Still On The Novice Phase (and I hate to sound like a pussy, but)

[gamedog]

Guys,

Thanks for taking the time to read this, I appreciate your time and any advice you can give.

I began SS on May 3, and at the time I was squatting 135#. As of June 4, I was squatting 205# and today, I'll (hopefully) be banging out 230#.

Now, according to Rip's article "A Clarification" I am indeed "Doing the program." Within the first 6 weeks, I added 60+ pounds to my squat. Now, upon re-reading that article, he says that, and I'm paraphrasing "after the 6th or 7th week of training, the weekly squat increase usually dips from 15# to 10#" ... because of illness, work, school or whatever. I assume this average occurs because workouts get skipped BUT I have been searching the forum and I've seen a lot of talk about folks doing a "light squat day" on Wednesday.

I never thought about doing that until I woke up this morning and my quads and glutes were fucking killing me.

Let me give you my stats, here.

Age: 31
Height: 6'
Weight: 241# today, June 16 2010 (I weighed in at 219# on May 3)

I've put on weight, gotten stronger, I eat everything I see and I try to sleep well every night, and I definitely, DEFINITELY do NOT want to fuck this up, because this is awesome.

Here's what I've noticed. Within the last week or so I am getting tired, "Fall asleep at the wheel tired" around 6PM, during my 2 hour commute home. But at 9:30/10PM, when I attempt to hit the hay, I have trouble getting to sleep and it can take an hour or so to fall asleep. And yesterday and the day before that, I woke up in the middle of the night completely alert and "ready to go!" that was weird.

I'm still hungry, though. That hasn't changed. I'm a fucking locust. Let me give you a run-down of what I'm eating daily, my menu seldom changes:

6AM:
5 scrambled eggs fried up in 2 tbst. amish butter
1 cup whole, steel-cut oats in 1.5 cup(s) whole milk
2 scoops EAS whey protein in 1.5 cup(s) whole milk

9AM:
1 cup whole, steel-cut oats in 1.5 cup(s) whole milk
1 cup mixed strawberries and blueberries
1 cup Chobani Greek yogurt
1 cup almonds or pistachios

12PM:
1 HUGE spinach salad
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
2 roast chicken leg
1 roast chicken thigh
1 cup almonds or pistachios

3PM or 3:45PM if I workout that day:
1 HUGE spinach salad
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 roast chicken leg
1 roast chicken thigh
1 whole roast chicken breast
2 cups whole milk

5:30 PM:
2 scoops EAS whey protein in 1.5 cup(s) whole milk

7:30PM:
4 or 5 tacos, 80/20 ground beef and cheese, with romaine lettuce as the shell

... Dinner is just an example, sometimes the wife makes cheeseburgers that I eat without the bun because I avoid breads, or she'll make a roast and I'll eat half of that, or she'll have baked a turkey, etc. But that menu is pretty standard.

I'm not in any way malnourished. But FUCK, man, I'm getting to the point where the DOMS is sticking around for a day or two.

My bar speed on squats was still good on Monday, but getting it up there was hard, looking back on it.

So, what's the deal with this "Light Day" on Wednesday? Are folks switching over to the Advanced Novice program entirely, or are they doing the Novice Program as-is (not changing up any other exercises) but doing the squats with 80% of their last working weight on Wednesday?

And is this advisable?

Or should I just suck it up and keep doing what I'm doing?

I have a feeling I should just suck it up and keep at it the way I have been, and that's what I plan to do, today (after a longer warmup to help my legs feel better). But I was curious.

THANK YOU for your advice. Cheers!

[gzt]

Teh Book advises doing this after the first reset. I didn't wait, but I also did front squats for the light day and had an oly meet on the horizon when I made the switch (see my log), so my situation is a little different. I was also squatting 140 more pounds than you. I think you might do well to wait a little bit and see if you die or fail or something. Good job on the progress/weight-gain/eating, etc.

As for falling asleep at the wheel, it could be some dietary-timing-blood-sugar thing.

