Similar to a follow up post in a thread I made about 2 weeks ago. Ever since Christmas my training has been very inconsistent and I feel like I have been underperforming beyond a normal level. Lately I have felt like the stamina wasn’t there to push myself, I only lifted once last week, the week prior I went three times, and the week before that I think only twice. I haven’t noticed a decrease in my 1 rep maxes, I actually improved on the clean and jerk last week even though I haven’t trained it in a few months. And surprisingly my bench has been up too even though I havent trained that in months as well. I know this will catch up to me though. Last week I was down to 257lbs, so I lost 3lbs in about a month. I have been supplementing with L-Carnitine in the morning and I noticed it is reducing my appetite. My job has been pissing me off more than usual (it always pisses me off anyway) and when I get home the first thing I do is crash and take a nap. As I said, I simply don’t have the energy to train heavy after I get home. I am considering training in the morning and switching up my regiment to lighter and high rep work, but I am looking for anyone’s advice on how to get my training motivation back. I want to enter a competition in April, will a goal of deadlifting 500lbs, I am at about 450 now, but if shit doesn’t turn around I might not meet my goal. Usually when I get in a training funk it lasts a week then I am back to normal.
my job sucks,fast paced manual labor ,am old as fuc,if i dont watch my eating i lose 3 to 6 pounds in a week
your not the only one
find your motivation
find some thing or routine that makes a clear separation when you get off work
some people “not all” find that after a set period of time a break is needed
take week off go play
Training in the morning definitely helps. It’s nice to get the training knocked out and not have it be something you end up dreading as the work day ends.
As for how to get your motivation back; that’s one of those things that other people can’t really answer. Motivation is an internal thing, and in general is pretty fleeting. It tends to be unable to sustain long term activities as a result. It may be the case that you don’t actually like strongman, and a different passion would suit you better.
I’ll echo all of this. After a shit day at work, once you come home and sit down, the last thing you want to do is drag your ass back out the door and along to the gym.
Punny (my new adorable pet name for T3hPwnisher) is totally right about motivation, too. Seems to me, if you really - and I mean really wanted to do it, you would have no problem motivating yourself to do so.
Serious question, and I don’t mean any offence by it: are you doing strongman training because you want to be a strongman, or is it just because you’re kinda heavy so you think it’d suit you? Maybe deep down you really want to shred off the fat and rock some sexy abs? Maybe if you went on a 100% physique-improvement focussed diet/program, that’d kickstart some mojo?
I do need to lose some weight, but that has been going along slowly. Ive been getting injured a lot more than usual as well. Last week I tweaked my back during a clean, and tweaked it before that doing deadlifts plus ankles and knees have been bothering me too. I just turned 26 this weekend, yet I’m falling apart!
I enjoy strongman lifting more than anything else as far as strength athletics go. I’m not the best bencher or squatter, but ask me to carry something heavy and I can move impressive weights. Plus the stones are my favorite lift. I don’t care about having abs, Id be happy with a 34" waist. When I was thin (185 for me) I was weak. The strength I got from the strongman style lifting has given me a level of self assuredness that I haven’t had before. People don’t pick fights with me like they used too, people listen to me more, and I get complements from a lot of my friends and coworkers on my size. So I would say strongman has been beneficial.
The biggest road block is the fatigue. I get home, if I sit for even 5 minutes I just pass out. I wake up 3 hours later feeling like I got hit by a truck.
Get up and go into the gym. On the way, drink a spike energy drink. Serious.
That shit is bad for your heart, liver and kidney’s. No thanks. I barely drink caffeine except for tea.
To be fair, strongman is pretty bad for you too, haha. I started drinking an energy drink a day once I started training in the mornings to keep me normal, but I drink it after my session. With my gym in my garage, I start training within about 10-15 minutes of waking up.
I’d get your sleep in order. This probably has more to do with tweaking stuff and injuries than anything.
I went from sleeping 3-5 hours a night, to sleeping 8-9 hours a night, and I still wake up tired… but I don’t crash like I used to, like you described.
I mean, I lost something like 4-5 hours of my day from a productivity standpoint, but I feel a hell of a lot better otherwise.
