I must tell you I haven't heard the word deload in a while and I would definitely not recommend a 75% reduction. I have some questions. I need to know how many sets and at what weight you build to your 5 rep max. Are these all of the exercises you are doing? Are you doing this workout three times a week? How much do you weigh? How old are you. Do you know your bodyfat percentage? Is this seven week beginning the only time you have done any ongoing strength training? Do you have a trainer? How did you choose your program? What are your objectives?
You hit the nail on the head, you are overtrained. The first sign I look for is apathy with regard to going to the gym or reaching your goal or even staying focused during the workout. Assuming you are over trained you have no choice but to take your workouts down a notch. Next week allow yourself two days between workouts. When I see your whole program I can advise you about your weight, rep, set orchestration.
Are you getting enough sleep? How is your nutrition? Are you doing cardio/aerobics also?
I hope you'll provide this information so I can give you an answer for the other viewers to see. So often people will ask questions that might help others but then we don't get the whole picture.
Most of our viewers don't train with this level of weight so they have no reference point.
I am a real believer in split routines and this includes compound motions. You should alternate between high intensity workouts and lower intensity workouts. This allows you to keep working but slips in some extra recovery. There is also some imbalance in your weight allocation. I don't see any lat or rhomboid work represented here. Hope that's an oversight.
Matt is very experienced but I must clarify that your fitness won't catch up with fatigue unless you change your training protocol. The purpose of training with overload is to raise your fitness level, the bodies ability to perform and recover more efficiently. Since your benefits from training don't happen in the gym but in the period of time afterward when the body heals the microtramas, you have to be sure that your rest period is sufficient and healing is complete before you begin tearing down the muscle again. [Not allowing enought time to rebuild is one of the main reasons people complain about not getting bigger or stronger. They tear down and start to rebuild but then tear down again before the new muscle response occurs. Robbing Peter to pay Paul] This enormous fatigue that seems not to go away and interfers with your workouts is a clear indicator of adrenal fatigue which is a precursor for excess cortisol production. (I still have to finish that part of my post). And taking off more than a few days means that you must reevaluate your program and your goal timelines. A five rep max, based on the information you illuminated, indicates to me that you are maxing out every workout. Nobody will recover from that, especially if they have a real life with work and family and sports.
Vik
Last edited by Vickie Lake : 07-18-2008 at 07:12 PM.
I must tell you I haven't heard the word deload in a while and I would definitely not recommend a 75% reduction. I have some questions. I need to know how many sets and at what weight you build to your 5 rep max. Are these all of the exercises you are doing? Are you doing this workout three times a week? How much do you weigh? How old are you. Do you know your bodyfat percentage? Is this seven week beginning the only time you have done any ongoing strength training? Do you have a trainer? How did you choose your program? What are your objectives?
You hit the nail on the head, you are overtrained. The first sign I look for is apathy with regard to going to the gym or reaching your goal or even staying focused during the workout. Assuming you are over trained you have no choice but to take your workouts down a notch. Next week allow yourself two days between workouts. When I see your whole program I can advise you about your weight, rep, set orchestration.
Are you getting enough sleep? How is your nutrition? Are you doing cardio/aerobics also?
I hope you'll provide this information so I can give you an answer for the other viewers to see. So often people will ask questions that might help others but then we don't get the whole picture.
Most of our viewers don't train with this level of weight so they have no reference point.
I am a real believer in split routines and this includes compound motions. You should alternate between high intensity workouts and lower intensity workouts. This allows you to keep working but slips in some extra recovery. There is also some imbalance in your weight allocation. I don't see any lat or rhomboid work represented here. Hope that's an oversight.
Matt is very experienced but I must clarify that your fitness won't catch up with fatigue unless you change your training protocol. The purpose of training with overload is to raise your fitness level, the bodies ability to perform and recover more efficiently. Since your benefits from training don't happen in the gym but in the period of time afterward when the body heals the microtramas, you have to be sure that your rest period is sufficient and healing is complete before you begin tearing down the muscle again. [Not allowing enought time to rebuild is one of the main reasons people complain about not getting bigger or stronger. They tear down and start to rebuild but then tear down again before the new muscle response occurs. Robbing Peter to pay Paul] This enormous fatigue that seems not to go away and interfers with your workouts is a clear indicator of adrenal fatigue which is a precursor for excess cortisol production. (I still have to finish that part of my post). And taking off more than a few days means that you must reevaluate your program and your goal timelines. A five rep max, based on the information you illuminated, indicates to me that you are maxing out every workout. Nobody will recover from that, especially if they have a real life with work and family and sports.
