There is your number one problem.
A Clarification | Mark Rippetoe
I'm not certain if this belongs here or in the programming forum, but hopefully this is a good place to start.
The last several deadlift workouts have completely wrecked me -- to the extent I'm a zombie in the afternoon unless I nap and I feel run down the whole next day -- and I'm wondering if this is normal and if there's anything I can do about it.
I'm 45, male, 6'0", 187 lbs., running my first NLP since March 21.
Eating 4000 cals/day with at least the following macros:
200+ Protein
500+ Carbs
100+ Fat
(and 5g creatine daily)
I gained 6.5lbs in May and 2.4 so far in June, so hopefully that's on the right track.
My unimpressive lifts:
Squat: 220lbs 3x5 (set back due to groin pain discussed here; I backed off and upped my calories 500/day and the pain seems better, though not completely gone)
Press: 100lbs 3x5
Bench: 170lbs 3x5
Deadlift: 310lbs 1x5
Everything feels hard and grindy and I've missed some reps on every lift, but I'm still progressing. I only added power cleans late last month and I'm failing to rack it properly yet, so PC weights are comically low (85lbs). Even though I feel terrible after the deadlift workouts, I do feel recovered enough after a few days to do it again, so I haven't switched to the every-5th-workout format.
Three recovery and nutrition things that may be relevant:
1. My sleep is noticeably worse since beginning NLP, which I suspect is largely due to the huge increase in food intake. I get 7-8 hrs per night, but my overnight HR is 51-55 (vs. very consistently 44-50bpm prior), my waking HR is generally >50 (was consistently sub-50 prior), waking HRV is ~100ms (vs. 120 before), and I generally now wake up several times a night (at least once for gas and/or to pee, and several times for no reason). I'm not sure if any of those stats really speak to sleep quality, but they feel interesting.
2. I work out first thing in the morning, so I'm not sure I've nailed pre-workout nutrition. I drink a double shot of espresso, eat a protein shake with 75g oats and a banana, and immediately hit the garage. Maybe better pre choices would help?
3. I stopped all LISS and HIIT when I began NLP, except I do walk 3 miles in the hills on Tuesday/Thursday. Today, after 2 miles I felt rather sudden onset of fatigue, which hasn't happened before (I deadlifted yesterday morning).
So, back to the deadlifts torching me: Is it common to feel it to such an extent? Would I be smart to reduce deadlift frequency to every 5th workout, even though that seems like the solution to a slightly different problem? Or perhaps I should reduce my heavy deadlift set to 3 reps? Is there anything with my sleep or nutrition that seems like the explanation?
Thanks for any advice you can give!
There is your number one problem.
A Clarification | Mark Rippetoe
Thanks, Robert, I appreciate the reply! I've read that article and I guess I should have anticipated that you'd say I'm too light (seems to be the answer to all my problems!), but it's taken so much effort to get my calories up to 4000, I thought I was ok on that front. And since I'm between the 18-35 demographic and the 55+ demographic that get used as examples (and taller than the 5'10" examples but smaller than the "tall guy" examples), I never quite know what's appropriate.
Can you please advise how much more I should be eating, and what the macros should look like? Is it right that if my protein is over 200g and my carbs are over 500g, I can add the extra in any form and it doesn't really matter, or should I be more particular about that?
And at 45 years old and 6' tall, at what weight would you no longer think I'm too skinny? Am I shooting for 210? 250!? (please don't say 250!)
I really appreciate your help!
I'd expect higher strength:weight ratios if you are truly eating 4k calories. Two questions:
1) How are you determining your calorie intake?
2) What else are you doing throughout the day/week?
Well, that’s interesting and perhaps depressing to hear.
1) Most days (4-6 per week, probably), I’m weighing literally everything I eat and tracking using MyFitnessPal. I’d be surprised if my calorie counts are off by much at all on those days. Weekends and occasional weekdays involve more guessing/estimating if I’m eating with the family, at restaurants, etc. But more often than not, I think it’s really 4000.
