing between the two. My 'big 3' lifts absolutely shot up when I got back into it, whereas I've found that getting 'fighting fit' can take anywhere from four months to a year, depending on how heavy you got for the lifting. I suppose the best idea is to not bounce between sports, but meh.

 

[j123]

I think it's easier to jump from fighting to lifting than the other way around, at least that's what I've found from yoyoing between the two. My 'big 3' lifts absolutely shot up when I got back into it, whereas I've found that getting 'fighting fit' can take anywhere from four months to a year, depending on how heavy you got for the lifting. I suppose the best idea is to not bounce between sports, but meh.

I've found cardio in combat sports, is predominately tied to your breathing. It could be that, on pads you were giving it your 100%, and didn't get any air in. Or when your partner pushed the pace in sparring, got in your face, it threw the rhythm off, and your breathing ended up being off. It could be a mix of being excited and having been absent for awhile.