(This turned out to be much longer than I anticipated. Feel free to skip it if you don't have the time.)
I found a couple articles about HRV (Heart Rate Variability) tracking and how it can be used for determining readiness for workouts. Here are a couple of links, in case you're curious. One article gets into the weeds a bit, but they're both pretty good.
How To Use HRV.
Heart Rate Variability (HRV) for Training and Recovery.
I was led to look into it while reading a different fitness article, where one of the interviewees (a body builder, if I recall correctly) mentioned that he normally had a resting HRV of almost 70. My 1st thought was 'bullshit', that he was lying, and that it wasn't possible, so this morning, I went looking for data on what a typical HRV is for men (I was wrong, obvs). It decreases with age for both men and women, but one article I found had this image in it. The article says that the most common HRV for men is about 40, and it can range up to 160 in elite athletes, but that nobody really lands below 15, which implies serious stress.
I mention this because 1) even though I'm not consistent within any given year, I've been working out (both weights and sometimes running) with no more than a 3 or so month break, for at least 14 years (I've got a spreadsheet from 2008, and I know I was working out before then). and 2) for someone who's been working out for this long, my HRV should be much better. My current 'I just took a week off & feel pretty good' HRV is typically around 37-38. When I'm working out (as I have been recently), it will range anywhere from a high of 21-22, to a low of 17, the next morning, and it usually takes a couple days to get into the mid 20s. This happens consistently, every week.
It also turns out a lack of sleep/recovery can lead to a low HRV score, and anyone who reads me knows of my struggle with getting adequate sleep. So what I think is going on, is that quite simply, I'm over-training. I think the stress of trying to lift too heavy/too often is causing my body's 'fight or flight' mode to remain active constantly, and my 'rest & digest' mode to disappear. This would explain a lot of what's going on with me - the difficulty in getting to/staying asleep, the constant inflammation, the digestive issues (which cause me to not be able to eat correctly, or at all sometimes), the back issues, the stubbornness of my body holding on to fat stores & not building muscle as it should, and my inability to get anywhere with running again.
I came to this conclusion after seeing this image in the 2nd linked article. If you look at the lowest (dotted - training too hard) line, that's what my mind intuitively recognized as what I've been going through. Train too much, get wiped out, finally recover to near baseline, then do it again, making me regress rather than progress.
So, tonight I made some changes to the workout spreadsheet I'd made for the next couple months, drastically lowering both the amount of weight, and the volume of work. I will be trying out the 1st day tomorrow, and then on Sunday. Not sure if I'll be lifting 3 or 5 days a week yet, but 2 of those 5 days would be just light accessory work, which shouldn't stress me out much. Even if I drop them, the other days will also feel easier, as I've cut the weights by 35-45%, and just upped the reps a bit. Also, I've cut down the number of 'Events' training on my strongman Sundays by 50% (3 lifts, rather than 6-7) as well as lightening up the loads.
I'm hopeful this will fix things so I can get back to feeling healthy again, but I also hope I don't feel restless, like I'm not doing enough. It's difficult to pull back mentally from what you used to be able to handle. I have this slight fear that I'm going to feel like a slacker if I'm not pushing myself to my limits, you know? I guess time will tell.
So maybe in another few weeks, I'll actually have something new about which to write?
5:30 p.m. - 2022-08-04
Recent entries:
Couldn't have explained it better - 2022-08-31
New Pointless Crush - 2022-08-31
Long-ish update. - 2022-08-27
Unwitting detriment. - 2022-08-13
Hormones? - 2022-08-09
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