[gamedog]

Teh Book advises doing this after the first reset. I didn't wait, but I also did front squats for the light day and had an oly meet on the horizon when I made the switch (see my log), so my situation is a little different. I was also squatting 140 more pounds than you. I think you might do well to wait a little bit and see if you die or fail or something. Good job on the progress/weight-gain/eating, etc.

As for falling asleep at the wheel, it could be some dietary-timing-blood-sugar thing.

Hey there gzt! Always good to hear from you and thank you for the advice.

Perhaps I should have waited to post this until after my time at the gym today... I could have reflected on things a little bit more after-the-fact.

Because I went in there today and fucking owned it: 230x5x3

My knees/quads didn't hurt at all. Of course, that fucking pain in my left biceps is back, and it happens as a result of how I'm holding the bar in the low bar position on my back when the weight is heavier.

Other than that though, it was all good. Finished up the workout in an hour, came back here hungry as hell, ate, checked the board.

As to the programming, I figured the consensus would be "Wait longer" and that's cool. I've not been lifting for a long time, and I'd venture to guess that the pains I'm experiencing are just normal, for guys who lift. I'll just up my fish oil supplement intake, and keep ridin' the novice train for now.

THANKS!

[scoppi]

edit: nm, i reread your post, and what i said isnt relevant.

im with gzt though. if it aint broke dont fix it.

[Dastardly]

Heavy training/disruption of homeostasis & big demands on CNS can really play with your sleep patterns.

It is fairly common early in training, and even later on if you do enough heavy volume a day. But it should diminish soon, as your body gets used to squatting 3x week.

You can try calcium-magnesium-zinc tablets, they help some people sleep, act like a sort of tranquilizer, the minerals will come in useful too.

[gzt]

arrrrrrrr Dastardly....

[gamedog]

Well, you know, what gzt said about blood sugar makes sense. As a kid and a teen, I always had problems with depression, malaise and fatigue. Looking back on it, I believe it was due to the fact that I wasn't eating nearly enough. No breakfast, pepsi or coffee and a candy bar or two for lunch and chicken wings or a pizza for dinner... That's not enough food, and too much of the bad stuff... So my blood sugar was probably bouncing up and down all over the damn place.

I try to avoid refined sugar at all costs, except on Saturday which is my "cheat" day ... And what I mean by that is, though I'm not dieting (Fuck me man, you can't spell "diet" without "DIE"), I do like to consume whole foods 90% of the time. The regular exception I make, is my whey protein. 1 scoop has 3 grams of sugar in it. I put two in whole milk and make a shake, around 5:30 or so... Perhaps the sugar in that is spiking my blood sugar a little bit and then I'm crashing? I thought about that because yesterday on the ride home I was tired as shit. Got home, and my wife had roasted a chicken. I ate half the chicken and got a second wind, and was wide awake for a while. Long enough for me and my dog to have her training and play time, do the dishes, put my food together for today and take care of the wife. And thank God, I didn't have any trouble going to sleep last night. I was comatose by 10:40, according to her. So that was good.

I'll give the supplements a shot. I don't take vitamins at all (because I eat loads of fruit and veggies) but I'll try those. Perhaps I could use some good minerals.

Oh, I did drink two beers last night also. That was nice. No soreness this morning, either.

[Jeff Horner]

Regarding your sleep disruption, let me tell you that you're not 21 anymore. As a 38yo who's doing a linear progression three days per week on squat, press, cleans/deads and adding "only 10lbs per week" (no INDTP)... I went through the same thing you're going through.

I train at lunch time, and my sleep disruption started as just a light nap at the keyboard immediately after I ate. Then it progressed to barely making it home alive at five due to nodding off at the wheel. I was drinking nearly GOMAD at the time, and then I ended up with a GI infection that left me out of work for a day. But I continued to train through it. I recently began taking zinc and magnesium supplements at night before bed, and they helped for awhile. And just the other night I had a poor night of sleep, the one where you know you're not fully asleep because you can remember waking up a few times, but you must have slept some because surely you woud've gotten bored staying awake for a whole eight hours, but when you finally get out of bed, you feel like you've been beat up with all your joints just slightly achy, but not achy enough to call in sick.

I finally decided to take the rest of the week off after feeling great after my workout Monday, but missing a whole night of sleep!

Just sayin...