Anyone interested in a group fitness challenge?

[Vutulaki]

The past week my sleep has been ridiculously bad, like I would be sleep deprived, finally fall asleep, then wake up again 3 hours later and not be able to fall asleep again. Every time I had a session lined up I didnt bother because I knew I would have trouble even getting to half the energy levels I should have for a session. With bench its not so bad because 1 session a week is enough to at least maintain or mostly maintain current strength, but my squat will definitely be affected by this.

I did a bench session today that was a modest success but I didnt kill it as much as I hoped I would. I moved up in weight another 2kg and to not be too ambitious I did sets of 5 with only 1 paused rep. Since I got the first 3 sets at the end of the 3rd I tried an extra pause rep and failed, though I was able to get it after a 20 second or so break. After this the number of reps I could manage deteriorated fast. All things considered I guess I should just be glad my strength hasnt seemed to deteriorate despite a week of terrible sleep, low activity, high stress messing up my nervous system, and eating just a little less than I probably should have. So despite all odds I didnt regress, which I guess is basically a win.

My delt still has a very slight pain, but I actually felt it more in the very light shoulder warm up that I do before a session than I actually did during the session, which makes me think it is basically fully healed. My bicep pain I expected to be gone but is still there a little. I need to do those concentration curls to help strengthen it. Havent made time for it yet but I will.

My one key takewaway here is that you went up in weight so youre still winning

What have you tried doing to address your sleep? Im not asking cause I have any advice more cause ive been getting 5ish hours per night myself, once im out I sleep like a log though which im grateful for, very very deep sleep with astral travel back and forward in time.

Was watching this last night, "sleep is the most anabolic substance known to man"



I want to age like a beast so I need to get my sleep dialed in early before what Rip talks about happening sets in

[Vutulaki]

Log sleep here too especially what worked and didnt

Maybe even a daily recipe, ive been mowing Anastasios' chicken and corn wraps, the kids love them too, we even get canned real mexican salsa thats decent

Also been tipping some of the pancake pre mix out and throwing 4 scoops of whey in and making pancakes for me and the boy, killer start to the day getting 100g of protein between that and my PWO shake before its even time to think about having lunch

Throw some more shit at me

[Anastasios]

Tonight's training

Bench press 150kg x 3
Cambered bar bench press 100kg x 12 RP 4 RP 1.5
Wide grip pullup negatives x 10,12,14

Again horrible. I am suspecting two possible factors making this current repeated failure.

One is that since I haven't deadlifted or squatted at high intensity for a while, I am not accustomed to this level of fatigue. I spaced out deads/squats and bench by one day so its monday1 dead/sq wednesday bench but this might not be enough and the fatigue is overlapping and making for a bad bench day. So to see if this is the issue, I am going to switch up my routine so mondays dead or squat, tuesday upper body hypertrophy, thursday lower body, friday bench. this way bench and deadlift/sq is further apart. Since bench is less taxing, I have two days inbetween bench and sq/dead while 3 days inbetween sq/dead and bench. If this doesn't work then it's back weakness because I keep having a hard time lowering and stabilizing the weight.

[penxv]

My back hasn't let me squat consistently for years. Ill do it for a while, then I have to back off.

[Anastasios]

The past week my sleep has been ridiculously bad, like I would be sleep deprived, finally fall asleep, then wake up again 3 hours later and not be able to fall asleep again. Every time I had a session lined up I didnt bother because I knew I would have trouble even getting to half the energy levels I should have for a session. With bench its not so bad because 1 session a week is enough to at least maintain or mostly maintain current strength, but my squat will definitely be affected by this.

I did a bench session today that was a modest success but I didnt kill it as much as I hoped I would. I moved up in weight another 2kg and to not be too ambitious I did sets of 5 with only 1 paused rep. Since I got the first 3 sets at the end of the 3rd I tried an extra pause rep and failed, though I was able to get it after a 20 second or so break. After this the number of reps I could manage deteriorated fast. All things considered I guess I should just be glad my strength hasnt seemed to deteriorate despite a week of terrible sleep, low activity, high stress messing up my nervous system, and eating just a little less than I probably should have. So despite all odds I didnt regress, which I guess is basically a win.

My delt still has a very slight pain, but I actually felt it more in the very light shoulder warm up that I do before a session than I actually did during the session, which makes me think it is basically fully healed. My bicep pain I expected to be gone but is still there a little. I need to do those concentration curls to help strengthen it. Havent made time for it yet but I will.

Do you drink coffee/use caffeine? I quit all caffeine stuff and my sleep and wakefulness is much better.

[Vutulaki]

My back hasn't let me squat consistently for years. Ill do it for a while, then I have to back off.

Going too heavy AND poor form

Anyway just dont squat, for me its essential but Im on board with those who say they dont need to especially if its just to look better/develop bigger quads

I didnt leg press for years thinking it was worthless but since adding them my squat is better and quads have blown up

[Luigi]

Ive tried the no screen time thing which doesnt work for me. I tried not eating late which helps a lot but not nearly enough. I only have caffeine on Mondays and Thursdays so probably thats not the issue. I should mention there have been multiple times in my life where I have had to work 12 hour days of manual labour and after that I would sleep at 9pm easy. But of course now I have a full time desk job so thats not an option.

For most of my life I have been getting 5-6 hours and dont mind that, the problem is more recently its gotten worse. The issue I think is increased stress and the fact that sometimes when Im working from home I get so tired I nap at lunch for an hour which probably just confuses my body.

[Anastasios]

Ive tried the no screen time thing which doesnt work for me. I tried not eating late which helps a lot but not nearly enough. I only have caffeine on Mondays and Thursdays so probably thats not the issue. I should mention there have been multiple times in my life where I have had to work 12 hour days of manual labour and after that I would sleep at 9pm easy. But of course now I have a full time desk job so thats not an option.

For most of my life I have been getting 5-6 hours and dont mind that, the problem is more recently its gotten worse. The issue I think is increased stress and the fact that sometimes when Im working from home I get so tired I nap at lunch for an hour which probably just confuses my body.

I make pizzas, I own and run the shop, work approx 360 days per year, from opening shop to closing. Sleeping is easy as long as I don't have caffeine. Screen time makes things bad but if I don't have the caffeine, work and go to gym, I fall asleep in front of the computer anyway lol. Maybe do some martial arts or other harder cardio could help you reset things. I would not be able to sleep normally if I worked in an office.

[Som-Pong]

You guys need to relax. I'm asleep by 21:00 and wake up around 05:00 every day. Usually have a cup of thai street coffee in the morning. Two glasses of spirits after dinner.

[penxv]

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