Goosey
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I like this guys thoughts, It might help.
Training Through Tough Times
by Nathan Harvey
A year and a half ago, my training couldn’t have been better. Every week I added a pound to upper-body exercises, 2.5 to lower-body exercises, and half a pound to my bodyweight, which had reached a high of 227. I daydreamed about how strong and huge I would be in two years, assuming that I continued to make consistent progress. Soon, however, I would be meeting new challenges, with the purchase of a new house, illness and injury, and the birth of our second child. In this article I’ll share strategies that I used to achieve success through adversity.
Frequent interruptions In April of 2001, right after the point that I described, my wife and I bought a house, and my progress ground to a halt. I wasn’t worried, as we had moved before with only a week or two of disruption to my training. However, this was going to be a different experience. First, my family and quantity of possessions had grown. Second, as this was not another apartment, there were many home improvement projects awaiting me, some needing immediate attention.
A week after the move, I realized I was going to be in trouble. The pile of boxes in the basement seemed to be getting no smaller despite constant carrying and sorting, and my weights and disassembled power rack were buried somewhere beneath the boxes. I was physically and mentally exhausted from the whole process, but there was no end in sight. I postponed lifting, concentrating on getting things settled.
Several weeks later, I had my gym re-assembled. I had lost some weight, and my back ached from all of the carrying, so I carefully eased back into training. I thought I would be right back in the game in no time. Unfortunately, I aggravated a shoulder while sanding a patched wall. I felt discouraged, but, as a guidance counselor, I knew that school would soon be out for over two months, when I expected to heal and rest a great deal. I hoped that I would then be ready to hit some PRs during the autumn, when cooler weather usually leads to improved gains. Wrong again. While physically exhausted from demolishing the rickety garage, I tried to work sumo deadlifts back into my routine, and pulled a groin muscle. I was disgusted, as I had carefully used a weight that was lower than my warm-ups of the previous winter! My body didn’t care how light the weight was, my body had had it.
The groin injury stayed with me until the New Year, with the help of a slip on the kitchen floor that re-injured it. I had to be careful of my every move, and stopped squatting and cardio work, as they seemed to aggravate the injury.
After the groin injury finally healed, I became very ill twice in the space of three weeks, which left me weak and tired. I always experience low energy and winter blues during January and February, so I carefully worked back to decent weights at about the time that March brought longer days and an increase in temperatures. Soon after that, I had my annual two-month bout with allergies.
Medication was of some help, but at the tail end of allergy season my immune system was worn down. Tired further by coaching and making the necessary preparations for a new baby that was imminent, I became too ill to train for several weeks at the end of May. On June 9th we were blessed with the birth of my son, but this brought with it interrupted sleep and fatigue. That brings me to the present, as my son is three months old.
You’re probably thinking that a charity case like me must be withered away to nothing at this point, and weak as a kitten. Although I presently weigh 220 pounds, my upper body is stronger at this lighter weight, and my squat is at nearly 90% of my best past performance. How did I build strength in some of my exercises through all of these setbacks? Different scenarios call for different strategies, and I had to use at least four.
1. Patience When you have an injury, you have to be patient and not further injure yourself by trying to train hard again too soon. After my shoulder was hurt, I had to take a week off from training, then be careful to use poundages that didn’t irritate the joint. It was slow going, and the weights were very light for a while. However, this allowed me to return to training in the fastest possible manner without a re-injury. After my groin injury, I wish that I was more patient. I read what I could find about groin injuries and rehabilitation, and at first, against my better judgement, I tried some stretching, very light squatting and “rehab” exercises. A month later, I still had to grab my leg with my hands and lift it in order to get into bed. Finally, I gave the muscle complete rest. Slowly but surely, it improved.
2. Do what you can Although complete rest is sometimes the only option, I didn’t get back into shape by sitting around waiting for perfect training conditions. I continued to do what I could, and was surprised to reach and then slightly surpass maximum poundages with my upper-body lifts during the time that I couldn’t squat or deadlift. Perhaps due to muscle memory, my upper body was able to respond without the secondary growth stimulation that squats and deadlifts provide. It was encouraging to continue training, but I lost 20 pounds and felt like a weakling as my back and legs atrophied.
