Things fall apart.
Today was to be my ME deadlift day, and the first of a 5x/week squat/dl microcycle. Instead I ripped off most of my callouses, felt some uncomfortable pressure and a slight twinging in my back, and failed to set any PR. I felt out of the groove the whole night. I finally hit the overtraining barrier, which I should have expected, but somehow did not. I felt good these past few days, though nervous the whole day, and yesterday in anticipation. This past week I was sluggish, but getting progressively better and feeling good.
I set up as usual for today, making sure I had my meals in place, and I took a Power Drive/Spike drink combo. This is generally a good combination for me. Because I was feeling a little unusually sluggish most of the day, I followed up with a Spike tablet a bit later, before going. Usually this works pretty well to amp me up when I’m feeling nervous or tired without overdoing it and making me overexcited. The past few weeks doing this kind of shock cycle have apparently sapped me more than I was aware. On the 88% single, I started seeing stars and swaying uncontrollably after I let go. Generally this does not happen to me so soon.
Work up was as follows, 35% 1x6, 1x5, 45% 1x3, 55% 1x3, 65% 1x3, 72% 1x1, 80% 1x1, 88% 1x1, 95% 2xfail on the floor. I then slipped a purple + mini band up and continued to work up–95% 1x1, 102% 1x1, 108% 1x1, 115% 1x1. I should have tripled that last set as I did a few weeks ago, but I didn’t have the energy. All my callouses started ripping around 88% and came off later. Olympic back squats went 50% 1x5,60% 1x5,70% 1x3,80% 1x1, 88% 1x1,94% 1x1,97% fail. Less than ideal workups in both cases. I felt strong and fast in the squat up til the end, so I decided to keep trying for a 103%+ PR. Didn’t happen.
At this point I took stock. I felt like crap, I had no callouses left, my back was feeling pressurized and overworked. So I made a command decision to work into a regular WSB ME day instead of trying to force a high frequency routine this week. Finished off with high rep GMs and high rep weighted back extensions. I’ll be running a regular template from here on.
Surge kept me able to hang out the high rep finishing work. I discovered that I get sick of the sugar after a while and this contributes to my feeling full/sick while working out. Washing my mouth out with water helps, and I’m going to not fill my bottle up so full next time. I also noticed that the 1/2 serving preworkout really keeps my stomach full in a good way, provided don’t mix it with too high a volume of water to make me feel sick.
Many times I start getting very hungry 1/3 to 1/2 the way through my workout, even sipping a 1/2 serving Surge. Doesn’t happen if I front load, so I can keep my focus a lot better without my stomach trying to eat my internal organs away :). For me, this is a big advantage. Front loading also, at least here, made me feel more energized even than the Spike/Power Drive had.
It had already been in my system for about 30min and I’d already noticed it kick in. I noticed another boost with the Surge. Now, that’s not an energy drink boost of energy. I didn’t feel any jolt or “burn”. But I did feel the carb load. Tomorrow will tell whether the Surge helped my CNS recover better at all than just my typical Power Drive scoop PWO.
Needless to say, I’m extremely disappointed. Even though I kept most variables the same as always and rested up, I didn’t break any records, I felt like crap, I obviously overtrained myself even though I felt recovered. I hate to let the readership down, as I had originally committed to 3 ME and 2 DE days at the start of this experiment. These shock cycles have worked well for me in the past. Looks like I need to work more on conditioning and work capacity, and not so much high intensity singles to give me system a break from the CNS drain. Perhaps this will work out better for a Surge experiment anyway.
