Great intensity day after stomach virus...HOW????

[EV]

I'm truly befuddled and wonder if someone can tell me why this just happened:

Running the 4-Day TM Split, sleeping 7-8 hours/night, and eating about 3,500 calories per day. I'm 34, 6' 1" and 207lbs. (trying to get up to 225).

Anyway, I hit my lifts for Thursday Intensity day (heavy bench for 1x5), but it was a struggle. That afternoon, I came down with a stomach virus (thanks, 9 year-old son) that had me eating very little and - shall we say - evacuating most of the food fairly quickly. I tried to eat through the pain, but really only got down about 2,000 calories Thursday, skipped Squat/DL Intensity on Friday and again ate about 2,000 calories. Woke up this morning (Saturday) feeling better, ate my typical pre-workout oatmeal, and went to lift expecting to miss reps or crush myself. Somehow I squatted and pulled my target weights for 1x5 and it felt like I had plenty left in the tank (way easier than bench intensity day before getting sick).

I truly can't understand how after two days of illness and reducing my eating by almost half I could still pull those numbers and have it feel almost easy. Is it possible the recovery I got Tuesday and Wednesday after squat/pull Volume Day was enough to set me up for Saturday Intensity? Or could the extra sleep I got yesterday while sick have done something to help, despite not eating as much? Or perhaps the extra day off I took (skipping Friday and pushing Squat/DL Intensity to Saturday) helped me be better prepared? If anyone with a better understanding of the science of recovery could shed some light on this, I'm just extremely curious about it. I'm also wondering if there are any implications from this that I should factor into my typical programming, or if it's possibly just a weird fluke. Thanks!

[Mark Rippetoe]

A "stomach virus" is almost always actually food poisoning. Examine this possibility. The reality is that you weren't as sick as you thought, and an acute thing like this doesn't affect the chronic progress trend as badly as you think it would. As a secondary observation, I think you'd be much better off at 4000-4500 cal/day if you're actually trying to get to 225, which seems rather conservative for 6'1" to me.

More importantly, this is one more nail in the coffin of "RPE" -- perceptions about what you can do before you've actually done them are almost always inaccurate. I hear that Paul Horn has an interesting story about this, perhaps he'll share.

[EV]

Mark, thanks so much for responding!!! That's really good to know about the lack of long-term effects of an illness like that...and yes, I was initially suspecting some ill-advised fast food.

Regarding your second point, what would you consider a good bodyweight for 6' 1"? I began my Starting Strength journey at 163lbs. and was always the typical lanky "hard-gainer"...207 took a lot of time and work, so I was figuring 225 might be getting to the limit of what my body could actually be capable of.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Many good lifters at 6'1" were 300+. I'd say 242, and see how you like it.

[Erik Y]

I hear that Paul Horn has an interesting story about this, perhaps he'll share.

Would love to hear this.

I’ve had some similar experiences, PRing my deadlift with a fever, missing a deadlift warmup and then hitting a PR anyway, struggling with presses and then hitting an easy 5x5, losing my balance on rep two of my squats and then hitting three more, etc. Every time it happens, I always treat it as useful data. So that’s how I’d look at this, EV: It’s useful data about how you recover from illness and how not eating enough in the short term effects your upper body lifts. That will come in handy when you’re planning your programming in the future.

[Culican]

I That afternoon, I came down with a stomach virus (thanks, 9 year-old son) that had me eating very little and - shall we say - evacuating most of the food fairly quickly. I tried to eat through the pain, but really only got down about 2,000 calories Thursday, skipped Squat/DL Intensity on Friday and again ate about 2,000 calories. Woke up this morning (Saturday) feeling better, ate my typical pre-workout oatmeal,

Norovirus, the most common cause of foodborne illness, generally only lasts 24 to 72 hours.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Interesting. I thought staph toxin was the most common. Either way, food-borne.

[Paul Horn]

More importantly, this is one more nail in the coffin of "RPE" -- perceptions about what you can do before you've actually done them are almost always inaccurate. I hear that Paul Horn has an interesting story about this, perhaps he'll share.

