rest art.

Natacha Océane
Contents
nutrition

3 - Before we !art
5 - Our goals with RESTART.
6 - Change for life
7 - Training with RESTART.
15 - Nutrition
16 - Injuries
17 - Where next?

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Before
Hey my friends! 💛
we !art
I can’t wait for us to get back on track and to feel healthy and strong over the next 8 weeks
with RESTART.!

I’m so lucky that I get to meet thousands of you each year, and I’ve heard time and time
again how a lack of motivation, muscle soreness and the overwhelming pressure of making a
complete lifestyle change on day one can get in the way of feeling good about getting back
to a lifestyle that feels good. Whether you’ve been away from the gym for weeks, months or
years, RESTART. is designed to break down the hurdles that can make it difficult to get back to
healthy habits and a healthy routine.

I’ve taken months away from working out so many times for exams, to write research papers
and for business projects and I’ve found my rhythm again each time using a lot of the
techniques in RESTART. We’ll talk a bit about some of the key ways in which RESTART. will keep
you feeling your best while you get back into your flow a little later. For now, I just want to
say that it’s natural to get a little sidetracked.

Whether your next goal is to build some muscle, lose fat, hit that Marathon personal best
time or squat 100kg, anything worth having takes time. We all have lives outside of the gym,
and an unrealistic training programme that needs to take over your entire routine in order to
be effective is never going to stick in the long-run and give you that chance to do something
you can be proud of.

Over the next 8 weeks, we’re going to restart the lifestyle that can make those great things
happen while blending in a range of training styles to make sure that your body is ready for
whatever goal you set yourself next ♥

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Before
we !art
P.S.You‘re a bada" 😍
No journey ever happens in a perfectly straight
line. None of us are always motivated and none of
us always feel our best.

You don’t need overnight results. Nothing like that

lasts anyway.

The fact that you made the decision and invested

in yourself is all that counts. From here, all you need
is the patience to trust the process and all the
habits it’s building.

That’s the hardest part of all, and it happens when

you realise that you’re beautiful already.

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Our goals
with Re!art.
our goals
My number one goal for RESTART. is to make getting back to a
consistent, healthy lifestyle feel exciting and totally doable 💃

The programme is designed to clearly progress over the eight

weeks as your body gets stronger and better at recovering. We’ll
be advancing in terms of the exercises, training volume and
training styles we are using, so that we’re not overwhelming your
body at the start but you’re strong and well-rounded by the end.

Plus, to keep you feeling healthy and at your best, there’s an

optional mobility session each week to help with fatigue and
muscle soreness.

And to set you up with a strong, balanced foundation for all your
future goals, we’ll be blending together five main training styles
over the next 8 weeks. That way, when we’re done, you’ll be
ready to move on to building muscle, losing fat, getting super
strong, super fit or whatever else you have in mind 💪

5
Change
for life
I’ll always pick a healthy lifestyle I can stick to ahead of a
‘perfect’ routine that doesn’t work for me. The trick to creating
the best results is usually more about finding the routine that
fits in with the rest of your life than it is about fine tuning every
single detail of your training programme based on the sports
science.

In RESTART., I’ve focused on the training principles that will

make the biggest difference so that you’ll feel your body
getting stronger and moving properly. That way, we’re not
spending unnecessary time on training details that won’t make
much of a difference anyway, and you have proper time to
recover and to find your flow again.

More isn’t always better, and so over the next few chapters
we’ll talk about how the training programme will progress with
time, how to tailor it to your life and how to ease in any
changes to your nutrition.

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Training
with Re!art.
For some people, it can be super tempting to jump straight back into things at
full intensity and forget that mental and physical burnout are very real things.
After a little while, muscle soreness and fatigue or mental tiredness eventually
catch-up and it’s only natural at that point for staying on track to feel harder
and harder. For others, the motivation to get going again can take a little time
until you find your flow, and getting to the gym can feel like a bit too much of a
hurdle when the expectation is a little too high.

I’ve been both of those people before. The good news is that a properly
balanced approach should protect you against feeling sore or just too low
energy to go to the gym after hitting it too hard, while also making finding your
rhythm and recreating that healthy lifestyle feel totally achievable.

The most powerful force for maintaining a healthy lifestyle in general or hitting
a specific goal is habit setting. If we can ease back into training while
constantly introducing small steps of progress, it’ll eventually feel easier to stay
on track and keep working towards that goal than it would to fall off.

In the next few pages, we’re going to cover a little bit about how we’re going
to use the next 8 weeks to give you the best chance to get back to feeling
your best and forming those good habits again.

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Training
with Re!art.
To find this perfect balance, the three main ways we can set the right level of intensity
and progress within the programme are by adjusting exercise complexity, training
styles and training volume (time spent exercising per week).