3. Get back on the horse In the winter and spring, constant interruptions due to illness and allergies were my problem. I often see this situation handled incorrectly. Trainees hit a rough patch for a week or two, and decide to bail out on their present cycles. They start over with 80% of their best poundages, and then slowly work back up near to their top weights, finally nudging up to PR range. At this point, two months have passed, and if something else negative happens, the whole process begins again. What’s wrong with this approach? It can lead to a failure to progress for as long as your life isn’t stable and predictable. In my opinion, the cycle wasn’t over.
When something interferes with my training for a short time, I train through it, if possible. This is especially true when I’m suffering from allergies, when my back is tired from sitting at work, or when I’ve had a bad night’s sleep. I know that training in these situations, although difficult, will not have a negative long-term effect on my body. During these times, my mantra becomes: “This isn’t going to be any easier tomorrow.”
I’ve sometimes been surprised at how easily I complete my work sets on a day when I feel low on energy. This is especially important because I never feel energetic in the morning, which is when I train. My favorite technique for discerning whether or not my body can handle a hard workout, is to tell myself that I’ll only perform my warm-up sets and see how they go. After these sets, I can tell if my body is going to hold out, and nearly every time I feel ready to face the work sets, not wanting to waste the opportunity once I’ve come that far.
If the illness is bad enough that a workout would lead to an even longer recovery period, I wait until my health returns, to resume training. If I only miss a week of training, I typically experience no loss of strength, and train exactly as I had planned to prior to the illness. Two or more weeks off can cause some de-conditioning, though, and your entire system will need a few ease-in workouts. On occasions when this has happened, I typically use moderate weights for one week to regain coordination in the movements, and give my muscles and recovery system a gentle warning of what’s to come. The second week, I use nearly maximum weights, and as long as that goes well, week three picks up where I left off before the interruption.
4. Don’t burn the candle at both ends Sometimes, we face a difficulty that inhibits training for a period of several months or more. This can happen unexpectedly, due to a sudden life or employment change, or it may be predictable. Accountants know that they will be extremely busy during tax season, and athletes are short on time and energy during the playing season. And then there are babies.
Despite the arrival of my son this past June, I thought that perhaps I would finally get some momentum going over my summer vacation. I envisioned myself taking long naps to make up for any missed sleep, relaxing by the pool, eating well, and maybe even bulking!
Yeah, right. Even after the baby started sleeping through the night, I was plagued by fatigue, as brutal heat and a noisy air conditioner kept me from sleeping well. From June through August I had a difficult time fitting a workout in between childcare, and home-improvement projects that invariably took longer than expected. Workouts would be pushed off for a day or two, until I was averaging about three lackluster workouts every two weeks. Even with extra rest days I felt over-tired, and soon, just the thought of completing a full-body workout made me feel exhausted.
So, why complete full-body workouts? I cut back to a program of only rows on Monday, followed quickly by bodyweight dips if I had the time and energy. On Wednesday, I squatted. On Friday, I performed overhead presses, with bodyweight chins afterward if I was able. Despite continued fatigue, I broke personal records on the row and press. My muscles hadn’t lost strength, my body simply didn’t have enough energy to perform more than one or two movements at a time.
There are numerous ways to cut back on the stress that your workouts place on your body. My reduction to three core movements is just one example. You could also try some version of a heavy-light or heavy-light-medium system of training, where you don’t always use your maximum poundages. You might, instead, decide to emphasize just one or two lifts or bodyparts, holding poundages for all others at maintenance levels until a goal is reached, or times are less demanding. You must, of course, do your best to attend fully to nutrition, rest, and stress relief techniques. If you don’t, a tough period can turn into a terrible period, as your immune and other systems wear down, and open you up for illness and injury.
Few of us live predictable lives that allow us to train, rest, eat, and grow optimally. Nonetheless, we all want to progress in our lifting endeavors without having to wait for a better tomorrow that may never come. There’s no reason that we can’t make progress during all but the most difficult periods, if we train in an intelligent manner and call upon a few strategies to help us get through. Rest completely if an injury or illness temporarily forces you to, but don’t allow laziness to keep you from training hard in some fashion when it truly is possible.
The next time your training bogs down due to difficulties in your life, try the techniques described in this article.
