Advice for Fatigue?

Hi guys. Do you have any recommendations for fatigue? I sleep enough, supplement with d3, zinc and multivitamins. ( 19yo) Actually, im in a bulk period. However, I feel a little tired and I am not the happiest. On a scale of 1 to 10, libido is about 6-7.

I train 3 times/week,

(this workout 2 times/ week and shoulders+legs last workout).

Waiting for your advice!
Have a good day!

if we assume it ain’t sleep/nutrition (Protein intake?) than maybe training volume ur overdoing it for your current work capacity.

How many hard working sets/total workload e.g. (14k in the pic) do u get in weekly? Have u always trained at or around these volumes?

Are you making gains e.g. heavier weight / more reps over time?

Do u have high exertion loads: going to or near failure often?

Yes. Last week i had 50k volume. Always i try to push my limits, to exeed my last workout. (+1+2% more than last workout).
Yes, im going to failure always, and i feel like my head burns.
I think that my nervous system is the problem here. But what can i do? How can i progresa anymore, if i cant go to failure?

You dont have to go all out 24/7/365 days to progress look at what happen to you right now your not going up, your going down because you push yourself too much !

There’s a lot to unpack here so I guess we’ll reply back and forth a bit as we sort this out.

Training is pretty much creating a stimulus, recovering from it adequately and then u adapt getting bigger or stronger.

I’m thinking maybe ur stimulus is a bit much right now. You a recovering but barely and it shows in your fatigue. That’s the hypothesis at least.

The stimulus needed to make gains is on a spectrum from not enough workload to too much and there is a broad band in between that will make u adapt.

Something you’ve alluded to also is that over time that stimulus must be progressed or overloaded. Kinda intuitively we know that we can’t do the same thing for a year and expect change.

Thing is when u work to create that stimulus (volume, weight, going to wards failure) you are also accumulating fatigue (not necessarily just physical tiredness, nervous system, nutrient//substrate depletion etc.) that you will need to recovery from over time to make gains. Unfortunately the body has a finite recovery capacity at any given time. Poorly managed or balanced fatigue will have u feeling shit and performing worse in the gym over time.

For example: u start our week 1 training beyond your recovery capacity so on the balance of things you’re in a bit of a deficit recovery wise. Next week more workload more fatigue accumulated. In a month or two you’ve hit a wall.

Reply if u understand dis and then we’ll talk a little about what may be going on for you

Your split looks shitty.

Why are you using the same weight but, reps are varying. Are you ramping/warming up? What does you whole training week look like?

What do you eat?

Hi. I just understand what you said. And I’m aware of all this now. You give me valuable information.
But now what can I do? I have another month of bulking, then I get into cutting period.
I feel like crap. More than that, i have 262636272 exams at university. :frowning:
Waiting for your answer.

Always i try to exeed my last workout, and i add reps or weight.
I eat good, 3700 kcal, fruits, vegetables, meat, peanut butter, a lot of oats, potatoes. sometimes mcdonalds. Things like that

Aight so now we get to you:

If everything else is on point like you said I reckon ur training stimulus is funky

Overload is our principle but going to failure is not the only way to and often not the appropriate method. Also overload does not necessarily require session to session progress or even week to week progress.

For example 1 hard/high volume day, followed by a light day, followed by a progressively overloaded harder day than the first is progress over time just that there’s been a light day squeezed to allow for extra recovery and more sustainable training long term.

Training to failure is a tool to be used judiciously because it accumulates a lot of fatigue for how much stimulus you get. The closer you go to failure the greater the stimulus from a given hard set but the fatigue also goes up but it ain’t one to one. Fatigue goes up faster as you approach failure. So lots of sets to failure gives you lots of fatigue and if it’s 24/7/365 it will wear you down. Most of the time a sufficient stimulus can be found a few reps shy of failure.

There are many ways to manage fatigue while still providing an overloading stimulus so I’d suggest you research that a lot yourself.

One of the easiest ways is to follow a pre written program or template. These have built in planning and fatigue management for you. You can study these and learn a lot also.

Right now if I was you I’d take a deload or a few light sessions while I get together a more sustainable training plan for the next few weeks or months especially if they are gonna be tough. Many good programs can be found on T Nation and around the place just don’t go for something mega crazy.

If u want some links to informative content or ideas I’ll be on later

Thank you for advice.The truth has been spoken and i will do like you said.
This week and the next one i will train light and i will search a template on forum.
If you have a good template, i will wait your answer.
Thank you so much again.

Do less sets, less reps and leave many reps in the tank for a few sessions.

Theres also many programs outside of this forum.

What are your goals specifically? e.g. bigger, stronger, powerlifting etc.

Yes, sure.
My goals are bigger and stronger.
I used BBB from T nation, then i changed to 16 sets (10-12 reps) per major muscle group, because i thought that there is not enough volume.

That’s pretty simple then haha.

With these previous programs were you making progress? That’s a very important question because if you’re are making progress by the numbers in most ways e.g. rep maxes going up then it’s also likely you are getting bigger and or stronger.

Even if a program is low volume if progress is being made then that’s effective for muscle/strength and probably worth sticking to. You’ve fallen into a high volume trap it seems. More volume isn’t better if one cannot recover from it.

So how was BBB going? How has you’re own training plan gone? Depending on your answer hopping back onto BBB may be a good idea or if your current plan was working well before it became a bit much then perhaps it can be run again with some tweaks to it to make it more sustainable.

My last experience with BBB was wonderful, I felt so good that I thought that it was not enough volume to increase my muscle mass hahaha.
This is why i ve moved on to the present workout.
In the past ( 2 years ago ), I was training quite chaotic. I didn’t know much about the caloric deficit when cutting, I ate 1500 kcal and I trained very intensely for one year. Even more intense than now. Probably from there I get anxiety and low libido. Then, when I went overboard and started with BBB, I was feeling really good. But I didn’t know if the volume was enough. That’s why I switched to this program. And now look at me, with the same problems. i have evolved since May, last year, with 16 kg weight gain. Im pretty glad, but those moobs kill me.
If you are interested in more details, A Skinny's Road on 5/3/1 BBB - #4 by ionut172

I am considering returning to BBB, if you recommend me. I saw progress and I felt excellent.

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Sounds perfect. I used to go too hard myself and got beat up and didn’t make good gains. As I’ve gotten older in training age and wiser being better recovered has become a priority. Without adequate recovery there is no adaption/gains. There is no need to get destroyed by training.

IIRC BBB has 5x10 which is plenty of stimulus. For most folks is actually high volume.

As we get bigger/stronger we actually accumulate more fatigue with the heavier weight. You can do 5x10 @ 50% 1 RM squat ez enough but by the time you are squatting more like a couple of plates a side a 5x10 is much tougher and more fatiguing. Another consideration is that injury risk goes up a lot when you are fatigued + heavier weights = having a bad time.

So anyways it sounds like BBB would work well for you again. It may not be appropriate to jump right back into it coming off a deload or a period of being under recovered as u have so maybe a cycle of 3x10 can give you good gains while slowly building you back up. Another positive is that you’ll have lots of left over recovery for studying for exams and such and by the time those are done u are ready for 5x10. Up to you though.

Keep tracking how you are going though. We want to be anywhere in the kind of feeling slightly beat up - excellent range but no worse. If you are destroyed then re evaluate.

Good luck

Thank you very much for your advice. They have been very useful to me and I will listen to them wholeheartedly. I will definitely come back for other tips in the future.
Good luck! :slight_smile:

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