I am a 22 year old guy, I have been training for around 6-7 years now, and I currently feel like I’m stuck at a point where I feel completely worn down. I used to struggle with being obsessive about the gym, my body image, and food - however, when I went away to university, I began to build a much healthier relationship with everything and felt I found Balance with my life. However, I have now finished Uni, and find my self in a bit of a transitional period, where I am back to living at home. I feel this has triggered me to become really obsessive about everything again, and this time it has hit me HARD.
I have recently been working out more and more, (weights 5 x per week for 2 hours + 2 x cardio per week), and have been getting super abxious/angry if anyone trys to stop me from going. I have also been trying to gain size, so have been eating more, but have been truly obsessing about weighing everything every single day , and terrifying myself that I will get fat - taking pictures and looking at myself in the mirror and over analysing everything every single day. I have been sleeping really poorly the last few weeks, and I have still been forcing myself to follow my programme, even if it means getting up at 4am before work. All in all, I feel all of this together is adding up to absolutely destroy my psyche and my relationships with my family. I am miserable all the time, and I know it and I feel so bad about it because I just don’t want to talk to anyone. I feel so unhappy and stuck in this cycle of doing more and more, and analysing everything. I just need to break the cycle
I feel it might be because I am back at home so I don’t really have much of a routine or purpose like I did at university. But all I know is I began going to the gym and exercising to feel better about myself, but at the moment I feel I am just destroying myself.
If anyone can please help me or give me some advice I would appreciate it so so much. I feel completely lost and feel like I just need to hit ‘reset’. I wish I could be back feeling happy and balanced instead of having all of these unhealthy habits.
I was in a similar situation right out of college. I wanted to get huge and muscly so I thought that the more I trained, the more supplements I took, and the more I ate, the faster I’d get to my goal. This amounted to a bunch of bullshit:
More food and more supplements = more money spent = feeling poor
Moore food and more supplements = feeling fat/bloated = feeling bad about your body
More training = less recovery = feeling tired, and mentally/emotionally miserable
Add all that up and you suddenly feel like you’re not making any progress, your goals feel further away than they are, and you hate yourself a little bit. But you’re still obsessed with meeting your goals, so you think that if you do everything even more, you’ll get there. This begins taking up all your thinking, and beings to alienate people around you (no time for them, too tired to deal with other people, etc).
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I’m not going to tell you what I did to turn that around…because I think it’s different for each person. I will say that 2 hours of weight training 5x a week is way too much. Your TYPICAL lifting session shouldn’t really need more than 60 minutes (some being shorter, some being longer).
Despite what your goal is, you need to take time off from the gym (a couple weeks to a month) and just let your body and mind reset. Hang out with the family, go out with friends, meet a girl, read or play music…whatever your other hobbies are, do them. The number one thing I learned is that the gym CAN NOT BE THE ONLY THING YOU DO OUTSIDE WORK.
When you do get back in the gym, don’t do what you were doing. Instead, do half what you were doing. And then go home. I’m not saying this is the best way to increase size or whatever, but it will help you with your relationship with the gym.
As Rampant said, 3-4 day week split. 5/3/1 is great if you use the correct training max and follow through.
The post University depression/anxiety is extremely common. Stop thinking about “purpose” and do what you enjoy.
Also, try something totally new. Go rock climbing, take an art class, go road tripping. Experience something outside your comfort zone.
Just my .02 as someone who went through something very similar.
You’ve been training for long enough that you should know what works for you and how to set it up. Sit down, set out what you’re going to do and do it. Don’t do more, don’t do less. Same with eating. You’ll end up having more time and all you’ll need to do is follow the plan.
You’re goimg to need to challenge the emotions you get whenever you feel them.
You’re going to need to find something else to fill the void.
I would do something like go to the gym 2x per week then forget about anything fitness related, play a social sport once per week then do something completely unrelated to fitness.
Thanks for the responses guys. I agree I’m feeling maybe a week off to really re evaluate what my goals are and what I’m trying to achieve. The idea of cutting my training down but getting real bang for my buck and keeping it intense. On that - can anyone recommend a 3/4 day programme for Hypertrophy? I like the idea of maybe 3 to 4 full body sessions. If anyone has any ideas please let me know!
Yeah man, if I lifted 5x a week for 2 hours with any semblance of intensity, I’d be beat up and I’d start getting weaker and sick. Very few people need to lift more than 4x a week unless unless steps are taken to control the intensity and volume. I was like you when I got out of college. I was obsessed with lifting and everything associated with it. I lifted 5-6 times a week with a bunch of intensity and garbage volume thrown in there. You’re not going to make faster or better progress by doing more in the gym. Your aim should be to do the bare minimum needed to progress and no more. There’s no point in doing more.