I have a set program , I’m a man of habit but other factors in life can get in the way of recovery. I appreciate all the analogies and suggestions but what I’m hoping to find is something anyone can use regardless of their type workout to help them decide if they have recovered from the last workout. Resting heart rate may be one, body temp may be another?? Someone said there is no easy answer but not long ago they said man would never fly!!
Scott
I don’t think so. Like @entsminger says below, there are a lot of variables. I don’t think any of us is living a life so standardized and perfect that we can look at any single session in isolation. I think we have to look back over the last, say, month (or 6 weeks or whatever) and see if the trend is in the right direction.
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It takes 24 hours to recover from an easy, non damaging training session.
72 hours for a strenuous workout.
14 days to recover from an all out, all time Maximal Effort.
Heart rate variability info
I don’t know a lot about Heart Rate Variability, but Joel Jamieson used it when training Demetrius Johnson, and Johnson did pretty well, and Jamieson looked smart.
I guess any coach is gonna look good when they train Mighty Mouse.
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This, consequently, is what all the dudes that have a hardon for Soviet studies tend to overlook.
People like to go “drugs drugs drugs” and think THAT explains things, but you got dudes taking ALL the drugs and still not getting Soviet-esque results, because they’re not living a “party approved” life.
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Mine isn’t just elevated, different beats are different intensity and rhythm is off. Usually if I sit still you can see my heartbeat pretty easily too. Family history of afib/mitral valve issues might be built-in recovery meters.
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It’s a huge point we don’t talk about that much - the fewer things you do, the better you’ll be at them. If you are a pro athlete with a specific task, you can evaluate more micro.
And when the consequence of going out and getting wasted is some time in the gulag, you tend to be VERY compliant with your coach’s demands, haha.
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Use a Dynamometer. If you squeeze your hand every day, you will soon have an average value of how hard you can pinch it together. Assume you try each day for a month and note that the number is 154 pounds, give or take five pounds. If you suddenly only get up to 143 pounds one morning, it is a sign that you may not be recovered. Use it at same time everyday.
or
You can use jumps and test each day how high you can jump by marking your hand against the wall. If you have a yardstick, measure the height from the ceiling. You’ll soon see that you’ll tend to touch the same spot almost every day. If you suddenly notice that you are unable to jump as high as you usually do, then the body has not recovered from your previous training.
–would link source but can’t
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One of the things I’ve been coming to terms with is bone recovery. Laying down new bone material and then loading it again before it hardens cancels the process. Unfortunately it can take significantly longer for bone to heal from training vs. muscle. As such I’ve been scheduling longer heavy deloading phases into my training for bone and connective structures. It sucks going 4 or 5 days without major spinal loading, but I have to give a large credit to it for getting out of back pain.
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There is no spoon
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That sounds scary!
Scott
One problem I see with the above tests is that you would need to establish a baseline with the full knowledge that you are positively fully recovered for all the baseline measurements. So no training could be done during the test period.
The jump test might be most indicative of lower body recovery or not, and possibly systemic recovery or not. But it would not seem to address upper body recovery.
And likewise the grip test would seem to address a systemic recovery, but not any specific muscle group that might need additional recovery. Although, I suppose it could be argued that systemic recovery is required before any specific body group can be effectively trained.
I do strongly believe that your CNS can be exhausted from the deadlift and not affect the effectiveness of training an unrelated body group. When powerlifting I found that every other week of heavy deadlifting was all my body could recover from, yet I was able to squat heavy every week.
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Lots of people say this about the deadlift, but I find it more with the squat personally. I also deadlift more than squat (1RM is 230kg for squat in wraps, and 272.5kg for raw deadlift). The squat just wrecks me for some reason. Maybe it beats up my hips more or something, and the body says no more heavy weight on the legs.
I also tend to burst a lot more blood vessels squatting. I have gotten bloody eyes a couple of times after a hard squat. I also kinda suck at squatting, so that might be part of it.
I have used the jump test before to evaluate how strong I am feeling that day. I would use a box jump for a couple of jumps. If they seemed easy (legs were more straight on the landing), I usually had a good day. This also could just be that jumps seem to prime me for lifting. Get the CNS going or something.
By chance, do you train the squat in wraps?
Only for competition prep, which I may not be doing anymore (might not powerlift anymore). I prefer training in sleeves. I will say the wrapped sessions feel more taxing.
I have been contemplating doing a novice comp for strongman. I think some feds have more weight classes, right? ATM, I could do 198 without a cut (sitting right at that weight). Just seems like more fun than powerlifting. My gym also has most of the strongman equipment, other than the really rare stuff like fickle fingers (we do have a Conan’s wheel, but it would need to be assembled for use).
Yeah, that’s where I was going to go with it: you overload more with wraps vs not. Same with gear.
As far as I know, every single amateur federation has weight classes. They aren’t always powerlifting weight classes though.
I’ll have to read all this stuff , thanks
Scott
A couple of my friends just did their first strongman comp, and I found it weird that novice had weight classes, but amateur was all grouped together. They had guys over 300 lbs and under 200 lbs competing. I suppose it is amateur, and something to get your feet wet. I think the lower weight class novice had higher weights (other than stuff like max deadlift) than the amateur anyways.
With this competition stuff, I do it mostly for fun. I want to do well, but it is more about doing it for me, than winning.
This honestly isn’t uncommon, because dudes will just sandbag like mad and stay in novice forever vs actually stepping out into the open class, so you’ll have a competition with 40+ novice competitors and only 3 dudes in the open classes. It’s frustrating and, personal opinion, novice needs to be done away with.
Hmm, maybe I have my terminology mixed up. I thought this comp had amateur, novice and open.
I don’t see what the point is in competing against lower tier competitors. I would rather lose to someone great, than win against lower class competitors.