Time for Rest

It is done.

Two weeks did not fly by.  The final days were a slog.  I continued to loose strength, my weight still held at 90kg – the only of Poliquin’s predictions not to come true, I have gained, not lost weight, but I suspect this is due to my level of supplementation.  I certainly struggled to sleep by the end of it, my appetite completely faded and I certainly felt depressed by the end. 

The depression was the strangest thing, as I had nothing to be depressed about.  Without sounding like a complete tool, I love my job, much more than the investment-banking job I left to become a PT.  There were obvious perks to working for an investment bank, the pay being an obvious one, but I was lucky that I worked with some very nice people, so nice in fact that it was the realization that I was only turning up to work due to the fact that we had such a good laugh rather than the role itself  that made me think that investment banking was not for me.  Undeniable the stress I have placed on my body took its toll mentally; I felt down about nothing, but then found something to be down about – “what if this does not work, I will look like a complete idiot”.   My girlfriend in the end had started to have enough, which was fair.  I think it came to a head when at 5 in the morning I was foam rolling in our lounge to prepare myself for the first workout of the day and she came in to politely ask what time I would be heading off so she could get some sleep.

The whole experience reaffirmed my belief that when you plan your own or someone else’s training their whole life needs to be taken in to account when thinking about how much stress they can handle.  A workout, whichever way you look at it, is stress.  It should be good stress – enough to enforce a change without causing injury or chronic fatigue.  Prolonged periods of stress lead to a chronic rise in cortisol, which usually leads to greater fat storage and damage internally. Someone working 14 hour days, facing long commutes with a new born child is going to find 3 workouts a week more than enough, and the emphasis must be on providing a boost with the workouts rather than overly taxing them, and ensuring that their diet helps them to cope as best as possible through natural food sources and supplementation if necessary.

So how did my body cope, well I now weight 90.6 kg, so up 1.6 kg since the start of the training.  By body fat has fallen.  I use the four-site calculation (which I widely accept is not terribly accurate but a lot better than any electrical impedance test).  I was lean to begin with but I have lost a whole percentage point to now be at 9% BF, it will be interesting as the overfeeding begins (and believe me it has) to see how my BF changes.

Over the 2 weeks I lifted 187,523kg in volume load (load x reps) and completed 2354 reps, and it feels like it. My hands feel like arthritic claws, my elbows and knees feel like they have tendonitis, everything aches.

The 5 days of overfeeding should be fun, I just have to eat every two hours and eat “clean” no grains, just clean carbs from fruit, veg rice and sweet potatoes.  I plan to rest as much as possible between seeing clients. I will try to use this time to read, something that I have had no time for over the past 2 weeks.

I ll post again on Friday at the end of the over feeding, just before I test out my new and hopefully improved body.

Update 2 - The tipping point

Update 2

“You look like s**t!” – An American friend whilst chuckling.

“You look ill….are you going to be sick?” – My boss.

I have grin that goes from ear to ear, it is my first, and only day off today and it feels pretty special.  My body, however…not so special.  Knees are shot to pieces; having squatted daily it is to be expected. My wrists and forearms are in a lot pain, opening doors is proving difficult.  I have started to get mouth ulcers, another side affect of over-training, as well as the fact I am constantly tired.  My appetite is on the wane and I am beginning to get grumpy.   I will come clean and admit that I hear an inner monologue in my mind (surely not surprising for someone who writes a blog) and my inner voice is not happy, anything and everything is winding me up and I usually like to think I am fairly laid back.  It is even got to a point where I am imagining having arguments in the future with people. 

Yep I am a psycho; I am an over-trained man on the edge.

Most weights are decreasing now, or at the very least I am starting to hit the bottom on the rep ranges and therefore may need to decrease the weights next time.  Anything involving my grip is becoming a real issue, rows/chins and the Snatch Grip Deadlifts is where I have really struggled.  In the last workout on Friday afternoon, I was unable to complete the eccentric lift at 5 second tempo as I could not grip the bar that long, and a considerable amount of weight has come off the bar – 20kgs since the first workout.   The workouts are making me realize that I still have weaknesses to work on, for instance my grip has become a limiting factor in my deadlift. It feels like I am at a tipping point, I feel better for a day's rest, and even like my body is slightly adapting to the frequency.  However, now that I know what is coming this week I am wondering how long my strength will hold out, especially my grip.  I felt well rested before starting last week, obviously now I don't so it will be interesting to see how I hold up.

