Reply With QuoteThe electric shocks sounds like a nervy thing to me. Post a squat video for a check.
How much sleep per night are you getting? Nutrition on point?
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General leg pain and poor sleep habits affecting lifts
Quick background: 55, 5' 10", 195 lbs, been lifting for just over two years. Got my squat up to 375 x 5 and deadlift to 415 x 4.
That was last month. Today I struggled with 315 x 3 for my squat and gave up at 380 x 2 for the deadlift. Only thing I can think of is that my sleep has been terrible for the last month, as I have to wake up at 4:40AM to take my daughter to marching band practice four days a week and I'm having a hard time getting to sleep early enough to get a reasonable amount of sack time in. I try to get some more sleep after I drop her off, but it is never a quality sleep. I don't see any way around this until the end of the band season in November other than better sleep discipline. Have others seen a decline this big due to bad sleep patterns?
The other thing that is bothering me is the pain I am feeling in my legs while squatting. Hard to describe other than it feels like slight electric shocks over the whole length of the leg, mostly on lateral surfaces, and in the hip and knee joints. Also kind of like things getting stretched that don't want to stretch. I don't think my form has degraded since I had a session with an SS coach a few months ago, but I'll get a form check posted soon. I've started foam rolling my ITB and doing the DeFranco Agile 11 to see if that will help. I don't have pain other than when squatting, unless I try jumping or, for example, take steps two at a time. Anyone else have this general, whole leg pain? I was really looking forward to the Fall Classic, but the way I feel now, I'm not sure it's going to work.
Thanks.
-RJP
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The electric shocks sounds like a nervy thing to me. Post a squat video for a check.
How much sleep per night are you getting? Nutrition on point?
Member
Thanks for the feedback, Tom.Originally Posted by Tom K
What do you mean by a nervy thing? Something pinched somewhere? I think I'm going to take a week or so off from the gym and when I get back, I'll make a video.
Sleep is maybe 6 hours on a good night, 5-6 more typically. I don't track nutrition as well as I should but nothing has changed in the last several months. I'm not a vegetarian and I'm not cutting (not that I ever plan to, either :-) )
-RJP
Member
6 hours is not horrible BUT if that's the thing that has changed in the past month, coinciding with the dropoff in performance, then there's your albatross. It does seem like a big drop off. Any other stress, physical or mental?
By nervy I meant hit-your-funny-bone kind of pain on a lower scale. When someone describes an electrical shock sensation, that's what I think of, not a damage tendon/ligament/torn muscle acute thing. Could be something pinched or rubbing on other stuff in an unpleasant way. Dunno.
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Yeah, I'm reasonably sure it's connected with sleeping so I am trying to get more. It was just weird how sudden and severe the change in my strength was. As for the leg pain, I'm laying off squats and deadlifts for a week or two, but still doing OHP, bench and other upper body work 2-3 times a week and DeFranco's Limber 11 routine every day. Now that I think about it more, I've had some leg pain for quite a while, I just never notice it because it requires a particular action to be felt. I first noticed it after I had been lifting for maybe a year. I jumped across a small stream at a park and felt quite a jarring pain in my hip and knee joints when I landed. It didn't affect any other aspect of my activities so I didn't pay any attention to it really. Now I'm wondering if it related to my squats going down or something that has always been there. So now I'm hoping that rest and stretching will clear things up.
-RJP
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