How to Tell If You’ve Recovered from a Workout?

What if I told you that too many days off can be as bad for recovery as too few days off?

If I started a workout and could only perform at 50% capacity, I wouldn’t blame under-recovery. I’d either chalk it up to a fluke session that happens once in a blue moon or I’d look for what specific unique events immediately surrounded the workout.

For example, a few days ago, my endurance during a workout went to crap and I had to significantly increase rest periods. I didn’t for a second think I was “under-recovered”. It was my first session in a while training in 90-degree heat with high humidity, which was making it harder to catch my breath. So I took the longer rest periods, finished the session, and won’t change a thing next time.

I just realized that you like talking about training instead of talking about training.

There’ve been a half-dozen perfect analogies explaining why this is, literally, impossible. But I’ll just add that it’s like looking at a two-year old kid and wanting a foolproof way to know how tall they’ll be when they’re 20.

After 50 years, you should’ve realized that there’s no “foolproof” anything when it comes to training and nutrition.

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Novice and open are both amateur. Open is the non-novice competition. After that, you have professional strongman. In the states, there are 105 pros and 105+ pros. I’m not sure if they have that internationally.

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I would only do novice if I thought I couldn’t do the weights for the open.

I know a 105 pro, and he would absolutely destroy me. Probably a pro card is not in the cards for me.

That’s honestly why I like the sport: unlike powerlifting, the weights are picked FOR you. Instead of choosing to do novice because the weights for open are out of reach, sign up for open and then MAKE the weights no longer out of reach. I hit a lifetime press PR because I signed up for a competition that had a 275lb keg press when my BEST was like 225. In training for that comp, I got the biggest and strongest I’d ever been in my life…only for the promoter to drop the keg to 250lbs because 275 would be “too hard for most people”.

I was pissed. But then COVID shut it down, so such is life.

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I’ve often wondered if the neural drive and focus required to build the force to break the deadlift off the ground is the culprit. On squat with the eccentric first neural drive is assisted by the stretch reflex which may make it less mentally taxing. Anyone want to do high frequency from the top deadlifts and report back?

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This is a good observation, and maybe an explanation to why the deadlifts don’t tax me as much as others (or at least it seems that way). I have plenty of power off the ground. It’s lockout that limits my deadlift. A few people have commented that it looked like I had a lot more in me at the beginning of the lift and were shocked it turned into a grinder.

The interesting aside THERE is that some trainees deadlift with effectively no eccentric at all. They pull the deadlift and either just let the bar go (poor form!) or hold onto the bar but let the weight crash onto the floor before the next rep, compared to a controlled touch and go approach (or uncontrolled bouncy bouncy approach).

And in the case of the no eccentric camp, they’re saving up energy so that they can keep breaking that weight off the floor more and more.

But if we have them do top down deads…are they just going to unrack the bar, let it crash, have partners put it back on the rack and repeat? I actually think I’ve seen that protocol before…

Great stuff! I need whatever go-juice you have then. :smile:

I remember seeing you make this exact post around maybe a year and a half ago. It stuck in my brain and I still think about it to this day haha. I think I’m finally starting to put it into practice.

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Sorry but I don’t get it ?
Scott

It’s from the movie The Matrix. Basically, it means your perception isn’t necessarily reality.

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Great movie!

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That’s fucking awesome brother! Glad it left a mark

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Egad, Scott. You are a machine! :slight_smile:

After further investigation

You can use a fitness watch with a heart rate tracker to monitor your Resting Heart Rate as you sleep.

As you do your trainings you can see how Disrupted your resting heart rate gets. And how the fatigue/disruption builds up over the week. Then as you take days off or eat more or sleep extra you can see as your resting heart rate gets back to normal and you’re ready to go again.

My Samsung Fit ($65 fitness tracker watch) even has a little meter to track my “stress” and if I get into the Yellow Zone it’s time to chill until I get back into the green zone.

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I read some sciencey books.

They said that breaking a weight off the floor with no eccentric (or doing any I’ve from a dead start) is its own special kind of strength. “Starting Strength” (the capacity to produce rapid increases in force-effort at the beginning of the muscular tension.

“Starting Strength” (rapid force development, not Ripplestiltskin) is important in sprinting and shot-put which are super neural. Breaking dead weights off the floor could definitely be extra tough on you, especially if you didn’t do a lot of that kind of work in your training.

Regarding Top Down Deadlifts

In general, if you do zero eccentrics you’ll be weaker than if you include some. But if you spent too much time messing with eccentrics (25-50% of your work) it’s dumb and you’ll end up weaker.

Eccentrics are good for perfecting timing and technique. The Russian weight lifter guys would often do a Clean Pull before a Clean to set up an eccentric and the benefits of lowering phase.

The easiest way to get an eccentric in the deadlift is just to do multiple reps.

The Russian bros liked the eccentric work to practice interacting with the flex of the bar during the clean and jerk. So theoretically if you’re pulling on a flexy deadlift bar it might be extra important to control lowering, to figure out the best way to utilize bar flex.

Antidotally

Big time 70s deadlifter Vince Anello liked to do non maximal eccentrics in the deadlift. Like a 10 second lowering with a 10 second pause on the floor to practice getting everything lined up and tight on the way down then keeping it tight on the floor.

Old school Tennessee Deadlifter Bob People did overloaded eccentrics, picking up barbells with a tractor then lowering them himself. He was pretty strong. But he also did tons of weird shit, so who knows if this particular one had any effect. And nobody else has ever gotten any gains from overloaded deadlift lowering.

On that starting strength- that’s what the old ukranian oly lifting coach I went to for a while put major emphasis on. He wanted to see the bar leave the floor and accelerate through until the rack.

One day a kid was complaining and getting lippy, so he showed the kid what he meant. Right from the floor it looked like the bar was chasing his hands and he was just using them to guide it. Freakin nuts how explosive/fast he was.

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It’s wild how specific and organized those Soviet guys were.

Every sport had its own specialized programs. Like boxers and karate guys did only lifts and jumps for timing and explosiveness. And wrestlers did long sets duration curls and flies and Isometric work for endurance and to generate max force without moving too far.

Also foreign coaches are always cool.

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There is no recovery:

Or maybe there is, no idea what Kaz is saying here TBH lol

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Kaz is a high powered mutant.

He tried steroids and recovered slower.

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