Do I Need a Week Off?

few things, first of im 6’3’’ weight 154 and 26. i have been lifting for over 11 months FULL BODY greyskull program without any rest week. I HAVE deloaded a bunch of times but its weight deload (example if i miss the reps on certain compound lift i take 10-15% off and go back up but not from all compounds at the same time i have done this with all compounds several times now). other than this i do cardio 2 times a week, stand on my feet during job for over 20 hours a week and walk 4 hours a week, other than this im sedentary.

I have been eating around 2800 daily!

for the past 2 months i’ve been losing strength, feeling tired, fatigued, no motivation.
for example, i could do 8 reps of 165 bench easy and right now i do 8 reps of 145 and struggle.

I do however have a history of low testosterone and last time i checked it was 180 BUT this is no excuse because i had this when i could rep 165 bench for 8 reps.

additional info: i have been stressed a bit for the last couple of days, sleep is 6-7 hours with waking up to pee 2 times, I lost weight (dont know how) from 160 to now 154.

other than that, i switched from greyskull and to 5/3/1 beginners and this is my second week. like i said i hardly push 8 reps 145 bench when i could easily do 8 reps 165 during greyskull.

low test symptoms: have them all lol.

what should i do?


this is what my diet consist off.

protein: lean chicken, grass fed ground beef (2 times a week), 2 eggs in the morning, salmon, greek yogurt, cheese.

carbs: oats, bread, papaya, strawberry, banana, pasta, potato, sweet potato, broccoli, coliflaur, brussel.

fats: pb, cheese, almond milk, ground beef, salmon, coconut olive oil.

breakfast: 2 servings of oats, almond milk, 1-2 eggs depending on what i plan to eat that day, 2-4 servings of egg whites, olive oil.

lunch: .5 servings of gluten free pasta, 5 oz of chicken

dinner: either red potato (350 grams) or sweet potato (300-325 grams) with either cheese, coconut oil if salmon or chicken or just plain grass fed ground beef since its high on fat.

1 hour before bed: 4 slices of bread, 1.5 servings of peanut butter, 2 servings of strawberry, 3 oz of banana 1 serving of papaya, half a serving of greek yogurt, salt, cinnamon.

Your just training too much + your excess of stress + your bad sleeping habit + stressful life… you didn’t take a day off since 11 months…your testosterone is low because you abuse so much.

Still walk 4 hours per week, but only train 3 times a week for a few weeks or month and see what happen !

meant to say not taken a week off i train 4-5 days a week i edited

Maybe someone else will suggest something else, but if i was you, yes i would take a week off, do something to change your mind and keep the stress down. Go walk and strech take it easy. Then come back in the gym, drop the 2 cardio session , only keep the 4 hours walk and try to found a 3 days split workout per week, maybe a full body routine. Monday wednesday and friday !

Try this few month and see if your mood and libido is better

You need to eat more. Ballpark figure 4000 calories per day, maybe more.

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Do a week where you work up to a challenging single set of 3-5 reps on each big lift - challenging meaning you could have hit 5-8 reps.

Then spend 2 to 4 weeks doing slightly different work to what you’ve been doing. For example, use DBs instead of BBs, doing higher rep work if you’ve been doing lower rep work, ocus more on conditioning (eg. Drop a day in the weight room and add one to conditioning), etc.

Then get back into it.

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thanks guys