Feeling Hungover the Day After Squats

Hi Coach, All,
I have noticed that the day after a heavy squat or heavy deadlift day, I normally feel pretty aweful, a combination of tired, lethargic and with a headache. The only way i can describe it is like having a hangover!

I am having a good amount of protein/carbs around my workout and I (think I) am eating reasonably well.

Any ideas what could be causing this and how to prevent it?

Sorry if this is a slightly vague question.

How much water do you drink and is there much salt in your diet?

I have found a scoop or 2 of Power Drive (or just powdered L-tyrosine) will alleviate this (CNS fatigue). If needed, I take another scoop the next morning. Has worked quite well for me. Also works very well on the occassions of very high stress at work.

[quote]derf wrote:
I have found a scoop or 2 of Power Drive (or just powdered L-tyrosine) will alleviate this (CNS fatigue). If needed, I take another scoop the next morning. Has worked quite well for me. Also works very well on the occassions of very high stress at work.[/quote]
I second this. Tyrosine is a massively underrated supplement which can quickly replenish catecholamine levels

All, thanks for the suggestions. I have always made sure to drink enough fluids and while I don’t specifically add salt to my diet, I don’t go anal about removing it.

I will give the L-Tyrosine a try. I am in the UK so its quite expensive to get Power Drive delivered from the US, so I will try a local supplement … I will let you know how it goes!

Thanks again for the suggestions!

I am based in the UK as well mate. Just make sure not to underdose Tyrosine- the US army research used doses as high as 100mg/1kg BW (or 10 grams for a 100kg male). I personally like 2-3 grams, sometimes 2 per day.

[quote]daniel4738 wrote:
All, thanks for the suggestions. I have always made sure to drink enough fluids and while I don’t specifically add salt to my diet, I don’t go anal about removing it.

I will give the L-Tyrosine a try. I am in the UK so its quite expensive to get Power Drive delivered from the US, so I will try a local supplement … I will let you know how it goes!

Thanks again for the suggestions![/quote]

[quote]juverulez wrote:
I am based in the UK as well mate. Just make sure not to underdose Tyrosine- the US army research used doses as high as 100mg/1kg BW (or 10 grams for a 100kg male). I personally like 2-3 grams, sometimes 2 per day.
[/quote]

I ordered some from one of the ‘large internet powder suppliers’ so I will add it to my existing shakes during workouts and maybe breakfast as well. Thanks for the tips!

My current shakes only have about 3 weeks or so left and I am considering whether to order some Plazma from the US, or some bulk ‘Hydrolyzed Casein’ and ‘Highly Branched cyclic Dextrin’ … the price seems to be roughly the same once you work it all out. How much have you found delivery to the UK and customs costs?

You don’t want tyrosine in your protein shakes mate, it needs to be taken on an empty stomach to cross the BBB as tyrosine competes with other LNAA and aromatic amino acids for the same transporter.

Plazma and Mag10 are immense when it comes to training recovery. I was a bit skeptical when they first came out. I am not going to lie, the price tag didn’t help. But when I read that CT staked all his professional reputation on the line to endorse these products and knew I wanted to give them a shot… The rest as they say is history haha. Try Biotest uk if you want to make a small order, they have a semi-decent deal going with Wendler stack- Plazma, MAG-10 and Brain Candy for under Ã?£150

And yeah, you won’t save a lot if you want to make a Plazma knock-off… Defou not worth the hassle of mixing all the ingredients separately. Been there and done that

Decrease your intensity via total volume or weight. All of the other suggestions are just a band-aid to what sounds like the real problem is, CNS fatigue (which someone already mentioned).

If you dig too deep of an energy deficit for yourself, you may have issues later on. I was the nose to the grindstone type of guy. Trained while I was sick and if I felt like shit.

I’ve now come to the conclusion that you can make great gains in strength and size without consistently beating the shit out of your nervous system.

Another solution if you’re adamant and ignore me are “neural charge workouts”.

[quote]juverulez wrote:
You don’t want tyrosine in your protein shakes mate, it needs to be taken on an empty stomach to cross the BBB as tyrosine competes with other LNAA and aromatic amino acids for the same transporter.

