More Overtraining

 For the past couple weeks Thursdays have been pretty busy days for me.  Starting off with a workout at the YMCA in the morning, then I grab some lunch and run to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class.  After that I take a nap to recover some of my energy and then head back to my gym for kickboxing class and wrestling class.  I'm pretty exhausted by the end of the day but I figure I have all weekend to recover.  Anyways, Thursday evening I head home ready to plop into my bed.  All is well until I wake up at 5AM with a really high fever and my entire body aching.  Now in hindsight, I should have seen this coming.  I was feeling kind of bleh all day, but something I found really interesting, is how my weight dropped dramatically the two days prior to getting sick.  If you look at the graph below you'll see that I dropped 4 lbs within two days.  The only other time that happened was after I went for "All you can Eat" Sushi (My weight dropped only because I superficially jacked up my weight by stuffing myself with pounds and pounds of sushi muahahah).  At first I thought it was really strange that I dropped so much weight, but I shrugged it off.  Is it possible that the weight drop was the first sign that I was overtraining?  Theoretically, if this is true, when I see my weight drop dramatically, I can take a rest day to recover and make sure I don't get sick.  Interesting....

After laying in my bed all day yesterday with a fever made me think I should make sure I don't overtrain again.  Here's a list of symptoms of overtraining and I'll highlight the ones I experienced:

• Washed-out feeling, tired, drained, lack of energy
• Mild leg soreness, general aches and pains
• Pain in muscles and joints
• Sudden drop in performance
• Insomnia
• Headaches
• Decreased immunity (increased number of colds, and sore throats)
• Decrease in training capacity / intensity
• Moodiness and irritability
• Depression
• Loss of enthusiasm for the sport
• Decreased appetite
• Increased incidence of injuries.
• A compulsive need to exercise

So how am I going to make sure I don't overtrain again?  Well first, listen to the signs of my body.  I should have noticed the big drop in weight and taken a day off.  Also, I used to take a resting heart rate every morning, but I stopped doing it after a while.  Experts say that when you're on the verge of overtraining, your resting heart rate will be abnormally high.  I'm really curious what my numbers would have been if I had been keeping track.  The other thing I need to do is recover better.  From an article I read:

10 Ways to Recover Quickly After a Workout

1.Cool Down

2.Replace Fluids

3.Eat Properly

4.Stretch

5.Rest

6.Perform Active Recovery

7.Have a Massage

8.Take an Icebath

9.Get lots of Sleep

10.Avoid Overtraining

While I do most of these things, they're a good reminder that recovery is just as important as the workout.  Most of the items there are self explanatory but some might not know what active recovery is.  It's basically low-intensity exercise after a workout which helps blood circulation and removal of lactic acid.  I'd imagine Yoga would be great for this.  Also, I've been meaning to get a massage.  I've never had one, but I think my body would really benefit from one.  Lastly, icebaths, or penguin dives as I call them are really great.  I should do them everyday, but usually I just want to take a nice hot shower :P.  Anyways, time for lunch.  If you see this, you must have read the entire thing so good for you. 

Day 44 of my 60 day handstand challenge

Hey everyone, I uploaded this video a couple days ago, but I just got around to posting it here.  Shoulder's still hurt so I'm taking a bit of time to let it heal before I do more handstands.  Other than that, ETS! Eat, Train, Sleep.

Speaking of eating, I took my girlfriend to Teatro's last night, a nice restaurant downtown Calgary, in the theatre district housed in the historic Dominion Bank Building built in 1911.  We started off with the calamari appetizer which was really fresh and tasty.  I usually like to have a soup to start too but they were serving cold pea soup that day and well, it was raining outside, a little chilly, and I wasn't feeling it.  For the main course I had the Lamb Terzetto which was delicious.  Served with sausage, sundried tomato gnocchi, mushrooms and rosmary jus, it was better than other lamb dishes I've tried.  I had the lamb dish at this place called La'Chaumiere, a really nice French restaurant, and I think I might like it at Teatros more.  My girlfriend had the Tagliatelle, which had saffron, ham, and scampi in it, and she was happy with it too.  For dessert we ordered the raspberry shortcake and I got the tiramisu.   All in all, a good meal, spent with amazing company.  =D

The Rapture

I'm still here. You're still here reading this. I guess we're not worthy enough for this rapturing business. I can't say I'm surprised though, considering the name of this blog. Gerald Butler would be proud. I just figured I'd better post something before people started getting suspicious. So my body's getting accustomed to my training, and I'm getting more energy throughout the day. My days training can be from 1 hour to 7 hours. Last Thursday I went to BJJ class, then worked out my shoulders, then Muay Thai, then finally wrestling. Sometimes it's hard to get good sleep after these longs days though, because my body is so exhausted that I'm tossing and turning all night. Not sure what the solution to that is... I've been doing Penguin Dives lately and it seems to help. Penguin Dives are just contrast showers that I take after a hard workout or when I'm sore and it helps a bit. It helps with recovery by increase blood circulation to your muscles and joints.

