Training Has Been Bad Lately

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.

No, I had an internship at a large-cap company prior. It is about the same as where I am now - lots of beurocracy and repititon

Cool, I only ask because I had a similar issue when I got out of college and started my first full-time job in the private sector. The hour commute each way, traffic, and overall dissatisfaction were a huge training hurdle. Ultimately I had to find a job in a different field (similar though) that cut my commute to about 20 minutes altogether. I’ve also stopped lifting in the evenings, I’ve found the stimulus especially deadlifting and squatting really screws my sleep up. I was able to adjust my hours and train at lunch (what I prefer). Hopefully, the morning routine works better for you.

I know Shaw is a big proponent of mobility work and extensive warm-up. He mentions it briefly in a supertraining video with Mark Bell, but you might be able to find a video or something where he goes into depth. Could be worth a look.

Brian Shaw? The strongman?

I got rid of my commute by living close enough to work to walk. That is really nice. It is only about a quarter mile to a half a mile away. Of course, I had to compromise quality of my apartment (maintenance is a joke and the insulation is shit), but I can deal with those trade offs to get an hour extra out of my day and not put the miles on my car/save gas.

I am considering getting out of my field too, but moreso because my line of work (engineering) attracts a lot of anti-social people. So aside from my two friends at work, I don’t really “get along” with my coworkers in the sense that I don’t socialize with them outside of a professional setting. I also cant stand sitting at a desk doing paper work. I know it will be a part of life, but having it be 8 hours of my day, everyday, makes me miserable and feel absolutely useless. Ive thought about bartending just to do something different, or taking a year off just to disappear for awhile. I might have aPhD opportunity lined up too. It is really funny, when I take vacations I notice how much more time and how much better I feel. I don’t know how people don’t question their life choices or are at least not happy with themselves.

My old job, while it was also paperwork, had some cool aspects to it because I worked on a wind tunnel doing some experiments. I learned a lot and became one of the most knowledgeable people about its operation since it was mine and my coworkers top priority to get it up and running in 3 months.

Oh, and what did you mean by stimulus? DLing and Squatting after work made it so you couldn’t sleep?

Yup.

I mean the muscle stimulation you get from training. I’ll be tired after I train and I usually fall asleep just fine, but after an hour or so I’ll be wide awake. I notice it mostly on squat and deadlift days as well as the day after each. I’m guessing it has something to do with stimulating the CNS that late in the day. The effect has been noticeably less since I moved my lifting to lunch time.

I’ve also found the lower the carbs I eat the worse I sleep. I’ve been trying to only eat carbs pre training and at night so I can keep them somewhat lowish, but still have energy when I train and also to help me sleep.

As far as sleeping goes I also take the Biotest mineral support and Z12 on my tougher training days and have started reading for 30-60 minutes before sleeping every night. The reading especially has made a big difference for me. The supps can leave you feeling sluggish though so might not be a good idea since you’re lifting in the morning.

Ya, it sounds like you are in the wrong line of work.

Right now I have a soul crushing job full of boredom and monotony, but it puts food on the table and pays the bills.

I choose not to let my profession define who I am. I have work me and not work me, and the two never meet.

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I had a job suck the life out of me. Made me miserable in all aspects of life. I was incredibly stressed. It definitely affected my training. I got a new job; same field, better work environment fit.

Anyway, if you’re not enjoying training, change it up. As you mentioned, give some higher rep work a shot. You won’t get weaker doing sets of 10-20. And no one is ever going to say to a guy benching 315x20, “Wow, he’s got great muscular endurance!” It’s going to be, “That guy’s strong as fuck.” (An extreme example for sure, but … )

I also like training in the morning. The gym’s relatively empty, and nothing has happened in my day yet to ruin it.