When you give it all, it isn’t hard the rest of the day for you?
I mean if I really do an amrap set on deadlift and push myself to the limit (close to
losing consciousness or puke) I won’t be able to do anything in the evening. I have just no energy left.
It affect my family life (doesn’t want to play with my kid) and it’s fucking hard to play sport in the evening.
I know I need to push hard to be better but I find it really hard to find the limit I need to reach.
Definitely! I think you need to be willing to sacrifice quite a bit to bust through plateaus and reach new strength levels. You have to push your body, and overreach on occasion. I notice my mood is significantly worse when my training starts to exceed my recovery. Then after I recover hard, I usually find myself hitting a PR or noticing some physique improvements. It becomes a balancing act between work and recovery. For maximal gains (both strength and size) I need to do as much work as I can recover from. The more I increase work, the more I need to increase recovery (stretching, LISS, nutrition, sleep, etc).
I don’t have kids yet, so the only person this currently affects is my wife (sorry hun). Not having kids grants me significantly more free time than yourself (I imagine), and a greater ability to recover from hard training (more regular sleep pattern, less stress, etc). Evenings are a pretty familiar routine, so I can get them done in zombie mode. Get home, pre-workout snack, workout, make dinner, eat dinner, pack lunches for next day, do dishes, put on Netflix for an episode or two of something before hitting the sack. Sometimes, depending on the day there are a couple additional chores to do, but that gets me through until the weekend where I tackle home renos, landscaping, and the other more time consuming chores.
I’m not bashing anyone who doesn’t push this hard, but I do think a big reason that people aren’t getting the results they want is because they simply aren’t working hard enough in the gym and forcing their body to adapt. I have no doubt that I will need to dial things back when we have kids, but for now, I’m going to do my best to lift all the things.
Lets hope so!
I’m excited to get my first competition under my belt and get a total on the board. Then I will officially be a “powerlifter”! Right now I’m just a confused human who lifts in his basement.
I feel your pain… or sluggishness. I find that there are days where I’m a bottomless pit after a good session. I can’t satisfy my hunger. It kind of goes along with my lack of energy too. I’m fortunate enough to have Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays off from work. I’m home alone with my kids (1 and 4). We hit the gym mid-morning. Once we get home it’s lunch time and my youngest takes a nap. My 4 year old can do her own thing if necessary so I get to lounge in the recliner for a couple hours. I don’t exactly bounce back for the evening time but I have to force myself to do things that I think should be easy. Last night I struggled to play a matching/memory game with my daughter. All I had to do was lie on the floor and take my turn but I didn’t even want to put the energy forth to play the game or pay attention.
I have to force myself to do this sometimes. I just say “How can you say no to your daughter when she asks you to play?” The correct answer is “You can’t. You play.” Occasionally I fail her and make her wait though. I know that any time I force myself to be uncomfortable to play with her will be worth it. She’ll look back and remember her dad pushing her on the swing; she won’t know that I was exhausted and grouchy at the time. I definitely don’t want her to remember her dad sitting on his ass all the time and not playing with her.
Maier, Patlafauche: What do you do in terms of peri-workout nutrition? For me, this has made a real difference in how I feel after a hard session.
This. There are few people I like to train with because of this. I have one good mate who is awesome to train with because he just puts his heas down and works. Other people at the gym I guess I count as friends piss the fuck out of me by having actual conversations while training. I find it hard to muster up any respect for them in the gym because they just don’t do anything with any degree of effort of aggression. I also find it hard to know how to deal with them, because I don’t want them to talk to me while I’m training because they actually want a chat. I just want to get my wind back before going back to work. Except, they’ll be there the next day and if I told them to fuck off or blanked them things would just get awkward.
I just try to be painfully obvious with my responses that I’m not there to chat. No eye contact, one word answers. If I’m working out, my wife avoids conversation with me because I’m “too intense”.
My current gym partner doesn’t care to chat while working out either, so we just give each other a word of encouragement either before a top set or during a tough one.
Even my dog knows not to bother me while I’m training.
I reckon that this:
has probably got a lot to do with this:
And I imagine far fewer people would complain of being hard-gainers if commercial gyms were full of hard-workers!
Do you have this attitude for all your lift? Or only for the main?
Like same focus on the deadlift AND the curl?
I tend to neglect the isolation work a lot I think.
Haha. My wife always tells me that I’m kind of mean in the gym. I really am not trying, I’m just super short
Just the main lifts for the most part. Some days I’ll decide to really push my assistance (typically when my main lift intensity is lower for the day). Usually assistance is more about hitting the reps and focusing on TUT.
I had an hour long full body massage today from 2-3pm. She said she found quite a ‘trigger point’ in my left quad and recommended ‘cupping’. It was using a silicone cup, felt fine, no bruising unfortunately. Workout at 4:30pm.
5/3/1 SVR II Workout 3
SUMO DL
135 x 5
225 x 5
315 x 3
385 x 5 ← Last set of hook grip. Fuck sets of 5 with hook grip. Unpleasant.
435 x 5 ← Strapped up.
495 x 6 ← Felt like I lost the shoulders forward on my 6th rep so I stopped.
385 x 16 ← Hammies/glutes were starting to cramp.
45o INCLINE DB PRESS
70lbs x 12 x 3sets
DB ROWS
100lbs x 10 x 3sets
INCLINE SITUPS
12, 12, 12
Morning weight at 216.4lbs. Whoa. that’s the most I’ve seen on the scale in awhile (heaviest I’ve been is 217lbs and that was a year and a half ago, albeit with less muscle mass). Looking swole AF though. Subway sandwich gains.
I guess I might as well fill out the 220lb class at this point…
Cant wait till you do your PL meet man! Itl be awesome.
I would be competing against you if I tried power lifting! What an embarrassment I’d be lol
“Hey, go ahead and leave that weight on the bar when you’re done warming up. I’ll use it for my third attempt.” 
I think if there’s a future for me in anything strength related then it’s strong man. But that’s a big if…
Yess!
I have to get strong first, duke! And based on the documentary Born Strong I need to increase my body weight by about 90%. I’m afraid starting at the age of 33 is a bit too late.
You’re already strong dude. Plus no one says you have to start competing at WSM or something. Road to shw lol 
I reckon at a local competition you’d do well after a bit of training!
Well what’s the point if you can’t win? I’m no participant; I’m a competitor! And I find compete in things I can’t win 
Whats wrong with a participation medal lol? All jokes aside though I think to really take your strength to a new level you need to compete in something man. If you compete against your self- your limited. the greatest lifters in the world compete for a reason.
if you compete in something like powerlifting or strongman you’re competing against others and it’ll drive you to get stronger so you can come out on top. Thats evidently one of the reasons i decided i wanted to compete in strongman. - im tired of being weak and felt l needed to become competitive to push myself further.