If you have been unwell or travelling or on vacation or just plain lazy; and haven’t been working out, you are probably feeling guilty as hell. Well, the best thing is to get back to some kind of a fixed routine but ‘slow’ and ‘steady’ are the key words here.

Exercising is addictive. Once you start, it is a hard habit to break. But when this habit is broken for health reasons, hectic schedules, family problems or just lack of motivation, it is equally difficult to get back into the game. To do that, you need a solid routine to help trigger muscle memory and get back in shape.

What we are looking for here is the best comeback workout because you can’t pick up where you left because you are not in the shape you were in previously. As soon as you stop participating in regular activity, your body starts detraining, but if you were fairly fit before the break, you’ll bounce back quickly

Starting small helps you to avoid burnout while trying to jump right back in can be dangerous. Whenever you work out, the muscles in your body break down and then repair themselves. The more active you are, the easier and less painful this process becomes. But when you jump right back into a workout routine after a long absence, your muscles are not prepared. It will take awhile for the body to recover from pressing too hard and one feeling will result — major soreness (a little is okay, after all).

Get back into the groove with a solid comeback routine

And don’t feel like you are a wimp because you are starting small. By establishing a solid base, your body will soon be ready to roll and adding more difficulty to your workout will be easier than you think.

To prepare your body to reset your exercise routine, here are a few options: Walk every day for 15 minutes. Get eight hours of sleep every night (good for energy). Stretch every morning. Take the stairs instead of the elevator at work. Die-hard couch potatoes can switch on the telly and do a yoga routine to stretch the body out.

Run up and down the stairs thrice and progress to a small set of wide leg squats.

You’ll need to go slowly to build your fitness over the six-week period, which is actually the length of a solid strength-building cycle. Do one-fourth the cardio you were doing before the break, which will help prevent overexertion yet ease you back into shape.

Allow 10 extra seconds to recover between sets so that your heart rate lowers enough to give you a better next set with better technique which will help complete your routine and give better results.

Focus on power muscles like the glutes and quads by doing squats and lunges. For the first two weeks, do partial squats by standing with your feet shoulder-width apart and bending your knees to 45 degrees. 

This will set muscle fibres firing and rebuilding fast without risking injury. Working such a large muscle group will also get you back into a high calorie-burning mode.

Because your pectoral and arm muscles are weaker, you’re at much greater risk for injuring them if you embark on military-style pushups.

On your first day back, do as many modified pushups (with your knees on the floor) as you can. Do them three times a week, and when you can do 30, switch to military style. This move builds muscle quickly in a safer way than the classic and uses nothing but your body weight; you’re less likely to injure yourself doing a pushup than trying to manoeuvre weights.

Lastly, jokes aside; if you took a two year break, you are half the person you used to be because you have lost up to 50pc of your muscle strength and aerobic endurance. It will take a comeback period of 12 weeks and lifting a 5kg dumbbell is going to feel like lifting a 15kg one because your muscle fibres have shrunk. Food for thought!

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, July 27th, 2014