Job Making Me Weaker

So I picked up a second job working produce at a store for the summer for some extra cash. However, having worked construction, furniture, etc. in the past I wasn’t expecting to feel as fatigued at the end of a shift as I am. It’s been about three weeks now, but my deadlift has taken a hit, squat just stalled, and I’m afraid my other lifts are coming soon to follow suit. I’ve gotten decently strong over the past few months. I ran an LP type program and really went after it. My squat is 350 x 5, deadlift 435 x 3, bench 265 for 5 x 3, press is 190 for 5 x 3 (just did 200 after this last week and it flew up!) I am doing pendlay rows with 315 for 5’s, and am capable of 10 strict chins at a current body weight of 247-250lbs and 6 foot 2. I just turned 25…

Anyway, when I first got the job I thought it may be good gpp for me because coming from doing zero cardio or anything other than eating and lifting progressively anything more than the nothing I was doing is gpp to me. Hucking 40-100lb boxes for 8 hour days and constantly bending over seems like not much, but over the course of the day the repetitive motions fatigue my lower back, grip and legs especially. I am growing a bit annoyed because I spent so much time training, money getting coached and buying supplements, lifting gear, etc. just to have a job come along and chip away at my gainzzz. What can I do to combat this? I’ve been told just keep going you’ll get used to it but I really don’t know. I have a terribly low work capacity so anything added on top of the three days a week I currently train starts to affect my lifts. Hell, a day of yard work for the old neighbor lady made my squats go down 3 reps once!

I just started using 5g of creatine monohydrate once a day and it’s been about a month of that so far. Also just added in BCAA’s. What else should I do to make sure this becomes a summer of gainzz as opposed to a summer of lame? Should I jump on the bridge and start using rpe now? Or would this be a bad time due to transition with the job and everything?

It is true that you will adapt to this over time, and you must be patient with it – you have clearly stated that you have zero cardio history and a poor work capacity … so what’s going on should not be surprising.

However, an aggressive LP is probably not going to work well for you in this situation - so yes, switching programming approaches is probably indicated here.