A Question Regarding Recovery......

First of all, Id like to say goodmorning and Happy Wednesday!!!

Now, down to business…
I have been training hard as bodybuilder in addition to
playing collegiate rugby for the last 4 years. I have spent this past year transitioning from bodybuilding training to powerlifting and now to Olympic lifting. While breaking free from the bodybuilding mentality has been tough, I have officially fallen in love with and become totally addicted to Olympic lifting!!!

However, I believe I have grossly underestimated the amount of time needed for full recovery between workouts, especially in regards to the CNS. In addition, I am struggling with taking in enough calories in the day to maintain my current body composition.

Ive not experienced any deficit in power or performance; in fact,my experience thus far has been the opposite. I feel like I am currently experiencing a strength explosion (my PRs increase weekly for the last 2 months).However, Ive noticed in the last 2 weeks that Im having a hard time fighting off a cold and that my joints (wrists and knees specifically) are often swollen and sore. My life has now come to revolve around eating, because I am constantly hungry, i even find myself waking up 2-3 times a night to eat, which then takes away from muchneeded sleep.

Im on a roll right now and dont want to lose my momentum, but Im pretty sure I will not continue like this if my body doesnt properly recover. Im cycling two work outs on a weekly basis- I currently alternate between a 4 days/week Oly lifting schedule and 5 days/week strength work out- but is this just too much?

Im currently at 69 kilos (151.6lbs) and 12.0% BF

I feel ya…when I get it going good, and then little things begin to go bad on me; I never like dealing with the decision to slow down or not.

Generally speaking when my joints begin to ache in the manner you describe, and it lasts longer than two complete weekly cycles, I take it as a signal to back off. Especially if I’ve dialed in the diet.

Do you have an idea which movements are causing the irritation? Have you ever had similar periods during your BB or PL training? Do you use or have you considered wrist wraps and knee sleeves?

Good Luck!

Sounds like your doing way too much imo. If anything right now, I would deload for a week, let your system recover, then see if the following week your body is up to 100%.

Remember, sometimes less is more especially when it comes to recovery and injury prevention.

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:

Do you have an idea which movements are causing the irritation? Have you ever had similar periods during your BB or PL training? Do you use or have you considered wrist wraps and knee sleeves?

Good Luck! [/quote]

I think the irritation in the wrist joints is caused by front squats. I dont think the knee joint rritation is a result of any one particular movement, since the weight in all the Oly lifts i’m performing is loaded on the front of the body rather than the back, which should reduce the strain on the patello-femoral (spelling?)connective tissue. I think its the cumulative effects of the squatting movement thats irritating my knees. Would powerlifting shoes in any way reduce irritation, or do they just provide a more stability?

Hi Katie,

You might want to get some wrist wraps and knee sleeves. Oly shoes are great, they provide really good stability and keep your feet from rolling inwards or outwards. Look to improving the stability in your foot/ankle and it will help your knees.

Oly lifts really kill the CNS, but you do need to train them a lot to get the technique down. If this is your main interest right now, why not just train OL, and add a little assistance work?

You’ve really got the best of all worlds, and I understand it big time! I am into PL right now, but love oly lifting too. And maybe I’d even like to try BB’ing one day.

Best of luck, do take a rest and get over your cold. I hope I see you on the boards in the future, I like a girl who does it all!

A quick question, you said you’ve been playing collegiate rugby for the past four years, are you still playing?

since I have graduated from college, I am no longer eligable to play collegiate rugby. However, this year I was asked to be the assistant coach and head of strength and conditioning for my former team. I was playing on a woman’s city league team, but there were not enough players this year to field a side, so I practice with the men’s city league team and play for them when they have a non-league game. Rugby is like Oly lifting to me, it is addictive; once you get a taste of it, you just want more and more and more… i will always play rugby

I agree, rugby is definitely addictive. I asked because practice/games are very demanding on joints/muscles , as well as the CNS. You really need to put extra emphasis on recovery and be careful of too much volume.

Flameout has helped me a lot with little aches and pains in joints as well as injury prevention.