To summarize

I am getting weaker; holding the bar for deadlifts is becoming an issue. I am delirious with tiredness – one minute I want to punch someone for breathing near me then next I am giggling to myself as I unscrewed literally the hundredth BCAA capsule this week and pore it into my drink.  My body fat sites have decreased slightly, the 1 kg gain that occurred in the first day has disappeared, in honesty though my weight can swing by a kg or so in a few days so its not out of the ordinary.

Shot-my dog- scale : I heard a couple of gun shots go off, rushed to the garden but fido was ok….but I have no idea if the assassin will try again. (this metaphor is getting stretched)

Song of the workout – Music is required to get me through my workouts at the moment, Marilyn Manson’s “Sweet Dreams” is popular at the moment, even though I am not a fan of his in particular.  You will see that I have an eclectic range of music on my iPod, those who have read my twitter feed will know that The Four Tops “Going Loco Down in Acopulco” has popped up before when I was at the bottom of a back squat.

.50 Caliber Update 1.

So I have now completed 3 days of the .50 Caliber training cycle, with 5 of the 18 workouts done.  Today was the first day that I began to repeat the workouts and it is certainly starting to feel like everything I was warned about.  I am already starting to see my strength drop off a little bit and I anticipate that the next time I do these two workouts (Friday) that I will have to take some weight off of the bar.  My weight has increased by a kg (to 90kg), but that is not unheard of as initially my body is responding to the strong stimulus provided by the first three workouts, however as my body starts to realise that there is no recovery period coming for quite sometime I should start to see some weight loss.  

The lethargy is already starting to kick in, and since starting I have not had one good nights sleep, not sure if this is a result of the training or simply psychosomatic as I lie in bed telling myself that I won't be able to sleep. I am managing to keep eating regularly, the only real hitch being that after Day 1 I realised that I would not be able to consume 80 BCAA caps during my workouts (endless gulping in rest periods just made me feel sick) so I have started to unscrew each capsule and take the BCAAs in powder form.  There are two ramifications of this; firstly I look very suspicious as I sit in the Staff room undoing pill after pill and pouring its contents into my shaker, like some drug dealer.  Secondly, for those of you who do not know, BCAA powder tastes horrible, but I am not drinking it for pleasure so down the hatch it goes.

The second workout today was particularly tough as it was the 10 sets of 6 reps of Snatch grip deadlifts, my heart rate refused to drop and it was one of the toughest workouts for a long time.   This is what I wanted, I wanted a challenge to start the New Year, so I am actually bizarrely enjoying my fatigued state. 

Chatting to an S&C coach yesterday raised an interesting point.  He is far more knowledgeable than I am, more experienced (polite way of saying older) and stronger.  But upon telling him what I was doing he responded "No way" in fact there was an F bomb in there but my mum has declared that she might start reading this.  He then said "I couldn't do that, I'd break".  Now this is not some boast about me having more durability, or grit than him, he is Northern so undoubtedly he is tougher.  The point is that if you have numerous injuries, or imbalances this type of training will lay them bare pretty quick, in fact you'll be on your back before you can say "I did my [insert knee/shoulder/back joint here] a couple of years ago and its never been the same since".  I 'd planned this phase of Super Accumulation (which is what .50 Caliber training is) four months ago.  I did Structural Balance work for the first two months to ensure any imbalances that I had, had been identified and that I had worked towards correcting these. I also completed a Smolov Jr Squat cycle before Christmas to get used to squatting regularly.

Structural Balance testing is a training tool used by Charles Poliquin to help screen his athletes/clients to see what imbalances they have which could ultimate lead to poor performance or injury.  There are a series of Upper and Lower body tests which provide the PICP coach with information to make an informed assessment about what issues the client has which need to be fixed to insure optimal functioning of the body.  I have used it with several clients and myself and had very good results with it.  Functional Movement Screening is another system, devised by Gray Cook, which is very popular, that also aims to assess a clients movement patterns and alignment to identify any areas of weakness which need working on.

I would thoroughly recommend that regardless of your training goal you find out what your weaknesses are and work towards correcting them.  It will help you reach your goal hopefully pain free and boost your performance.

Update Summary –

Added 1 kg, strength beginning to decline, it does not feel like someone has shot my dog yet……just that there is some punk kid next door who keep s firing at him with an air rifle. (Please refer to initial article if this makes no sense – I will continue to refer to my imaginary dog in my updates – a Shot-my-dog scale if you will).