Below, you can see how the number of workouts will advance over the 8 weeks, and
how we’ll also advance in terms of training styles. To begin with, functional
hypertrophy is the focus and we’ll slowly introduce plyometrics, strength and skill work
at a rate that should keep you feeling challenged but on top of your workouts 💪

Functional
Week #Workouts hypert Plyo Strength HIIT Skills
rophy
1 3
(+ optional mobility)

2 3
(+ optional mobility)

3 4
(+ optional mobility)

4 4
(+ optional mobility)

5 4
(+ optional mobility)

6 5
(+ optional mobility)

7 5
(+ optional mobility)

8 5
(+ optional mobility)

None Heavy focus

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Training
with Re!art.
Throughout the 8 weeks, it’s super important
to stay listening your body and to tailor the
training to how you’re feeling.

Also, you’ll stick to RESTART. and create that

solid foundation if the programme fits in with
the rest of your life and your schedule, so let’s
talk a bit about getting the most out of
RESTART.

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Training
with Re!art.
Adju!ing the schedule
RESTART. and all training in general needs to fit in with your lifestyle to be
successful. The total training time per week increases from 3 to 5 hours through
the programme, with 20 minutes of optional mobility if you feel sore each week.

Please don’t feel at any point that this is the only way to make the guide work.
Muscle soreness and a feeling of low energy can be common as you get back
to full fitness, and if you don’t feel fresh for your next workout at any point then
don’t feel bad pushing the schedule back a day, or just turning a workout day
into a rest day.

Don't feel tied down to the workout schedule I’ve created too. If five sessions
per week in weeks 6, 7 and 8 is a little too much and you can’t make time for
that fifth session, then just stick to those four workout slots each week and go
through the workouts at your own pace. In that example, you could just hit four
workouts in weeks 6, 7 and 8 and then you’d have 3 workouts left over which
you can do in week 9.

RESTART. is yours to adjust and tweak to fit into your life. ♡

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Training
with Re!art.
Re! days
Rest days are genuinely just as important to overall progress as training
days so I always take them super seriously. As well as not training, eating
enough on these days is important so your body can actually do what it’s
supposed to: recover. The idea is that by resting properly, we make the
workout days way more effective! The quality of training sessions will
always fall if you’re overtraining, even if you don’t notice it.

I personally do very little physically on my rest days, and try to focus on

enjoying the other things that make me happy like spending more time
with family and friends because the full mental break really helps too (:

Optional mobility days

Optional mobility are pretty much just rest days where I’ve created a
quick stretching and mobility routine you can follow to help you feel in top
condition and ready for your next workout.

It’s totally up to you if you want to use them :) I always try to if I’m getting
back into training, but the choice is yours!

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Training
with Re!art. Re! times
The goal of rest periods is to give you the minimum amount of time needed
for you to be able to hit the next set with great form. That usually looks
different for everyone, and it varies depending on the style of exercise that
you’re doing. The general guidelines that I like to keep in mind are:
• Hypertrophy and functional exercises: exercises with over 5 reps in
a set, with a steady, controlled movement
• Suggested rest time: around 60-90s
• Explosive power exercises: exercises focussed on strength at speed,
e.g. box jumps
• Suggested rest time: 120-180s
• Strength exercises: exercises with 5 reps or fewer with a heavy
weight and slow, controlled movement (only in weeks 6, 7 and 8).
• Suggested rest time: 180-240s

Don’t be afraid to take longer if a set has put you really out of breath:
great form is always the goal. At the same time, if you feel ready to go in
less time than the rest times above, maybe think about increasing the weight
if you can! 💪 💪

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Training
with Re!art.
Picking your weight
Again, this will depend a little bit based on the style of exercise, just like it does
for rest times. These are the guidelines I like to keep in mind:
• Hypertrophy and functional exercises: exercises with over 5 reps in a
set, with a steady, controlled movement
• Recommended weight: the weight that puts you 1-3 reps away from failure at
the end of every set is great. If you feel like the weight you’ve picked is a little
light, slow down even more or choose a higher weight! 🐢

• Explosive power exercises: exercises focussed on strength at speed, e.g.

box jumps
• Recommended weight: lots of these just use your bodyweight, but for the
explosive exercises that do incorporate a dumbbell / kettlebell etc, go for a
balanced weight which you feel you can really control throughout. The challenge
here comes from you exploding quickly and smoothly, not from heavy weights.

• Strength exercises: exercises with 5 reps or fewer, with a steady,

controlled movement (only in weeks 6, 7 and 8)
• Recommended weight: time to really push your limits :) We want to pick the
heaviest weight you could complete the set at with great form. If you’re not sure
what this is, it might help to try finding that weight separately to RESTART.

