Almost every time I deadlift heavy my adrenaline seems to get jacked up for a couple days. This leads to poor sleep (frequent waking) and acne flare ups (these go away during deload weeks).
It feels like it’s related to inflammation around the spine leading to heightened adrenaline. It’s not the type of anxiety that can be meditated away.
What are some tips for minimizing the stress of heavy spinal loading and recovering from it while still going heavy? Thanks!
Any spinal compression will put you in “do or die” more and as long as the body perceives that there is “something wrong” around the spine it can indeed keep your sympathetic nervous system heightened which would make it hard to sleep and recover.
I would recommend a ice bath (ideally 2-3 hours after the sesson, but not too close to bed time) and then an epsom salt bath in the evening before bed (400g of epsom salts in the hottest water you can tolerate). Epsom salts (magnesium sulphate) are anti-inflamatory, decrease swelling, acts as a muscle reflaxant and relaxes you.
I actually took a salt bath last night (TMI). I’ll give that a try after my next deadlift session, thanks CT!
Sea salt is not the same as epsom salt though
Yes, it was with Epsom salts.