I am going to start donating platelets again (been told donations are way down due to COVID), but was concerned about how long I should wait before a heavy training session. My plan is to donate on a day after I have already worked out to help with giving the veins time to heal.
I am in week 8 of the Beginner Prescription.
37yo
5’8 195lbs, 38" waist (on a cut from 223/41" waist to 180/34" waist since Nov '19)
e1RMs (lbs)
Squat 272
TnG Bench 194
Deadlift 277
OH Press 106
I definitely noticed a progression stall after I donated whole blood last week. Waited 3-4 days between donating and next lifting session. To make up for it I trained 3 days in a row this week (could have contributed to the progression stall). If I stay stalled because I reduced my recovery ability due to donations like this, should I move on to phase 3 based on the guidance of if you stall on 2 lifts move on?
Thanks for the post and for donating. That’s helpful!
In any case, we wouldn’t recommend modifying your programming at all, but just use RPE to manage the load selection. I don’t think that you can really say your donation hurt your progress last week compared to the acute fatigue increase from training 3 days in a row (which is also fine).
In short, we don’t tend to see a reliable drop in performance with blood donation and wouldn’t change anything about your programming to accommodate. Just train normally.
Good to know donating blood or platelets doesnt meaningfully impact training. Agree fatigue of 3 days in a row training had the bigger effect. Always lots of variables in this uncontrolled experiment with an n of 1 that I am running on myself.
Wasn’t sure how long the vein takes to heal after. Thanks for the reassurance.
Hope more people who can donate do. Worried about the health impacts on non-COVID cases during this tough time too.