Vik
Vickie,
I am doing the Starting Strength program by Rippetoe and Kilgore. It is a 3 sets x 5 reps program, 3 times a week. So I do not have a trainer, I am simply following the book. They do not talk much about what to do when it comes to overtraining or avoiding it altogether (there is no index so it is difficult to confirm). I do not have a trainer. I am 27 years old and I only started lifting any weights about 4 months ago and I just started with some upper body and then added some lower body exercises after a few weeks. I get an average of 7 hours of sleep a day during the week, and about 9 hours during weekends. I eat around 4000 calories a day. Taking about 150 grams of whey protein, 25 grams of BCAA, 20 grams of glutamine. I typically eat about 3 serving of fruit a day but not much for vegetables. I eat whole grains, steak, turkey, guacamole, peanut butter, eggs, walnuts, cocunut, etc. Almost all foods are organic. I would like to take fish oil but I've gotten the fish burps a few times and it is so disgusting I cannot continue to eat enough to gain the weight I wish to put on. I started at 150 pounds, probably around 12% body fat and am now 168 pounds 7 weeks later. I understand this to be pretty typical weight gain on the program if it is followed correctly. In the first 2 weeks I made huge gains on the big lifts but now I ry to go up a little bit of weight each week. I do 4 warm-up sets on each lift and 3 work sets on all lifts except for Romanian deadlifts and regular deadlifts where I do a single work set. I will outline my workout routine below.
To be honest I want to workout. But the workouts are taking so much out of me it is crazy. Plus, I think my generally negative attitude lately has to do with overtraining. When I am at the gym I am happy I am there it is just so hard to get through the workouts.
By 75% deload I meant lift 75% of the weight that I ordinarily do for a week.
The authors of the book claim that people can go 2 to 3 months on this program before they have to start periodizing their workouts.
This is my program in its entirety, I do not mix in any cardio. A typical cycle for me is as follows:
Monday:
Back Squat
Overhead Press
Romanian deadlift
Face pulls
Wednesday:
Front Squat
Bench Press
DB Snatch
Grip work
Friday:
Back Squat
Overhead Press
Deadlift
Face pulls
Monday:
Front Squat
Bench Press
DB Snatches
Grip Work
When I began having trouble adding 5 pounds to my back squat every workout I started with the front squats. That was after 4 weeks.
One other thing, my stomach has been more bloated in the past couple of days than usual. I am going to start taking a probiotic supplement in case it is gastrointestinal upset but it might be the result of excess cortisol as well. Related to that is the fact that I tend to store fat in my stomach which I think is indicative of someone that tends to have higher cortisol levels.
Any supplement advice or ideas for how to recover and not lose much of my progress and stay on this program would be most appreciated.
Thanks!
Matt
__________________
"In my experience, if you stay with the essentials you WILL build a repeatable swing undoubtedly. If you can master the Imperatives you have a champion" (Vikram).
The reason you can't sustain the lag is because you are so eager to make the club move fast (a reaction to the intent of "hitting it far"). So on a full shot you throw it away too early, which doesn't happen for your short chip. (bts)
Your current condition is exactly what this thread is about and thanks for jumping in. Like I mentioned earlier, the hormonal system doesn't discriminate stress. It treats it all the same whether its physical, mental, or emotional. Correct me if I'm mistaken here Vik.
Now imagine you've qualified for a big tournament last month or you are defending your club championship this weekend until Monday. You will walk 54 holes for three days under tournament pressure.
Assuming your golf game is really good and under normal circumstances you could win, do you think you would play your best golf right now?
__________________
Bagger
1-H "Because of questions of all kinds, reams of additional detail must be made available - but separately, and probably endlessly." Homer Kelly
Assuming your golf game is really good and under normal circumstances you could win, do you think you would play your best golf right now?
If things went well I think I could keep things going. A double or triple bogey given my current condition could cause me to come unglued whereas ordinarily I could probably get through it.
Being calm and collected certainly helps and a proper amount of cortisol makes a big difference in maintaining such a state no matter the circumstances.
__________________
"In my experience, if you stay with the essentials you WILL build a repeatable swing undoubtedly. If you can master the Imperatives you have a champion" (Vikram).