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Training
Warming up: with Re!art.
People have different preferences for warming up, which is great! I recommend going
for whatever makes you feel warm, loose and ready to go! I personally like to do
some dynamic stretching (stretching and moving to prepare the muscles I’ll be using in
the workout) for 10 minutes before working out. Around 10 minutes of warm-up
before these RESTART. workouts is perfect. If you’re after a little more info about
different warm-up styles, check out my YouTube video called ‘How to Warm Up’ 🤸

Progre"ions:
There really aren’t many exercises that have easier versions in RESTART. but for those
that do, there are easier versions included in the video to help if you need them 😊
Just let the video play in the app to find a progression at a level that gives you a
good challenge. If you’re using the progressions, the best way to advance is to work
on the hardest one you can do but also try out the next one.

In case you don’t have any of the equipment:

Gyms really vary in the equipment they have. I’ve done my best to make sure that all
the moves in this guide suit any kind of gym. But if there’s something that you don’t
have access to, just swap it with a version that’s similar and copy the same set / rep
breakdown as in the guide. So for example, if your gym doesn’t have a barbell for
barbell rows, you can try on a smith machine, or use dumbbells.

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nutrition
RESTART. is about getting back to feeling good in the gym. My BUILD.
And CUT. training programmes are created for particular goals like
muscle building and healthy fat loss where the training and nutrition
don’t make sense without each other.

In RESTART., since we’re getting back into the flow of feeling healthy
and creating that strong foundation, the nutrition side is more about
making sure you’re eating enough for your body to recover.

There are a lot of physiological adaptations happening when we get

back into training. Even though it can be tempting to go straight into a
new way of eating to match the new training routine, small steps at a
steady rate are the key to making the approach really stick for good.

When it comes to the types of foods you’re eating and the amount, my
best advice is to change slowly. Wanting to commit to that new way of
eating is amazing and I’m so proud, but taking on too much change at
once is definitely the biggest reason I see people find it difficult to
create a lifestyle they want.

There’s no timer and no deadline: if you take your time to create the
foundation, you’ll have it for good! ♥

15
Injuries
If you suspect you have any kind of injury, I always recommend seeing a
qualified practitioner before anything else. Even if it’s a small niggle, don’t
stress at all about taking some time to recover and continue with this
programme when your body is ready so that you can keep the sessions
intense as intended 🔥

I’ve pushed myself through workouts with small injuries out of fear that I’ll
lose my progress, and the setback of having a worse injury has always
been bigger than if I’d slowed down for a moment to let my body recover.

If you’d like to stay active through your injury, try using machines for a while
to keep your muscles engaged while protecting yourself from further injury.
Active recovery can also be really helpful for the injury as light stretching
and very light exercise can increase blood flow to the area which can
improve the rate of recovery. Again, if you want to give this a go, I’d
recommend clearing this with your doctor first.

If you have any issues with the impact of some of the plyometric exercises
(e.g. box jumps), a really great way to mimic this style of training is to
perform similar, no-impact exercises but using speed variations to copy the
explosiveness. For example, to get a similar outcome to a box jump, you can
try squatting with a light weight, but performing the negative of the motion
very slowly (2-5 seconds), and then exploding up and performing the
concentric (lifting) part of the exercise as quickly as you can.

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Where next?
Now that you've created that amazing base and worked your body back to being
capable of so many training styles, my advice is to really focus on one goal at a time.

To get the best results, generally my advice is to dedicate time to one goal at a time.
If you’re really advanced as an athlete then your body will be more capable of taking
on more at a time, but otherwise my advice is to really focus.

It can be hard to pick and choose, which is why remembering that this is a lifestyle
and that there’s so much time to get each of these goals makes all the difference.

If you want some muscle and metabolism building as well as fat loss, my advice is to
do it in that order. Trying to do both at the same time super effectively is possible, but
usually takes a lot of fine tuning and a real understanding of metabolism science and
what's going on behind the scenes. Instead, my advice is to dedicate time to building
your body, and then the extra muscle will help so much when it's time to lose some fat.

If they can be helpful, my other training programmes are built for very specific goals.
Whether it’s increasing your metabolism and building muscle to shape your body,
losing fat and keeping it off or becoming super athletic, my 12 week programmes
BUILD., CUT. and MOVE. are designed to get you each goal and to make them last.

Whatever you choose to do next, I hope training and staying healthy makes you
happy. If you ever feel overwhelmed, frustrated or bored, just remember that
learning and trying new things are all that’s missing.

Love ya ♥

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Hit me up!
I love hearing your
stories and all about
your progress so please
feel free to share it any
time you feel like it!

I’m cheering for you! 🎉

natacha.oceane
Natacha Océane
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