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Overtraining & Undereating

ThePman

By ThePman
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ThePman Senior member

ThePman

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I'm trying to stay away from maximum loading on the pressing exercises. They seem to respond better to volume, so I've been playing around with doing them like my deadlifts -- heavy, but still crisp and smooth reps.

12-July

Squats, up to 170 / 2 singles (belted)

Close-grips, 110 / 5 singles, 100x6

Chins, 3x8

Was not on the ball today. Had some oddness in my right leg which was either the calf or the piriformis acting up on the calf, but that squatted right out. My shoulders and bicep tendons however did not. This was all pain, so I cut it all short. Back home to ibuprofen and carbs.

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ThePman Senior member

ThePman

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15-July

Squats, up to 160 raw, 170 belted, miss at 175

Close-grips, 110 / 2 singles, 115 / 2 singles, 105x2

Feeling depleted right now. Tendons in the right shoulder are still acting up pretty badly, so all these sets of close-grips were agony. This is the second (or maybe third) "bad" workout this week, and that's the trigger for a light week.

I'm going to do some light squats tomorrow, see what happens with the DL, and the rest of the coming week will be in cruise mode.

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ThePman Senior member

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It's nothing I haven't dealt with for the last 7-8 years. Same old tears and tendinitis, different day.

I decided to take the day off, and I may not train again until Tuesday. I want to let some of this inflammation clear up and get my focus back. I've been at this for 15 weeks now, so I want to give things a break.

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Daz69 Senior member

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It's nothing I haven't dealt with for the last 7-8 years. Same old tears and tendinitis, different day.

I decided to take the day off, and I may not train again until Tuesday. I want to let some of this inflammation clear up and get my focus back. I've been at this for 15 weeks now, so I want to give things a break.

Hey Matt...

You appear to suffer the same old re-occurring injuries like most of us on here..

The general consensus from our Doc's to take anti-inflams & rest...

So we rest, loose our gains, return to training & the injury eventually returns..

Suppose we don't rest but hit it every day (not with maximum weights) And without anti-inflams..

You have suggested something similar recently: (forcing the body to adapt)

Could this work to heal the injury, to sort of force the inflammation/healing process, but under load, rather than allowing it to heal in a rested unworked state, knowing as soon as we work up to maximal loads, the injury will return..... ?

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ThePman Senior member

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Suppose we don't rest but hit it every day (not with maximum weights) And without anti-inflams..

You have suggested something similar recently: (forcing the body to adapt)

Could this work to heal the injury, to sort of force the inflammation/healing process, but under load, rather than allowing it to heal in a rested unworked state, knowing as soon as we work up to maximal loads, the injury will return..... ?

You caught me at a very good time for this question. :lol:

Connective tissues have very poor blood flow compared to their adjacent muscles. A tendon gets something like 1-3% of the blood moving through a nearby muscle while at rest, and that only increases by around seven times during activity -- whereas a muscle will see around 20 times the flow as at rest.

When you lift something heavy, the muscles are transmitting force through the skeleton through all those tendon attachments, and they're stimulated to grow the same way as muscles. Mechanical tension and stretch signals remodeling and protein synthesis, only in tendons it's collagen turnover that's stimulated.

As we age, our tendons get stiffer, which is good in that they're more resistant to blow-out, but bad in that collagen turnover is way down -- so wear-and-tear can add up as healing is slowed.

What's all this mean? A tendon which isn't moving isn't getting blood, and it's not being stimulated to rebuild any worn-out collagen. All these aches and pains need to be kept moving -- moving them gets blood going, which stimulates collagen turnover -- and preferably kept under as much loading as possible. Obviously you don't want to add to the wear-and-tear, but keeping the aches under some kind of resistance adds to the collagen turnover.

And this

beat them into submission sort of thing?

is more true than not.

I'm thinking that a lot of the injuries we rack up are happening because the muscles get trained and heal up just fine -- but the tendons are only getting one or two or three exposures to increased blood flow and loading each week (and only that many opportunities to heal and grow) so they gradually wear down. One of the papers I found even suggested that resting was exactly the wrong strategy. You want "adjusted loading rather than absence of loading in the form of immobilization" as he put it.

That doesn't necessarily mean you should be squatting or pressing or whatever every day, but it does give a lot more credibility to the idea of active rest, whether that's going for a walk, doing some pushups, band work, spending 20 minutes on the cycle or rower, what have you. Keep it moving, and keep it as resisted as possible.

Squatting to a max every day is one of the more extreme solutions but it's got precedent :lol:

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Daz69 Senior member

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As usual that makes perfect sense.....

From what I understand, inflammation initiates the healing process...

Therefore would avoiding anti-inflams be beneficial, what would you advise.?

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ThePman Senior member

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As usual that makes perfect sense.....

From what I understand, inflammation initiates the healing process...

Therefore would avoiding anti-inflams be beneficial, what would you advise.?

You know I'm still not sure what to make of all the anti-inflamm research.

Inflammation does play at least some role in repairing damage to tissues, but a lot of tissue remodeling processes aren't "damage" and aren't treated like damage.

At least two of the papers I can think of showed that a dose of NSAIDs blocked the COX pathway (which is crucial in the early stages of inflammation) and that this blocked protein synthesis in skeletal muscle after training -- but another study tested the actual strength and size gains over I think 8 weeks and found no effect.