The reason you can't sustain the lag is because you are so eager to make the club move fast (a reaction to the intent of "hitting it far"). So on a full shot you throw it away too early, which doesn't happen for your short chip. (bts)
Great Reply Matt, You definitely have the supplements and enough calories to support your work. I am grateful for your workout exercise list, now what is the weight/rep/set configuration. Also, let's get your current bodyfat percentage.
Without knowing your lifestyle I will assure you that you need a lot of rest for this kind of workout, I am going on your max overload approach. Bodybuilders take atleast two naps during the day and do little else physical to sustain growth and recovery.
I have only glanced at the online material regarding the book you referenced and I liked what I read. The focus on only using the amount of weight you can manage in full range, proper form is right on. I will tell you though, that you are missing some key exercises and from their protocol it is upon their recommendations.
You can't sustain good core balance without addressing the lats and the rhomboids directly; I will go to the mat on this. Since you have a quote referencing lag on your posts I will tell you that the lat is instrmental in creating this phenomenon in conjunction with the chest's role in creating the movement of your arms as they cross your body.
Also, as strange as this may sound you need some cardio. So often people think of this as just a fat loss routine and another energy using function. You are very young in body building, 4 months I think you said, and made no indication of any previous exercise program. The cardio-pulmonary system is your master of providing the oxygen necessary for your muscles to create energy in the mitocandria of each cell. The vascular system is the middle man that carries this necessary nutrient to the muscles; in fitness you will often hear cardio referred to as cardio-vascular exercise. People assume that you will use up to much energy and hard injested calories if they do cardio of any kind during their bulking phase. The truth is that you need a strong cardio-pulmonary-vascular system that is efficient and effective to supply enormous amounts of oxygen to this level of work. Likewise, your muscles need to be very efficient at receiving the oxygen once it is made available. Often, in the beginning phases of training hard, these systems are not sufficient to support the work. The natural response if fatigue and resistance to taking on more work that the body is unable to perform safetly. This is also the reason that we take time off and "de-load" during phases. I will also add that we typically think of the first three to six months as beginning and use this time to set the system up for increasing to maximal levels. You jumped right in full bore. Not a criticism, just an observation. The fact that you are anazyzing this already indicates that you will be successful in finding your perfect training program. It's never the same for any body at any age.
Don't be discouraged by my asking for more work. You only need to train this cardio system for short, low intensity workouts to improve it's performance and the body's receptive capabilities. Of my past power friends, the bike was the machine of choice.
There are other training options I could share but I will do so with respect to the fact that you found a program that got your motivation roaring. In the mean time I hope you are getting a multi vitamin and plenty of C and you have to keep your carbs up to keep your cortisol from sabotaging your hard work. You said few vegetables so why don't you give me a day's nutrition journal and let's tear it apart. Your protein requires carbs for efficient assimilation and I can't imagine 4,000 calories without more carbs than my brain assumed. What about complex carbs? They will also keep your energy stores high enough to keep your muscle in place.
Sounds like you have the basic platform now let's make it yours. Vik
P.S. Bagger is right, Stress come in a miriad of forms but once the body has to deal with it you are facing one predictable system of management.
27, how dare you have such an advantage. You go!
Last edited by Vickie Lake : 07-24-2008 at 11:18 PM.
I am a faithful reader of this site for more than two years, and reading this thread, I realize only today in which point it is much more than a technical skill. Golf is a link to share all which makes our life, small or big constraints. Thus thanks to Vickie for her competent answers, thanks to Bagger for his very good work of administrator and thanks to all the members for the sharing of their personal experience.
I am a faithful reader of this site for more than two years, and reading this thread, I realize only today in which point it is much more than a technical skill. Golf is a link to share all which makes our life, small or big constraints. Thus thanks to Vickie for her competent answers, thanks to Bagger for his very good work of administrator and thanks to all the members for the sharing of their personal experience.
Many thanks for sharing that.
You are right - Golf is the three legged tripod that involves technical skill, physical and mental ability. To play at the top levels and win championships, all three legs must be solid and balanced.
As you noted between the lines, most of the time we only focus on the technical skills. The other two aspects are largely ignored except for the guys that are consistent winners.
A younger persons body is very forgiving and adapts quickly to environmental changes but as we get into our 30's and beyond, special attention must be given to a more balanced approach if we want to maintain top form.
__________________
Bagger
1-H "Because of questions of all kinds, reams of additional detail must be made available - but separately, and probably endlessly." Homer Kelly
I will provide some more background and hopefully answer all of your questions today. I am extremely grateful for all the help you have already provided.