2) I get about 7-10k steps per day in total: MWF I lift; Tuesday/Thursday I walk ~3 miles in the (steep) hills near my house at a 16-17 min/mile pace. Beyond that, I’m at a desk, driving kids’ carpools, or occasionally playing or hiking with the family - nothing particularly strenuous. I frequently ran 4+ miles and did HIIT sprints and such prior to starting the LP, but stopped completely when it began.
What does a typical weekend consist of? How do you weigh your food?
Weekends are not very exciting - lots of kids’ birthday parties and the like, maybe a family hike or bike ride, but no benders (extremely little alcohol and no drugs) and no particularly vigorous exercise. They tend to be closer to the 7k daily steps end of the range. Nutrition-wise, I’m more likely to be sloppy with food on weekends, so I’ll still aim for the same macros but fill them with pizza instead of monster mash and have to guess more as to what the actual macros are.
Weighing my food is on a digital gram scale and I frequently do weigh every ingredient as I add it and refer to the package or MyFitnessPal’s database for the composition. If I cook a meal for the family, I’ll calculate macros for the whole meal and estimate what fraction of it I ate, so those cases are surely less precise. But I do think I’m pretty accurate overall.
I can share a representative day’s log if that would be helpful. In any case, I’m up 15 lbs since April 8th, so I’m clearly in a significant surplus, right?
Sure. Send a "normal" routine day and one that looks like shit.
Ok, here's a relatively normal day where pretty much everything was tracked:
Breakfast:
- Banana
- Smoothie: 210g frozen mixed berries, 60g spinach and other greens, 5g creatine, 1 scoop whey isolate, 170g plain nonfat yogurt, 40g almond butter
Breakfast totals: 1,085 kcal, 153g carb, 30g fat, 63g protein
Lunch 1:
- White rice (1 cup dry)
- 175g poached, shredded chicken breast
- 1 cup bone broth
Lunch 2:
- 1/2 package Whole Foods protein blend (frozen lentils and assorted veggies)
- 2 large eggs
- Avocado oil for cooking (estimated ~0.2 Tbsp)
Lunch totals: 1,309 kcal, 175g carb, 23g fat, 101g protein
Dinner:
- 113g poached, shredded chicken breast
- 0.5 medium avocado
- 5 street taco flour tortillas
Dinner totals: 678 kcal, 71g carb, 24g fat, 46g protein
Snacks:
- 2 slices whole wheat toast with 14g butter
- 2 bite-size Snickers
- 80g oatmeal with 33g walnuts, 15g flaxseed meal, 1 Tbsp maple syrup
- 3 mini peanut butter cups
- 1 coconut date roll
Snacks totals: 1,158 kcal, 155g carb, 53g fat, 26g protein
Grand total: 4,231 kcal, 555g carb, 130g fat, 236g protein
============================
And here's a truly horrifying day that I'm ashamed to put in writing -- kids were out of school and I was running them to appointments and end-of-school-year celebrations and eating what I could get my hands on:
Breakfast:
- 100g oatmeal with 1 scoop whey protein isolate, 5g creatine, 35g almond butter
Breakfast total: 704 kcal, 75g carb, 25g fat, 49g protein
[No proper lunch]
Snacks throughout the day:
- Shake Shack cheeseburger (estimated 606 kcal, 40g carb, 50g fat, 41g protein from MyFitnessPal)
- Banana and 1 scoop whey protein isolate
- 2 coconut date rolls
- 1 packet frozen brown rice (2 cups cooked), with 175g poached, shredded chicken
- 1 sesame seed bagel with 14g butter
- 2 slices whole wheat bread with 10g butter
- 1 scoop whey protein isolate
- 39 g Cheerios
Snacks total: 2,562 kcal, 307g carb, 90g fat, 183g protein
Dinner:
- 4 slices pepperoni pizza (estimated at 1,360kcal, 148g carb, 52g fat, 76g protein from MyFitnessPal -- I don't know how accurate this is)
Grand Total: 4,626 kcal, 530g carb, 167g fat, 308g protein
============================
I have more days that look like the first than the second, but they give you a good idea of the spectrum, I guess!
My weight is up to 190 -- that's 15lbs gained in 2.5 months. I feel pretty gross and bloated, and back to the topic at hand, the lifts seem surprisingly hard at the relatively light weights I'm lifting, and the deadlifts in particular wipe me out completely.