Training Through Tough Times
by Nathan Harvey
A year and a half ago, my training couldn’t have been better. Every week I added a pound to upper-body exercises, 2.5 to lower-body exercises, and half a pound to my bodyweight, which had reached a high of 227. I daydreamed about how strong and huge I would be in two years, assuming that I continued to make consistent progress. Soon, however, I would be meeting new challenges, with the purchase of a new house, illness and injury, and the birth of our second child. In this article I’ll share strategies that I used to achieve success through adversity.
Frequent interruptions In April of 2001, right after the point that I described, my wife and I bought a house, and my progress ground to a halt. I wasn’t worried, as we had moved before with only a week or two of disruption to my training. However, this was going to be a different experience. First, my family and quantity of possessions had grown. Second, as this was not another apartment, there were many home improvement projects awaiting me, some needing immediate attention.
A week after the move, I realized I was going to be in trouble. The pile of boxes in the basement seemed to be getting no smaller despite constant carrying and sorting, and my weights and disassembled power rack were buried somewhere beneath the boxes. I was physically and mentally exhausted from the whole process, but there was no end in sight. I postponed lifting, concentrating on getting things settled.
Several weeks later, I had my gym re-assembled. I had lost some weight, and my back ached from all of the carrying, so I carefully eased back into training. I thought I would be right back in the game in no time. Unfortunately, I aggravated a shoulder while sanding a patched wall. I felt discouraged, but, as a guidance counselor, I knew that school would soon be out for over two months, when I expected to heal and rest a great deal. I hoped that I would then be ready to hit some PRs during the autumn, when cooler weather usually leads to improved gains. Wrong again. While physically exhausted from demolishing the rickety garage, I tried to work sumo deadlifts back into my routine, and pulled a groin muscle. I was disgusted, as I had carefully used a weight that was lower than my warm-ups of the previous winter! My body didn’t care how light the weight was, my body had had it.
The groin injury stayed with me until the New Year, with the help of a slip on the kitchen floor that re-injured it. I had to be careful of my every move, and stopped squatting and cardio work, as they seemed to aggravate the injury.
After the groin injury finally healed, I became very ill twice in the space of three weeks, which left me weak and tired. I always experience low energy and winter blues during January and February, so I carefully worked back to decent weights at about the time that March brought longer days and an increase in temperatures. Soon after that, I had my annual two-month bout with allergies.
Medication was of some help, but at the tail end of allergy season my immune system was worn down. Tired further by coaching and making the necessary preparations for a new baby that was imminent, I became too ill to train for several weeks at the end of May. On June 9th we were blessed with the birth of my son, but this brought with it interrupted sleep and fatigue. That brings me to the present, as my son is three months old.
You’re probably thinking that a charity case like me must be withered away to nothing at this point, and weak as a kitten. Although I presently weigh 220 pounds, my upper body is stronger at this lighter weight, and my squat is at nearly 90% of my best past performance. How did I build strength in some of my exercises through all of these setbacks? Different scenarios call for different strategies, and I had to use at least four.
1. Patience When you have an injury, you have to be patient and not further injure yourself by trying to train hard again too soon. After my shoulder was hurt, I had to take a week off from training, then be careful to use poundages that didn’t irritate the joint. It was slow going, and the weights were very light for a while. However, this allowed me to return to training in the fastest possible manner without a re-injury. After my groin injury, I wish that I was more patient. I read what I could find about groin injuries and rehabilitation, and at first, against my better judgement, I tried some stretching, very light squatting and “rehab” exercises. A month later, I still had to grab my leg with my hands and lift it in order to get into bed. Finally, I gave the muscle complete rest. Slowly but surely, it improved.
2. Do what you can Although complete rest is sometimes the only option, I didn’t get back into shape by sitting around waiting for perfect training conditions. I continued to do what I could, and was surprised to reach and then slightly surpass maximum poundages with my upper-body lifts during the time that I couldn’t squat or deadlift. Perhaps due to muscle memory, my upper body was able to respond without the secondary growth stimulation that squats and deadlifts provide. It was encouraging to continue training, but I lost 20 pounds and felt like a weakling as my back and legs atrophied.