Body fat percentage. I have heard that the validity of a caliper test is highly dependent upon the expertise of the person doing it and the number of sites they test. I also have heard the digital readings are not particularly accurate +/- 4%. A dexascan which is around $70 is however quite accurate. I decided I would focus on my waist measurement and make sure I was not gaining too much waist and too little weight. Perhaps there is someone in the area that is really good at the caliper test, I have not researched that. All I know for sure is the largest part of my waist (around the belly button) was 31 inches when I was 147 pounds on 3/9/08. Now I am 172.2 pounds and the largest part of my waist is 33.5 inches. I tend to carry weight in my stomach much more so than anywhere else. Please advice on what you think I should do in regard to body fat testing.
Goals:
I currently hit the driver about 260 yards. After I graduate from school (3 years from now) I want to really concentrate on taking my game to an elite level (compete at the natural amateur level) and I figure a big piece of the puzzle is learning to hit the driver further and under control. I am working with HennyBogan on the swing and that is coming along nicely, now I want to build a body that can perform at a higher level.
Before starting my physical transformation I knew I did not have enough fast twitch muscle fibers. It seems my brother got a lot of them as he has been able to hit the driver 300 yards ever since he was 14 years old and 110 pounds. I read about developing fast twitch fibers and the most significant things I learned were that it is easier to build more fast twitch fibers when:
1. the muscles are stronger
2. the muscles are larger
I also learned that the stronger you are the easier it becomes to get large, hence I am doing a strength program for at least a year before I start working on a bodybuilding protocol. Once I am big and strong I will be working on power and speed development. Although I will do this some along the way by doing some of my warm-up sets fairly quickly and mixing in an olympic type lift every week. My goal is in 3 years to be able to hit the ball 320 yards comfortably by building an extremely different physique. I want to go from 150 pounds and about 12% body fat to 200-210 pounds with 8% body fat. Because I figure this is how big I'll need to be in order to have the ability to develop adequate fast twitch fibers to achieve my goals. Also, this physique transformation is about doing something I never thought I would. I have had back problems for the past 6 years which I finally resolved about 5 months ago through study and working with 4 physical therapists. The truth is the physical therapists did not help much, reading Stuart McGill, Mike Boyle, Eric Cressey, and Dan John is what gave me the tools I needed to fix the problem. Essentially I needed to make my hips more mobile and learn to activate my glutes.
I think for strength I want to be able to squat and deadlift 400-450 pounds with putting slightly more emphasis on the deadlift, also I want to be able to front squat 300 pounds and do the dumbbell snatch with 120 pounds. Above all I will pay attention to how my body feels and try to keep healthy while pushing myself in order to consistently improve.
I feel as though I escaped overtraining. I no longer feel fatigued and I was able to handle 270 pounds on the squat reasonable well. I took an extra day off and then lifted light on lower body 70% of normal weight and feel a lot more positive and motivated now. I will no longer go heavy with deadlift and squat on the same day and will only go heavy on squat 1 time per week (previously it was 3 times per week). I will work on this protocol for awhile and see how I feel.
As far as my lifestyle is concerned I never drink alcohol, I rarely go to bed later than midnight and I generally sleep 6-7 hours at night on weeknights (sometimes 8 hours) and 8-9 hours on the weekends. About 90% of days I take a 30 minute to 1 hour nap. I don't eat desserts or junk food, I drink nothing but water. I have realized in order to eat enough calories to gain weight I may have to eat things that I consider less than ideal, but I always eat foods that are as close to whole as possible. Sometimes I feel as though I don't have as much energy as I should and I wonder if trying to gain weight is a huge energy zapper. At work we have had a person do health assessments and I have good blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, etc.
I look forward to riding the exercise bike after the workout today and am curious if you think I would be a good candidate for creatine. My rhomboids overpower back currently, at least so far as I can tell my looking at my back on video and reading Shirley Sahrmann (Diagnosis and Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes). I have winged scapula (not nearly as bad as it used to be) and from what I can tell the lower traps, upper traps, and serattus anterior are weak and inhibited. I was thinking I would wait to do traditional rowing exercises until this issue is completely straighted out and will do face pulls and add in straight arm pull downs so I have an exercise directly targeting the lats. I was doing chins consistently for 3 months before I started this program and I actually have good hypertrophy of the latissimus dorsi. I tried to add in chins to my program but found my bench press suffered and I was already having a lot of trouble getting better at that so I figured I would put the chins on hold for another month or two.