On Monday I hurt my shoulder going for a banana split in BJJ (Eddie Bravo fans?) I was trying to throw the leg over to the other side of my head to go into stoner control and my shoulder just gave out. I had to take Tuesday completely off. Had to skip chest day, and BJJ and wrestling. :( I was back at it on Wednesday with minimal pain, but even now, almost a week later, it's bugging me a little bit, especially with my handstands. Hopefully it goes away soon. Or else I'll have a nice little excuse for why I failed my 60 day handstand challenge muahaha.

Lifting Updates:
Standing Press went up to 135
Power Cleans went up to 155. Been taking tips from Mr. Rippetoe. He's the man.
Squat went up to 295 (almost past parallel)

What else.... yesterday I went to a rapture bbq where I consumed every gram of protein and calorie like it was my last. I scarfed down 2 burgers, 2 hotdogs, and a steak. Tonight we're mixing it up a bit with a japanese style rapture bbq.
Protein is protein. mmmmmm....

Friday the 13th update!

I'm a third of the way through Friday the 13th and I haven't sustained any injuries yet! Knock on wood. Weight training is going good. I just got back from working out the legs and I'm glad I went because I almost skipped out today since it's Friday :P. But I forced myself to go, and finished off another long week of training. My program is very consistent, and I'm seeing small gains here and there. My bench press has gone up to 225#, my standing press has gone up to 125#, and today I squatted 315#, and although I didn't get quite to parallel with my thighs, it's definitely a benchmark. My deadlift hasn't gone up, but I've been super tired the past few back days. I haven't seen any substantial increases that I can attribute to the creatine, but the thing I noticed since taking it is that although my main lifts haven't gone up, which I usually start my workouts with, the other lifts later in my workout have gotten stronger. In other words, usually during my workouts, I start off strong and gradually throughout the hour my muscles fatigue and I get weaker. Lately I've been able to maintain my strength throughout the workout and start to lift heavier weights on other exercises like dumbell exercises.

I weigh myself everyday and I haven't put on a whole lot of weight. I was expecting to put on more because of the water weight from creatine, but that has yet to happen. If I had to guess I'm about 1-2 lbs heavier.

Anyways, the weekend is here, it'll be nice to have a break from training, although I'm going to a grappling/striking seminar this weekend which will be really fun. Taught by 3 different high level Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu coaches and MMA coaches, I'm sure I'm going to learn a lot!

Day 31 of my 60 day handstand challenge

It's been a while since I've posted anything about my handstand progress.  In fact, there hasn't been a lot of progress.  Since I posted the video of Day 7, I got excellent feedback regarding my arched back and walking hands.  Following their advice, I stopped trying to hold the longest handstand, and focused on better form.  The past two weeks I've been essentially doing belly facing wall handstand holds, and trying to work on a press handstand.  (I prefer to have control of my handstand rather than kicking up into it).  But, I haven't seem to gotten very far with it.  My line seems better, but at the same time, it makes the handstand much more difficult in my opinion.  Wrist pain still restrains my training, and I've tried using parallettes, but so far I haven't learned how to dismount properly, and I'm still not used to controlling my balance with my wrists rather than my palm/fingertips.  Anyways, here's a progress video, and as always, any advice is appreciated.

Overtraining...

I'm burnt out.

Ever since I finished school last week, I've been training as much as I could.  My days consist of waking up, working on my gymnastics, mainly my handstand for about 30 minutes, having lunch, then go to the gym to work out and then go to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class or wrestling class.  It was going ok for a while but now every morning is a struggle.  Things that usually aren't sore are sore, and recovery times for muscle groups are taking longer.  Partying on the weekends probably doesn't help either.  :S.  There's too much to do!  Yesterday in BJJ class we were rolling and I got stuck in a choke and probably should have tapped quicker than I did but I'm stubborn, and now my trachea is hurting like a mofo.  Today we were practicing guillotine chokes and I seriously thought my windpipe was going to snap.  Maybe I should take a few days off to recover my body.

Other than that, my gym membership at my University has ended now and I've gotten a summer membership at the YMCA.  The gym's not as nice, but it's closer to my house and it has parking which is really convenient.  It's good enough for the couple months left I have in Calgary.  The crowd is a bit different too.  It makes me cringe how many people at the YMCA don't work out correctly, but whatever. As long as they don't get in my way, I just stick in my music and mind my own business. 

As for my supplements, I just finished my loading phase of creatine, and now just taking my post workout protein shakes with creatine mixed in it.  Nitric Oxide definitely gets you jacked up and motivates you to work harder with less breaks, so that's nice.  I haven't really experienced the "pump" that everyone raves about, but it's still early.  Today was chest day and I was banging out bench press sets pretty quick, and maxed out at 225 lbs.  That's my usual max, but today I felt like they were easier.  I'm not sure if it was the Nitric Oxide or the creatine, but I'm happy.  I know I wasn't too convinced about the NO before, but I don't know, that stuff is delicious.  I got the berry flavour and it tastes like kool-aid with pop rocks mixed in it.  After grappling for an hour and a half I'm usually dead tired and my workouts are half assed but with NO I'm able to get my energy levels right back up and lift hard.  So I don't know, maybe I'll stick with it!  

Anyways, time to nap.