Want to take a 1-2 week break. Could use some insight

@joshteo I’m an old guy (39) but what I have found in my 3 years of doing this so far…is when your joints and parts start to get that “zingy” pain zaps, you listen. Get a rest day in and deload if you need.

Your body will get the needed rest - either listen and do it on your own or enjoy the injury. :)
 
@joshteo I had to double back and make sure I read it right. Bro, 4 times a day is gratuitous. You’re not training right if you are able to workout 4 times a day unless they’re short ass workouts. Do you have rest days? You’re not going to make any gains if you’re overtaxing your entire body 24/7. Take a few days off, get on an actual program that makes sense for your goals and fitness level and stick to it. You will feel better and make way more progress.
 
@joshteo It’s probably a good idea to take a small break before a gaining phase, especially if you were lifting intensely while cutting. Maybe cut your volume and weight in half for two sessions and then rest the next two while eating at maintenance. When you move back into your cycle, go slow. If your body is talking to you like that, you’re risking injury.
 
@unbridledwild Hey I did. When I finished my cut the first week I trained about the same and saw I had more energy. Over next few sessions I started to increase slowly to get to my preferred rep range. Id like to cut my volume and weight in half but I have a good amount of pain and I wouldn’t want to risk injury. I tried to do less volume but it was still prevalent. Im not sure what I did wrong.. I used same form and was doing extremely controlled reps. I guess i might have just messed up
 
@joshteo Take a break, 1 or 2 weeks who cares. The likelihood of losing any muscle as a natty is next to 0%. Listen to your body and take care of yourself:)
 
@joshteo This has to be very naunced and multifaceted.
Starting off with your workout, you might wanna consider implementing Reactive Deload, where you reduce the volume and intensity for the body parts that are struggling to recover.
As an alternative you can just Implement a whole body Deload where you drop your training volume of all body parts down to 2-3 hard sets per muscle group/ week... (yes very sufficient and effective in retaining your strength)

Secondly, work around your injury:
Explore what kind of movements trigger your pain and replace them with other movements that are pain free (Exercise variation is your friend).
If you can't go heavy, tempo is your friend. A strategy to incorporate sufficient intensity and produce more mechanical tension when heavy load training is feasible.

If you feel you wanna take a whole lay-off from the gym and not training at all, you ought to maintain a good level of physical activity to promote your recovery and retain strength. Walking, jogging, running errands. Just move...

As per your nutrition, you should consider ceasing your cut ig you're into one.
Figure out your maintenance calories with your new activity level and jump back to it.. Getting adequate amount of energy is crucial for recovery.
And stick to 1.6g of protein per kg of body weight, this should be sufficient to retain your muscles.

Best of luck
 
@joshteo We all need breaks and your body is telling you. Hell, I took a month off like 4 months ago but I didn’t take a break at all for a long time, I burnt myself out, tired and hurt all the time. Listen to your body.
 
@joshteo Take up to a week, longer if you feel you need it but you likely won't. Eat at maintenance and train with half as many reps and half as many sets. You'll find your sessions are really quick, so you might just want to do 3x full body sessions for that week instead. Then start again. If you're doing cardio, keep to something low inseity like walking.

I just did this, felt awful and took about 4 days off and I'm feeling great now while cutting.
 

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