I will add in core work as I am slightly decreasing my volume and I will plan my diet a little better so when I get home from work a couple of times a week I feel like doing it. When I am trying to eat all the time it becomes hard to get the core work in and after doing heavy squats, deadlifts, or DB Snatches my core feels pretty tired so I don't really want to do it following a regular workout. I know core work is very important and I did a lot of it in the 3 months preceding my program and I just need to make it a priority again.
Now I will type out my workouts for the past 6 weeks and tonight I will post my diet for the day.
Thanks for your interest Vickie!
Matt
__________________
"In my experience, if you stay with the essentials you WILL build a repeatable swing undoubtedly. If you can master the Imperatives you have a champion" (Vikram).
The reason you can't sustain the lag is because you are so eager to make the club move fast (a reaction to the intent of "hitting it far"). So on a full shot you throw it away too early, which doesn't happen for your short chip. (bts)
Back Squats
4x265 (tried to go too heavy, too quick, scared myself and quit after 2 sets)
3x260 (I had been increasing on squats by 10 pounds a workout for several weeks but this time it was too much, so I decided to scale back and give my body sometime to recover, see next workout)
Overhead press
3x5x110
Deadlift
5x135
5x165
5x205
4x255 (supinated grip)
Lying Face pulls
15x15
11x15
Push-up plus
15
14 (seemed to get in the way of bench progress so I'm temporarily eliminating them)
Fri. 6/20
Back squats
3x5x240
Bench
4x155
2x5x145
DB Snatch
5x75
3x75 (left) 5x75 (right)
5x70
Chins
7 (weaker than I was 2 months ago but I'm also 13 pounds heavier on 6/20)
2x4
Sun. 6/22
Back Squats
3x5x245
Overhead press
3x5x112.5
Romanian deadlift
8x115
9x140
8x175
7x205
Lying Face pulls
16x15
15x15
11x15
Tues. 6/24
Front Squats
3x5x135
Bench
3x5x135 (someone advised me to decrease my bench to break out of my lack of progress and then try to add 5 pounds per workout)
DB Snatch
3x5x60 (deload, shoulders started feeling a little sore)
Grip Strength
4x90's (hold two 90 pound dumbbells for 20-30 sec.
Wed. 7/16
Back Squat
3x5x270
Overhead Press
3x5x122.5 (I idiotically forgot a 5 pound plate on the left side)
2x130 (tried to make up for it with a heavy set but it didn't work so well)
Romanian Deadlift
8x135
8x165
8x200
2x235 (grip strength failed
4x225 (grip strength failed, probably warmed up too heavy, or did too much grip volume)
Sat. 7/19
Front squats
3x5x135 (deload)
Bench
3x5x160
DB Snatch
3x5x65 (deload)
Mon. 7/21
Back squats
3x5x190 (deload)
Overhead Press
3x5x127.5
Romanian deadlift (deload)
8x105
9x125
8x145
8x160
Standing! Face pulls
2x20x60
18x60
Thur. 7/24
Back squats
2x5x270
4x270
Bench
2x5x165
4x165
DB Snatch
5x3x70 (slight deload)
Standing Face pulls
18x72
15x72
14x72
Sun. 7/27
Front Squats
3x5x185
Overhead Press (too much weight, ended up being more of a push press)
3x5x130
4-1 minute intervals at an average of 22 mph with 30 seconds rest between on the stationary bike
---the darn bike didn't have any straps on the pedals, that wasn't fun
Note: On all exercises I do warm-up sets, but I only list them on deadlifts because I only do 1 work set of these. For back squats my warm-up sets are as follows:
5x45
5x95
5x135
5x185
5x225
2x250
If I do 3x5x270 for my work set this is a volume of nearly 8000 pounds. I do not know if this is particularly high or not but it is not suprising to me I could not recover after doing this and deadlifting heavy in the same work-out, so I will not be doing that again. For most other exercises, bench press, overhead press I do 4 warm-up sets.
__________________
"In my experience, if you stay with the essentials you WILL build a repeatable swing undoubtedly. If you can master the Imperatives you have a champion" (Vikram).
The reason you can't sustain the lag is because you are so eager to make the club move fast (a reaction to the intent of "hitting it far"). So on a full shot you throw it away too early, which doesn't happen for your short chip. (bts)
Hybrid Mode