3. Get back on the horse In the winter and spring, constant interruptions due to illness and allergies were my problem. I often see this situation handled incorrectly. Trainees hit a rough patch for a week or two, and decide to bail out on their present cycles. They start over with 80% of their best poundages, and then slowly work back up near to their top weights, finally nudging up to PR range. At this point, two months have passed, and if something else negative happens, the whole process begins again. What’s wrong with this approach? It can lead to a failure to progress for as long as your life isn’t stable and predictable. In my opinion, the cycle wasn’t over.
When something interferes with my training for a short time, I train through it, if possible. This is especially true when I’m suffering from allergies, when my back is tired from sitting at work, or when I’ve had a bad night’s sleep. I know that training in these situations, although difficult, will not have a negative long-term effect on my body. During these times, my mantra becomes: “This isn’t going to be any easier tomorrow.”
I’ve sometimes been surprised at how easily I complete my work sets on a day when I feel low on energy. This is especially important because I never feel energetic in the morning, which is when I train. My favorite technique for discerning whether or not my body can handle a hard workout, is to tell myself that I’ll only perform my warm-up sets and see how they go. After these sets, I can tell if my body is going to hold out, and nearly every time I feel ready to face the work sets, not wanting to waste the opportunity once I’ve come that far.
If the illness is bad enough that a workout would lead to an even longer recovery period, I wait until my health returns, to resume training. If I only miss a week of training, I typically experience no loss of strength, and train exactly as I had planned to prior to the illness. Two or more weeks off can cause some de-conditioning, though, and your entire system will need a few ease-in workouts. On occasions when this has happened, I typically use moderate weights for one week to regain coordination in the movements, and give my muscles and recovery system a gentle warning of what’s to come. The second week, I use nearly maximum weights, and as long as that goes well, week three picks up where I left off before the interruption.
4. Don’t burn the candle at both ends Sometimes, we face a difficulty that inhibits training for a period of several months or more. This can happen unexpectedly, due to a sudden life or employment change, or it may be predictable. Accountants know that they will be extremely busy during tax season, and athletes are short on time and energy during the playing season. And then there are babies.
Despite the arrival of my son this past June, I thought that perhaps I would finally get some momentum going over my summer vacation. I envisioned myself taking long naps to make up for any missed sleep, relaxing by the pool, eating well, and maybe even bulking!
Yeah, right. Even after the baby started sleeping through the night, I was plagued by fatigue, as brutal heat and a noisy air conditioner kept me from sleeping well. From June through August I had a difficult time fitting a workout in between childcare, and home-improvement projects that invariably took longer than expected. Workouts would be pushed off for a day or two, until I was averaging about three lackluster workouts every two weeks. Even with extra rest days I felt over-tired, and soon, just the thought of completing a full-body workout made me feel exhausted.
So, why complete full-body workouts? I cut back to a program of only rows on Monday, followed quickly by bodyweight dips if I had the time and energy. On Wednesday, I squatted. On Friday, I performed overhead presses, with bodyweight chins afterward if I was able. Despite continued fatigue, I broke personal records on the row and press. My muscles hadn’t lost strength, my body simply didn’t have enough energy to perform more than one or two movements at a time.
There are numerous ways to cut back on the stress that your workouts place on your body. My reduction to three core movements is just one example. You could also try some version of a heavy-light or heavy-light-medium system of training, where you don’t always use your maximum poundages. You might, instead, decide to emphasize just one or two lifts or bodyparts, holding poundages for all others at maintenance levels until a goal is reached, or times are less demanding. You must, of course, do your best to attend fully to nutrition, rest, and stress relief techniques. If you don’t, a tough period can turn into a terrible period, as your immune and other systems wear down, and open you up for illness and injury.
Few of us live predictable lives that allow us to train, rest, eat, and grow optimally. Nonetheless, we all want to progress in our lifting endeavors without having to wait for a better tomorrow that may never come. There’s no reason that we can’t make progress during all but the most difficult periods, if we train in an intelligent manner and call upon a few strategies to help us get through. Rest completely if an injury or illness temporarily forces you to, but don’t allow laziness to keep you from training hard in some fashion when it truly is possible.
The next time your training bogs down due to difficulties in your life, try the techniques described in this article.