The question to me is how much of the actual tissue damage, which needs the inflammatory response, is key to training? Some of it at least, otherwise MPS wouldn't be inhibited by a COX blockade (and there are other hints that later inflammatory products work some voodoo on satellite cells, but that's a whole different conversation) -- but how much can that matter if the NSAID doses aren't affecting real gains? Real life always has to be the measuring stick.

To me that says something else is going on, and we're missing a big part of the picture. One possibility: they say "protein synthesis" is down, but we don't know what proteins are being synthesized. It could well be that the decrease is because cytokines and prostaglandins and whatever else aren't being synthesized, rather than the fractions we'd need for myofibril turnover.

I've been limiting my ibuprofen intake as much as possible, but trying not to sweat it if I really need it. The way I figure, if it's keeping you mobile and training, that's worth whatever biochemical trade-offs we might be taking. And honestly when I'm feeling beat up after a hard week, hitting 800mg of ibuprofen takes the edge off and lets me sleep like a baby. I think that's worth more than any negatives.

One other thing that's worth a look is topical ibuprofen. You won't get that system-wide crackdown on sickness behavior, but you can apply a dose directly on a joint or tendon that's acting up. Since it won't be in circulation, you don't have to worry about all the negative effects.

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steak Veteran member

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research aside and like you say

"if it's keeping you mobile and training, that's worth whatever biochemical trade-offs we might be taking."

is probably more important IMO.

On a side note, with my latest bit of damage I have been using aspirin, Vit B and then 30 mins later protein (whey) to get more blood/nutients into the damaged tendon. Icing and compression follow for 1 hour or so....seems to be helping and recovery feels quicker (at day 11 now) than would normally be the case.

great reading Matt :clap:

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ThePman Senior member

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Back to the grindstone tonight

19-July

Squats, 140 / 2 singles, 150 / 3 singles, 140x2/3

Bench, 100 / 3 ladders x1/2/3

Chins, +20 / 2 ladders x2/3/4

Took me awhile to warm up tonight. Right knee and right shoulder (the trouble zones) were both grumbling, but once they broke in they decided to cooperate.

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ThePman Senior member

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Oh and I just remembered, I came across something interesting on the inflammation and soft-tissue question:

During exercise, blood flow increase in both tendinous and peritendinous tissue is reduced by 40%, mainly through cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2)-specific pathways (Langberg et al. 2003). Because PGs play a nociceptive role and act in concert with other substances during inflammatory processes, and play a role in regulating blood flow, the question arises as to whether it is beneficial to inhibit PG release with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (or even to block blood flow by sclerosing the peritendinous vessels) in situations where individuals suffer from tendinopathy or peritendinitis.

So COX-2 -> PG (an inflammatory pathway) leads to a pretty sharp reduction in blood flow during exercise...and nuking COX-2 with a dose of ibuprofen might help prevent that reduction.

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ThePman Senior member

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21-July

Squats, up to 150 / 4 singles, 140x1/2

Strict Press, 60 / 3x3, 65 / 3x2

couple sets of BW chins

Keeping it pretty tame for now. I'm going to miss tomorrow night due to being busy, so right now I'm just trying to keep blood moving and get back in the swing of it. Hoping to shift back into gear by the weekend.

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ThePman Senior member

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Was able to train tonight after all.

22-July

Squats, 150 / 4 singles

Close-grips, 110x2, 115 / 3 singles, 110x2, 100 / 2 ladders x2/3/4

Chins, +25 / 3 ladders x1/2/3

Topical ibuprofen seems to be doing good things for my shoulder and knee. Pain's not kicked and I don't expect it to be, but it's been blunted enough to lift through.

Still keeping the squats on the easy side until I'm confident of soft tissues being worked in.

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ThePman Senior member

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24-July

Squats, 150 / 3 singles, 160x1

Close-grip Bench, 110x2, 115 / 4 singles, 100 / 2 ladders x2/3/4

Chins, +25 / 3 ladders x1/2/3

Played around with my old low-bar style, bar down across the rear delts. Felt stable as ever, though as usual not really stronger since I won't risk the wide stance anymore. Topical ibuprofen is still helping the right shoulder/bicep/lat issue, even though it's trying its best to mess me up. I'm just going to keep benching through it.

Pretty modest session, still keeping everything low-key and as adrenaline-free as possible.

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Daz69 Senior member

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24-July

Topical ibuprofen is still helping the right shoulder/bicep/lat issue, even though it's trying its best to mess me up. I'm just going to keep benching through it.

.

Don't know if it means anything but I seem a bit like you, I have re-occurring injuries. Once one goes another seems to pop up, effecting gains & pissing me off...

Recently its been R/elbow Doc & instinct says to back off, rest, ice-pack, anti-I's...

That's what I've always done, never thought any different until I read some of your more recent work.. As usual it made perfect sense, so I decided to give it a go....

I've carried on training, with less weights because of the pain, but stuck with it.. No anti-I's..... When its hurt, I've kept it moving, either at the gym or at home with press-ups or pushing against a wall...

It swelled up, bloody hurt, but instead of ice-pack & rest, I've hit it again, & again... I've even got out of bed & worked it, never given it a rest..

Sort of like you have suggested forced the body to adapt & repair itself, but whilst under load...... Hoping it might adapt to what I'm doing & repair stronger

After 2 weeks, I hit it with 2 days of Anti-I's... swelling went down, I'm now back up to decent weights...

Normally my elbow takes up to 3 months to heal...

Don't know if its a lucky one off, or there is some scientific reasoning to it..

Great reading your journal, keep it up you've made some very impressive gains for a little guy...

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