Calorie intake while injured

[jdoolittle]

Jordan,

I searched the forums for this topic but couldn't find anything concrete. I'm currently dealing with some annual, sometimes bi-annual, knee pain in my right knee (I'm pretty sure it's patellar tendonitis but I haven't confirmed with a doc). As a result I'm not able to squat as much weight as I was prior to being hurt, so obviously I'm not involved in as much activity.

Should I back down my intake a bit to avoid unnecessary body fat gain while I'm recovering? I also train BJJ twice a week but since the pain just started I don't know what kind of affect it will have on that.

For reference, I was doing the SS LP 3x a week and had recently worked up to these numbers with some stalls:

Squat: 275x5
Bench: 205x3x5
OHP: 125x3x3
Deadlift: 265x5
Powerclean: 142.5x5x3

My intake for the last few weeks has been ~3060 calories, 80f, 325c, 260p.

I'm 30 y/o, 5'10", and bounce between 201 and 205lbs. Est. body fat is 23%.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

If your upper body stuff and deadlifts are still going up AND you're squatting 1x/wk, I think the intake should remain about the same (probably -10g pro and -5g fat just to see how that goes) for the time being. I would avoid BJJ and power cleans to heal that knee up also.

[jdoolittle]

If your upper body stuff and deadlifts are still going up AND you're squatting 1x/wk, I think the intake should remain about the same (probably -10g pro and -5g fat just to see how that goes) for the time being. I would avoid BJJ and power cleans to heal that knee up also.

Thanks for the response! If my upper body lifts and/or deadlifts aren't moving up, should I back it down even more? That deadlift is after a recent reset from stalling to get 300 (as in, the weight wouldn't move off the floor).

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Nah, I would switch your programming so they do move up.

[jdoolittle]

Nah, I would switch your programming so they do move up.

Noted. I'd been feeling like I might need to do that anyway.

Also, it turns out I was logging my cereal wrong and as a result, was only getting 264g of carbs a day and thus ~2700 calories. That could explain why I was beginning to stall so much, no?

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

For a person on LP, whom weight gain (even if slow in the case of a non underweight adult like yourself) is a very important to facilitating progress, then sure, a undershooting by 300 cals in addition to an existing injury may result in a stall