Recovery and Stress: Why am I getting weaker?

[fnet]

Stress can fuck with recovery. From your appetite to your sleep. I also recall you feeling really down a while back. Have you ever been checked for depression? Another possible and unrelated factor could be the heat. The latest article by Bill Starr got me to thinking about this. Its been hot and humid as hell this summer in the midwest. How much time do you spend in it? Do you have air conditioning at home? At the gym? Are you getting enough water or losing minerals? Whatever it is, I wish you the best.

[forgeforth]

I really feel for you, man, and I'm sorry for what you're going through.

Stress affects every aspect of your life and it surely will affect the most physically rigorous activities you enjoy doing - i.e., strength training. In my opinion, it is possible to maintain strength gains even by training once or twice a week. If I were in your predicament, I would cut my training down to no more than 3 times a week. Is the stress causing you to lose sleep? Yeah, if that happens you're in a world of recovery problems. Not getting adequate sleep is something I've struggled with.

As far as stepping away from training completely, that might be necessary but I wouldn't recommend it. I'm going through a hell of a stressful time right now. Everything in life isn't the way it should be. But the only outlet I have - the only thing that gets me excited about being alive - is barbell training. I think you should keep going but lower the volume a bit and try to get more rest. I hope you get everything sorted out soon and still have enough money to maintain a good calorie intake.

Good luck.

[Ian Kovtunovich]

+1 on cutting back on the training a bit. I have been making linear gains training about twice a week, or about 3 times every 8 or 9 days, on a sort of rolling schedule where I fit the next workout in when I can.

I have also dealt with wicked stress compounded by lack of sleep. The shit thing is it's a tidy little vicious cycle--stress makes it hard to sleep, lack of sleep makes it hard to cope, compounding the stress, leading to more sleep difficulty... For my money, tightening up the sleep game in order to have a better base to deal with the stress will reap big dividends overall. In my own case, even though I'm not dealing with wicked stress right now, life is still pretty full, and I am sort of juggling and trying to find the balance of getting the training in, getting juuuust enough sleep to get by, and living and parenting and all the rest.

Good luck on it; hope it gets more betta.

[Mr.City]

I'm getting way too antsy without barbell training. I'm thinking about calling John about nutritional advice (something in addition to the stress that may of been hindering me) and taking a full week off and then going back to TM, deloading the weights 10% off of what I stalled at.

I have a Costco membership, so I can get plenty of food on the cheap. The biggest thing that has been stressing me is that most of this comes from my mom's half-assed handling on my taxes. I mean, she filed me as a independent all my life, which is really bad for me since my family set up a big ass trust fund in my name. It looks like I'm this guy making loads of money, but I'm not filing a damn thing.

[JStrong]

City, I've followed your log a very long time, and you're far ahead of me on the lifts but.....

Change it up, do something way different for awhile. Progression starts to dominate your mind, so make it so there's no frame of reference--try something with unfamiliar movements, running, dumbbells, decline bench, whatever.

Just keep training but try something weird, then come back to it. I took a month on a different program which I didn't like but it was such a nice break and I didn't lose anything because I was still lifting.

You're such a grinder, try grinding some other routine for three weeks, take a week off, and hit it hard again.

[MazdaMatt]

City, we've been talking about Dan John in another thread... Jstrong brings up a good point that Dan writes about frequently. Check out his site and read a half dozen articles to see if you get any insite.

www.danjohn.net

[tennisgod]

In times of stress, it's the simple things in life that I like to return to... just playing with the kids, walking on the beach, laughing with friends.

I don't think you should take a break from lifting, but just realise that the gains aren't going to come during this period... or visualise the barbell being a fat IRS accountant that you want to hurt.

[jacob cloud]

Yeah, I would start off just dropping one set. I only tried it because it worked for a buddy of mine.

And on the flip side, 5/3/1 as prescribed is a terrible way to get a decent squat IME. Balancing volume and loads is a delicate act.

As far as the family stress goes, just be glad it's only a tax issue. It could always be worse. Read some stuff on how to deal with stress, find someone to talk to, etc. Make sure you get your sleep and protein.

[Mr.City]

Update:
I've been focusing on getting more sleep and it's been doing a wonder. However, I still think my recovery is very fragile. I chalk it up to deadlifting with my super short arms. My deadlift is usually the first to stall, then the squat, then the bench, then the press, etc. Sumo might be my only option here, or at least, training the conventional deadlift very conservatively (5 lb jumps every two weeks, using triples instead of a set of 5).

Sleep really has been a big one though. For as long as I can remember, I've treated my sleep schedule very poorly. I work mornings at a shitty cashier job, which, combined with a night of poor sleep, can be super stressful. I have had days where I wanted to kill everyone in that store. My heart rate would elevated for 2 or 3 hours my shift was up, and I would feel incredible tired. It would nearly impossible to train on one of these days.

So far this time off from the gym feels wonderful, and I'm looking forward to coming back. I should have done this in the first place. I don't think I ever fully recovered from my stall on TM, and I think my 5/3/1 run only put me further in the hole. The only thing I'm wondering about is the weight I should be using when I go back to the gym.

[MazdaMatt]

How is working a casheir job stressful? Perhaps you should be doing some stress management research and figure out how to look at things in a less stressful way. I used to work cash at a Tim Horton's (Canadian coffee shop. If "Canadian" were a religion, Tim Horton's would be church). You know who's stressed out? A guy that just got his 3 kids dressed and ready for hocket at 6:30 in the morning and has to wait in line 25 minutes to get his caffein fix to get through his day and he might be late for his first kid's game. When that guy gets to the cash he tries his damnedest to offload that stress on the poor schmuck serving that coffee... Just be invinsible to the stress. When that asshole says "This is rediculous! I've been waiting 25 minutes for a coffee!" I'd just say "Wow... why'd you do that?" *grin* Nothing makes me more relaxed and him more angry than that response.

As Farve in Supertroopers says "Ten deep breaths".