Plazma and Mag10 are immense when it comes to training recovery. I was a bit skeptical when they first came out. I am not going to lie, the price tag didn’t help. But when I read that CT staked all his professional reputation on the line to endorse these products and knew I wanted to give them a shot… The rest as they say is history haha. Try Biotest uk if you want to make a small order, they have a semi-decent deal going with Wendler stack- Plazma, MAG-10 and Brain Candy for under Ã??Ã?£150

And yeah, you won’t save a lot if you want to make a Plazma knock-off… Defou not worth the hassle of mixing all the ingredients separately. Been there and done that[/quote]

I use and love Plazma, but Plazma will do nothing to help a beat up nervous system.

[quote]juverulez wrote:
You don’t want tyrosine in your protein shakes mate, it needs to be taken on an empty stomach to cross the BBB as tyrosine competes with other LNAA and aromatic amino acids for the same transporter.

Plazma and Mag10 are immense when it comes to training recovery. I was a bit skeptical when they first came out. I am not going to lie, the price tag didn’t help. But when I read that CT staked all his professional reputation on the line to endorse these products and knew I wanted to give them a shot… The rest as they say is history haha. Try Biotest uk if you want to make a small order, they have a semi-decent deal going with Wendler stack- Plazma, MAG-10 and Brain Candy for under Ã??Ã?£150

And yeah, you won’t save a lot if you want to make a Plazma knock-off… Defou not worth the hassle of mixing all the ingredients separately. Been there and done that[/quote]

Thanks for the heads up for taking it on an empty stomach. I did a little research and it seems that you can take it with you shake, but it is more effective on an empty stomach. I normally train before dinner so I will take some before bed.

Thanks again!

[quote]Davinci.v2 wrote:
Decrease your intensity via total volume or weight. All of the other suggestions are just a band-aid to what sounds like the real problem is, CNS fatigue (which someone already mentioned).

If you dig too deep of an energy deficit for yourself, you may have issues later on. I was the nose to the grindstone type of guy. Trained while I was sick and if I felt like shit.

I’ve now come to the conclusion that you can make great gains in strength and size without consistently beating the shit out of your nervous system.

Another solution if you’re adamant and ignore me are “neural charge workouts”.[/quote]

Thanks for the input and unfortunately, I think you might be right! Last night was a squat workout and I felt like I was out drinking all night again!

All last year I followed Wendlers 5/3/1 and managed some great weights.
Last night i started the 5/3/1 rest pause challenge and did (bodyweight of about 180#)

  • Squats for 135x5, 175x5, 230x5, 265x5, 285x5, 310x7, 265x16.
  • Bench 110x5, 135x5, 155x5, 175x5, 195x5, 220x8, 175x13, 175x3, 175x1 (the last sets are rest-pause sets).
    Then some pull ups, tricep pushdowns and ab work.

My max squat just before Xmas was 395# (180kg), but had a break of about 4-5 weeks. This has probably gone down given the two squat sessions so far this year have been less than stellar!

However, I have always thought that I wasn’t working hard enough and that I should add more volume/weight, but do you think I should drop some?

Thanks again for your input. Nothing is worse than feeling like turd all day at work.

[quote]daniel4738 wrote:

[quote]Davinci.v2 wrote:
Decrease your intensity via total volume or weight. All of the other suggestions are just a band-aid to what sounds like the real problem is, CNS fatigue (which someone already mentioned).

If you dig too deep of an energy deficit for yourself, you may have issues later on. I was the nose to the grindstone type of guy. Trained while I was sick and if I felt like shit.

I’ve now come to the conclusion that you can make great gains in strength and size without consistently beating the shit out of your nervous system.

Another solution if you’re adamant and ignore me are “neural charge workouts”.[/quote]

Thanks for the input and unfortunately, I think you might be right! Last night was a squat workout and I felt like I was out drinking all night again!

All last year I followed Wendlers 5/3/1 and managed some great weights.
Last night i started the 5/3/1 rest pause challenge and did (bodyweight of about 180#)

  • Squats for 135x5, 175x5, 230x5, 265x5, 285x5, 310x7, 265x16.
  • Bench 110x5, 135x5, 155x5, 175x5, 195x5, 220x8, 175x13, 175x3, 175x1 (the last sets are rest-pause sets).
    Then some pull ups, tricep pushdowns and ab work.

My max squat just before Xmas was 395# (180kg), but had a break of about 4-5 weeks. This has probably gone down given the two squat sessions so far this year have been less than stellar!

However, I have always thought that I wasn’t working hard enough and that I should add more volume/weight, but do you think I should drop some?