Oh, also it helps to stop taking your job quite so seriously. Took me a long time to learn that.
Forget motivation, build habits.
Look, the stress of the new year and lack of ssleep and striving for a PR has probably had you over reaching for a while.
Try slow your day somehow (it might simply be going for a quiet 10 minute walk mid-morning, no thinking about work or anything that worries you) and reduce the training intensity and volume for a week.
Then come back and crush it (keep the walk)
Well, you could change it up and drink a large coffee. Especially if you hardly have caffeine. Coffee is good for you.
Well, continuing on the bad shit I remember I’ve used in the past half a tab of modafinil every morning with coffee when I was going through a very intense work and training phase simultaneously. That shit kept me focused and motivated throughout the whole day without much need of additional stimulants. But I did it only for a few weeks.
What is bad about Moda?The side effects if any are mild.
I use it 5 days a week.
Is the only reason you lift because you wanted attention or be taken more seriously from other people about your size? Does not sound like you were too happy at 185 but now that you are bigger and stronger people take you more seriously which in turn made you feel better about yourself. Now that you are big you kinda accomplished what you wanted to accomplish in terms of attention. Is that the reason you started to get bigger? if so it might be time to find a new motivation.
Nothing really bad, it’s just a pun. Only side effects I experienced were head ache and loss of sleep when I tried to take a full tab or more, half a tab was my sweet point letting me rest at night while staying focused during the whole day without needing a nap. On the same note I really don’t think that using strong stimulants of any kind for extended periods, whether side effects or not, is a good idea.
I thought I should reply to this. I am transitioning to morning training. I went for the first time on Tuesday and it was a lot better than I thought it would be. What I liked most was that I didn’t have to go into work as soon as I got up. I looked forward to training and having the hour or so to myself to do something for me before starting the day. I got a good nights sleep that night too - I believe that made a big contribution as well. As far as in the injuries go I suspect the cause was from three things: I was probably training too heavy on my assistance lifts, had a bad mindset from being exhausted at the end of the day (just wanted to get in and get out and didn’t enjoy the process at all), and was sleep deprived regularly.
My training motivation for a long time was to get stronger and there are a few reasons to that. Aside from being healthy I used to get picked on when I was in school. Don’t ask me why, kids are dumb. However, even though I got picked on rarely would anyone try to fight me because I played football and I was pretty strong. I still got shit as an adult and my strength was always a good insurance policy. Im probably about average strength amongst people at T-Nation, but in the “real world” I’m probably top 20%. The same is true for my gym which has a lot of really strong and cool people. As a funny story, one summer I had this girlfriend that cheated on me. I was so mad that I devoted the entire summer to squatting just so I could beat the shit out of the guy she was with. In about 8 weeks I went from 225 for reps to 305 for reps. I never got to kick his ass though, but she came running back to me at the end of the summer haha - this was in 2011.
Now as a young adult, having a broad and big build does make a difference. I am sure some of you have noticed with your own experience. Bouncers are nicer to me a clubs, people pick less fights with me at bars, guys at work are more friendly to me, women flirt with me more, people want to talk about exercise, I feel more “in charge” when talking to strangers, I feel like in general people listen to me more. The notion that looks don’t matter is bullshit.
As far as taking supplements like stimulants, I am against that for personal reasons. Besides my own experience, I know people close to me who took drugs like those and it ruined their mind and body. Id rather be tired and just deal with it than take a drug and accumulate damage to my body in a few years. There is no free lunch. You wont see it in your 20s, but when you are beaten up in your 40s, 50s, and 60s, or crash hard when you don’t have whatever you use regularly, you know something is wrong. It isn’t worth it, if my body is too damn tired Ill make time for a nap or meditation.
Is this your first full-time job Aero?
What type of warm-up are you doing and are you doing any mobility work?
If you’re worried about that then drink coffee, black. It is good for you.
No, I had an internship that was full time. Aside from one cool project it was about the same.
Warm up is basically lots of sets at a lower weight until I feel comfortable to do the working sets
I don’t like coffee. I like tea.