Conditioning for completely detrained individual

[stuffedsuperdud]

Hey Andy,
I know you're used to working with older/sedentary populations, but here's what might be a fun new twist on that one. A friend of mine has just finished six months of chemo/radiation which had knocked her flat on her back for the duration. Prior to her illness, she had been training several times a week for MMA and wants to get back to that level of conditioning. Her old gym and training partners seem to have disappeared while she was sidelined, so she asked me to help her get back into the game.

I'd love to follow the established recipe of getting her under a bar and then adding the C2 or Prowler, but all her prior conditioning had been bodyweight-based (sprints, burpees, mountain climbers, machine guns, etc.) and since that's what she knows she wants to get that locked back down first before anything else. I know it's not optimal, but given her level of atrophy and what she's been through mentally, I agreed that it's probably best to not throw a bunch of new things at her just yet.

I know it's kind of blasphemy to ask for barbell-less strength and conditioning suggestions, but that's the situation I'm dealing with. Do you have any suggestions for easing her back into the game? She's 30 years old and cleared for all physical activity, but again has been sitting around doing nothing for the past six months. Any ideas you have would be greatly appreciated.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Will she just do a 3x/week barbell program? Maybe add in a few short shuttle runs after each workout? Maybe I'm not understanding your specific question.

I'm also not really sure of the long term affects of chemo. I'm sure it's not just business as usual once you get the all clear. I'm sure someone here has experience with it

[stuffedsuperdud]

Sorry for being unclear, Andy. The problem is, she doesn't know how to do any of the barbell lifts and isn't super keen on learning at the moment in her atrophied state. She's definitely down for it for the near future, but for now she's completely detrained and said she wanted to start off with what she knows, which seems to mostly be bodyweight conditioning, the stuff wrestlers and fighters and drill instructors seem to like. From what I understand she used to do things like fight-specific training followed by hill sprints or 100m sprints, with burpees, bear crawls, etc. during the rest periods. Stuff like that. I'm just wondering if you have suggestions on how to progress her back to that. Kind of like a barbell LP, only for bodyweight exercises and more of a lean towards the anaerobic work she's familiar with. I get that conditioning comes (back) quickly, so hopefully it isn't a particularly arduous task? I understand this isn't optimal, but forcing her to lift when she doesn't feel up to it probably wouldn't be either.

Just as a benchmark of where she is, we did an experiment today where she tried to do a hill sprint (maybe 25 degree incline, about 50m) but was gassed just from running up the thing once. As for long term effects, it seems that she was young and rugged enough that there are none aside from occasional days where she feels tired. Her doctors said she's free to do anything she feels strong enough to do. She's enthusiastic about not being in bed all day and "I don't want to do wussy bullshit like yoga or cardio kickboxing," so I figure we'd just draw up a conditioning program and if she's feeling under recovered one day, we'd just roll it over to the next day.

Again, apologies for dancing around the topic a bit; I'm just a bit nervous about people kicking my ass for asking about barbell-less programming. Thanks for the patience, Andy.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Don't be nervous about asking a question here.

I don't really have any great advice for you regarding programming. I guess I'd probably start with a circuit that resembled "Cindy". Probably modify it to be like 5 push ups/10 ring rows/15 squats. Start with maybe 5 rounds and build up from there. To me that makes some sense. Bear crawls, burpees, etc aren't things that I engage in with me or my clients.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Sounds good. Thanks a lot, Andy.