Thanks again for your input. Nothing is worse than feeling like turd all day at work.[/quote]

I think you have the find the proper balance between the two. The idea is to create a physiological response/adaptation via training. You can create the adaptation without frying your nervous system. I had a hard time not beating myself to dust for a long time until I weighed my reasons for training in the first place.

If you’re lifting to be strong and healthy and you feel weak and sick after your squat days, doesn’t that defeat the original purpose?

I honestly don’t have the solution and still to this day deal with what you’re dealing with. The only solution is mitigating outside sources of stress and maximizing rest. CNS fatigue is very hard to deal with once it’s set in outside of taking some time off and sleeping.

[quote]daniel4738 wrote:

[quote]Davinci.v2 wrote:
Decrease your intensity via total volume or weight. All of the other suggestions are just a band-aid to what sounds like the real problem is, CNS fatigue (which someone already mentioned).

If you dig too deep of an energy deficit for yourself, you may have issues later on. I was the nose to the grindstone type of guy. Trained while I was sick and if I felt like shit.

I’ve now come to the conclusion that you can make great gains in strength and size without consistently beating the shit out of your nervous system.

Another solution if you’re adamant and ignore me are “neural charge workouts”.[/quote]

Thanks for the input and unfortunately, I think you might be right! Last night was a squat workout and I felt like I was out drinking all night again!

All last year I followed Wendlers 5/3/1 and managed some great weights.
Last night i started the 5/3/1 rest pause challenge and did (bodyweight of about 180#)

  • Squats for 135x5, 175x5, 230x5, 265x5, 285x5, 310x7, 265x16.
  • Bench 110x5, 135x5, 155x5, 175x5, 195x5, 220x8, 175x13, 175x3, 175x1 (the last sets are rest-pause sets).
    Then some pull ups, tricep pushdowns and ab work.

My max squat just before Xmas was 395# (180kg), but had a break of about 4-5 weeks. This has probably gone down given the two squat sessions so far this year have been less than stellar!

However, I have always thought that I wasn’t working hard enough and that I should add more volume/weight, but do you think I should drop some?

Thanks again for your input. Nothing is worse than feeling like turd all day at work.[/quote]

Also, just from taking another look at your session last night, I think you’d feel a lot better if you hadn’t repped out for your final set for squats. Following that scheme would probably make most people feel shitty the next day. Repping out to failure on lifts like squats and deadlifts will fry most people.

It looks like you already got enough volume in, why rep out once that’s complete? I think it’s important to train hard, but also intelligently. That final set may give you slightly more hypertrophy than you may have otherwise gotten, but was it worth the cost to your nervous system?

Moving forward, I would start thinking about the best way to implement the stress to cause the desired effect without burning out your CNS, i.e. maybe remove that last set of squats or replace it with something less taxing like leg press etc.

[quote]Davinci.v2 wrote:

[quote]juverulez wrote:
You don’t want tyrosine in your protein shakes mate, it needs to be taken on an empty stomach to cross the BBB as tyrosine competes with other LNAA and aromatic amino acids for the same transporter.

Plazma and Mag10 are immense when it comes to training recovery. I was a bit skeptical when they first came out. I am not going to lie, the price tag didn’t help. But when I read that CT staked all his professional reputation on the line to endorse these products and knew I wanted to give them a shot… The rest as they say is history haha. Try Biotest uk if you want to make a small order, they have a semi-decent deal going with Wendler stack- Plazma, MAG-10 and Brain Candy for under Ã???Ã??Ã?£150

And yeah, you won’t save a lot if you want to make a Plazma knock-off… Defou not worth the hassle of mixing all the ingredients separately. Been there and done that[/quote]

I use and love Plazma, but Plazma will do nothing to help a beat up nervous system.[/quote]

Agreed mate, but I never said it would. I merely replied to the OP’s question whether Plazma is worth the coin if you live in the UK.

That aside, you made some excellent points. For me, it is all about autoregulation (i.e. adjust your training based how you feel on a daily basis), ample tyrosine and power napping whenever I can. If you want to stay in this game for a long time, you need to care of yourself., even it it means dropping the intensity/workout every now and then.

As for neural charge workouts, I noticed that jump variations as per CT’s recs can help to wake up an otherwise dormant CNS.

@OP- what’s your rationale behind taking tyrosine before bed? Wouldn’t you want to promote parasympathetic nervous system activity at that time of the day?