Hey. Im an organic farmer. Back to weight training consistently for the first time since COVID. About three months in, transitioning to The Bridge after SS NLP was petering out. Simultaneously the farming season is starting and Im shoveling compost for hours a week, etc. My elbows and shoulders are getting wrecked, just now cut a workout short after failing a squat and an extremely weak bench press. Afforementiones joints are effed up, very painful, and legs feel empty and weak. My body is saying “f**cking stop doing this to me”. What should I do? My impulse is to take at least a week off from lifting.
Jem,
Sorry to hear you’re not feeling well. I suspect most, if not all, of these issues are due to NLP, as it tends to force people into training way too close to failure, too often, with little variation. These are all pretty big risk factors for exercise-induced injury and high levels of fatigue.
In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter if you take a week off. However, I’d recommend changing programs instead, doing a deload week, and never run NLP again. The Bridge isn’t really setup for the type of deload I’d recommend. I’d favor General S/C I or Hypertrophy I instead.
-Jordan
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Thanks Jordan, I have Hypertrophy 1 but havent run it before. I see the lower RPE prescriptions, makes sense to use it. Should I run it as-is or alter the first week as a deload? Not sure exactly what constitutes a deload, so your input would be welcome.
The first week is a deload for that program, which is likely enough to get you over the hump IMO.
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