We had a week in the gym awhile back where three lifters put their "RPE8" down on the pins. They were all early-intermediates who jumped into an RPE-based program immediately after their novice phase. Their spreadsheets said one thing would happen, but the reality was very different.

That's the problem. You don't know what you can do until you've tried it, and basing your programming on subjective data that you suck at gauging is just a bad idea for someone who doesn't have the experience.

I'm not saying you can't and shouldn't get better at using the metric over time, or that it's not useful for a seasoned lifter that knows her abilities, but I wouldn't let it influence what you do in the gym for a very long time because, as the OP experienced and the saying goes, "how you feel is a lie."

I've seen far too many guys call an RPE6 a 10 or take an 8.5 down to Pin City. Or worse, they spend 6-12 months hammering out set after set of lower-intensity volume work (2-3 hour sessions, four days a week) hoping that one day they'll peak and hit some new PRs, only to fail their warmups! It's frustrating for them, and it's hard to watch as the wave of disappointment and confusion overtakes them.

"Adding 5lbs" doesn't work forever. But man, it does work for a while, far beyond just the novice phase of training, especially for the lifters that aren't seduced by the urge to overcomplicate their training so soon.

I was just talking to a client this week about being able to sniff out a "Bridge Guy." It's a type. They're drawn to complexity. I'm not sure what that's all about. Maybe it's boredom or perhaps a desire to try to outsmart the rest of us fools that just try put a little more weight on the bar each time. It's like they're trying to hack the system. They like the idea that with enough tweaking they can optimize everything. There's nothing wrong with wanting to optimize your training, but there are so many variables and these guys often have so little experience. As soon as the program isn't going well, they start tweaking. New block. New template. New rep scheme. New exercises. Usually, more volume. Tweak, tweak, tweak. And, it often takes months before they realize it didn't work. That's too much time without any hard data for an early-intermediate. Even worse, there's no accountability for the coach. If the program didn't pan out, you must have picked the wrong RPEs — your fault.

Right now I've got a 40-year-old guy that has been running the straight up Texas Method for six months. Even I didn't expect it to last that long. He finished his LP with a 405x1 squat. He just did 410x5x5 for his volume day and 465x3x2 for his intensity day. Every week he thinks he's going to fail. He's scared, but he keeps going. Some weeks are a grind. Some weeks the weights seem oddly light. But he keeps increasing the weight. The only tweaking he does is an occasional reset of the volume day weights. By the time we get him down to singles on intensity day, he'll be very good at assessing his RPE, and he might find it to be a useful tool for his late intermediate/advanced programming. But for now–even though The Texas Method doesn't work–he'll take the weekly PRs and regular, concrete feedback that his program is working.

[Ivan Stepic]

I was just talking to a client this week about being able to sniff out a "Bridge Guy." It's a type. They're drawn to complexity. I'm not sure what that's all about. Maybe it's boredom or perhaps a desire to try to outsmart the rest of us fools that just try put a little more weight on the bar each time. It's like they're trying to hack the system. They like the idea that with enough tweaking they can optimize everything. There's nothing wrong with wanting to optimize your training, but there are so many variables and these guys often have so little experience. As soon as the program isn't going well, they start tweaking. New block. New template. New rep scheme. New exercises. Usually, more volume. Tweak, tweak, tweak. And, it often takes months before they realize it didn't work. That's too much time without any hard data for an early-intermediate. Even worse, there's no accountability for the coach. If the program didn't pan out, you must have picked the wrong RPEs — your fault.

Precisely my experience. But I didn't just stall, I got weaker.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Even worse, there's no accountability for the coach. If the program didn't pan out, you must have picked the wrong RPEs — your fault.

I think this is the whole point of the RPE fad. Excellent marketing to the young demographic that grew up on the internet, tantalizing amounts of scientism and complexity, no accountability for what they sold you, and no way for them to be wrong. But Dorian Yates was wrong, Ronnie Coleman was wrong, Kirk and Ed were wrong, and most importantly, we are wrong.