Someone has shot my dog. My body is giving up, my elbows and knees are extremely sore, my warm ups are taking longer as my body refuses to ready itself for more punishment. Eating is a real struggle and sleep…Last night I woke my girlfriend up on numerous occasions to tell her that I had dreamt that my alarm had gone off and I had not woken up, when it did eventually come to me getting up I switched my alarm off and dozed back to sleep for 5 minutes only to wake up and jump out of bed and wake my girlfriend up. At this point she just laughed and said “You have lost it”.
My big lifts are tanking – back squats and front squats are both down, deadlift has almost lost 20% of the load off the bar. Only the Presses have not budged. My explanation is my misspent youth endless bench pressing (incline, decline, flat), whilst this does seem to mean that they have a high tolerance of volume, it also lead to me having imbalanced shoulders for 3 years and suffering repeated rugby related shoulder injuries until three years ago I discovered Mr Poliquin and his Structural Balance tests.
In preparing this post I re-read the article from which I had got the routine. Reading it this time round this nugget of information stuck out;
I should also mention that there’s research from the US and from Finland showing that at the end of your two weeks of loading with this type of program you actually have a decrease in testosterone levels.
Awesome so not only do I feel broken but I am also slowly turning into to Eunuch, my girlfriend will be so pleased to hear that (in fact maybe I will wake her up repeatedly and tell her about it tonight).
But there is a silver lining;
But at the end of your period of unloading you have an increase in free testosterone, and there’s a high correlation in the amount of free T you have and the amount of strength gains you make.
Simply put Super-compensation theory will apply to my balls as well as my aching joints and muscles. Good news all round then.
I have had a couple of questions about the routine, so it might be worth revisiting aspects of it quickly just to clear up a few points.
Firstly – I did not devise any aspect of it, not one exercise, one tempo, rest period, set and rep range. It was all Charles Poliquin’s idea. I changed nothing because I believe if you are going to follow someone else’s routine you need to test it as the they have prescribed it. Don’t do 5-3-1 any other way than Jim Wendler’s, don’t Westside any other way than Louie Simmons’ way. There is a reason why these guys are at the top of their games, they know what they are doing, they get paid bucket loads to teach other coaches how to coach and implement their way of training. You can find the article that this is taking from by going to the below address;
Secondly, the point of this is not to promote this type of training – If you have the time and you are willing to load up on supplements and can be strict with the diet, and have at least 3 years of serious lifting experience and you have worked on your imbalances and have no niggles or injuries then maybe give it a crack. I am not superhuman, I am not even in the grand scheme of things very athletic, I just have the flexibility in my schedule to fit in this type of training (I work/live in a gym, its not hard fitting in two workouts every other day) and I have the inclination to do this type of thing to myself.
This is planned over-training, with a supplementation protocol to support this type of training. If you are someone who thinks they are over-training do not tell yourself after reading this blog that it will be ok because you’ll take a few days off and super-compensate, it doesn’t work like that. This plan drives a freight train past the point of over-training that some people teeter on and keeps going. Super-compensation works due to the amount of overload and subsequent recovery. If you are over training back off, and look at what you are trying to achieve and figure out if your training is mapped out to get you there. All to often people do things because they have read them on the internet (ok good point the article that I have based my training on is off the internet, but I have also done the Poliquin Level 2 Strength Course and met one of the guys who trained under Charles as an Olympic athlete, and therefore know the reasoning behind the routine and exercise selections). You should know why you are doing an exercise; why you are doing them in a set order, why that number of reps and sets, why you rest for 30s compared to 2 minutes, or what the tempo 4010 and 3110 mean. If you are doing something to your body you should know what it does to you, why it should work and then why it may not. On top of training stress you need to assess what stresses exist in the rest of your life, are yo working a 60 hour week in a job you hate? Are there other aspects of your life causing you stress? Do you play football on Sundays, 5 a side with the workout lot on Fridays, and still hit the gym 6 days a week? Overtraining is not simply what happens within the confines of a gym and it is no way of making gains. Minimum Effective Dose - get your workouts done and structure them in a way that means you get the most benefit from them, if you spend longer than an hour in the gym you are wasting your time, probably resting too long and raising your cortisol levels.
Rant over.
My weight has stabilised at 90.6 kg so the regression in weight seems to have halted, an explanation for this is that my body has been blessed with a heavy dose of supplements since I started this training, beyond my usual level of supplementation. Whilst I still feel pretty rubbish, I do believe these supplements have made a difference, the Zinc, Magnesium, BCAA and Fish Oils as well as the Glutamine will all become part of my staple routine. The Post workouts shakes and fish oils already were. Body fat sites have dropped slightly as well, probably as a result of the reduced carbs since Christmas (PT’s holiday too), this again is part of the plan as carb-starving should lead to a great insulin response once I reintroduce them into my diet in the recovery phase, however I will not be finishing off two boxes of After Eights like I did on Christmas morning I will be using “clean” carbs – Sweet Potatoes, wild rice etc.
In Summary –
Some has shot my dog.
Everything hurts.
I am apologizing to a lot of people for being grumpy.
Poignant Workout Song – Eminem “Till I collapse” Nothing like angry rap to get you through Snatch grip deadlfts whilst your callus’s tear.
6 sweet workouts left.
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