Hello, I’m going through a rough training period for the past few weeks/month. Going through some life changes right now and because of that I’ve been more depressed. I’ve had depression for a long time now honestly but this stretch in particular has been bad.
I’m on PB III, second time running it. And lately I haven’t been following the protocol. For example, I’ll not do the prescribed sets and reps, I’ll skip a certain exercise, or replace it with a similar exercise. Such as replacing squats with leg extensions just to hit the quads because I just don’t want to squat. Or I’ll just skip a workout entirely like today because motivation is just so low right now. On days that I do skip I try to do lots of push ups, pull ups, bodyweight squats, etc. just to keep active.
Because of all this my strength has gone down considerably. I’m probably using about 20lbs less than my normal working weights across most lifts. And strength seems to be going down each week. I’ve also unintentionally lost some weight as well, around 5lbs. Not eating as much, no surprise there.
How do you think I should go about this? I do want to get back to training like normal but I just have no motivation or incentive right now. And when I do, I just feel sad because I have to use lighter weights. It just feels like I took a major setback even though it’s only been a few weeks of this.
1 Like
Hey Andrew,
I hate to hear that you’re not feeling your best right now. While I’ve definitely been there before, it’s different for everyone and our shared experience doesn’t make it any easier.
I’d like to gently push back on a few things before making a recommendation, mostly because I think having a mutual understanding would be helpful.
- I don’t think using the reduction in weight being used is significant, as it’s well within the normal noise we see day-to-day.
- I don’t think losing 5lbs is necessarily contributory either, as this is almost certainly NOT primarily muscle mass anyway.
As far as what to do, I think making contact with your health care professional (ideally a mental health pro) is likely to be useful, especially if you’ve been dealing with this for a long time. I would not put this off.
I don’t generally like very specific programs (e.g. Powerlifting) when people have lots of life stress. It seems to me like you still enjoy being active and that you would be open to training, but it needs to be more fun….and be less anchored to performance on the Big 3. I’d be in favor of something like one of the Bodybuilding templates, picking exercises that you have little familiarity with, but can still do. I’d also be trying to get you to have a post workout meal/shake with ~ 30-40g pro and 60-80g carbs.
Not a perfect solution by any stretch, but that’s what I’d do!
-Jordan
2 Likes
Sorry for the late reply Jordan but thank you for all the help! I’ll look into everything. And you were exactly right. I decided to switch to a hypertrophy based program for now instead of powerlifting/building to give myself a break. And so far I’ve enjoyed these workouts.
Once again, thank you.
1 Like