Combatting the exhaustion in between sessions?

[JohnBoy2000]

Of weight lifting.

My sessions are mostly posterior based which involves olympic lifts, deadlifts and rackpulls or clean pulls, squats, overhead press and a little bicep work.

Then finish up with anterior work which is core work, normally being low repetition high intensity drills to failure: ab roller, GHD machine situps, invert situps on the invert bench, and some other ab/core drills. Primary focus is the lower abs.

Takes about two hours or sometimes more, and on days in between or rest days I get so exhausted I actually experience depression.

I spoke to my ultra cool Dr who's familiar with my case history and he agreed to prescribe methylphenidate twice daily, and a dose of codeine to manage the exhaustion and fatigue related sides.

Just curious does anyone experience this and what's your management regiment?

 

[paranoid android]

RRitalin and codeine for exhaustion? That is you cool doc indeed lol. I sometimes take rritalin as a pre work out and it works great.

 

[JohnBoy2000]

RRitalin and codeine for exhaustion? That is you cool doc indeed lol. I sometimes take rritalin as a pre work out and it works great.

It certainly can.

Amphetamines are horrible though.

This combination makes physiological stress much more tolerable for me at present.

 

[paranoid android]

It certainly can.

Amphetamines are horrible though.

This combination makes physiological stress much more tolerable for me at present.

Ritalin isnt as bad for you as amphetamines though

 

[JohnBoy2000]

Ritalin isnt as bad for you as amphetamines though

For sure.

I firmly believe amphetamines are toxic dreck.

Ritalin hardly affects my HR at all, nice and smooth. And it can boost strength where amphetamines made me noticeable weaker with worse cardio.

 

[JohnBoy2000]

Though what I've noticed is in my case, ritalin makes me feel like I constantly need to use the bathroom.

Constantly.

Even when I don't.

And even after I've already basically emptied my bladder.

It's horrible.

I thought it was largely side effect free but nothing in life is free.

 

[Serotonin101]

I feel like your volume is likely too much for your schedule. You're doing large compound lifts and a bunch of them. Your exhaustion is your body telling you to rest.

The way I recover from exhaustion is lowering volume of lifts, whether reducing number of exercises, reps, sets, or days entirely. Some weeks I lift 4 days, some 3, some 5. When I had less physical demands such as when I was in grad school I'd do 6 days per week sometimes

 

[JohnBoy2000]

RRitalin and codeine for exhaustion? That is you cool doc indeed lol. I sometimes take rritalin as a pre work out and it works great.

Do you ever find it leaves you feeling a little weaker, say the next day?

I got this heavily with amphetamines, they clearly made me weaker physically.

Ritalin I don't know.

I've been feeling not as strong as normal the last couple weeks, and I've been dosing ritalin almost daily (40 mg).

 

[ageingpartyfiend]

I've been feeling not as strong as normal the last couple weeks, and I've been dosing ritalin almost daily (40 mg).

It's all 'borrowed' energy, that's why

 

[JohnBoy2000]

I feel like your volume is likely too much for your schedule. You're doing large compound lifts and a bunch of them. Your exhaustion is your body telling you to rest.

The way I recover from exhaustion is lowering volume of lifts, whether reducing number of exercises, reps, sets, or days entirely. Some weeks I lift 4 days, some 3, some 5. When I had less physical demands such as when I was in grad school I'd do 6 days per week sometimes

This is probably closer to the mark.

I'm finding after about two weeks of lower intensity and lower volume work, I'm gradually getting a little actual strength back.

Over the past couple weeks I focused almost exclusively on gentle body weight exercises, primarily core work, which I needed to establish a solid program on anyways.

Each time I tried to do barbell work or anything heavy, my body just said "not happening".

After a couple weeks off though I'm gradually getting that power back.

Kind of like a de-load period was required.

After returning to working out recently after so many years off, I went excessive on the volume doing every possible exercise, as a means to figure out what my routine should look like.

Eventually out of shock as much as anything I think I just needed a rest/reset period.

 

[Serotonin101]

De loads have their place in periodization as well. Typically it's enough time for the body to recover without any actual tissue loss, allowing neuroendocrine chemicals to decline to normal range (cortisol, epinephrine, etc) to optimize for growth again or at least lessen the chance of catabolism.

Typically those that can handle large volume of exercise are those with very sedentary lifestyles that can basically rest the rest of the day outside of the gym. And by rest I mean eat ad lib, nap, etc. When I worked in a factory doing 12 hr days I'd hit the gym 3-4 days a week max. When I was a college student (and older) I was able to do 6 days easily because I could nap and eat during the middle of the day lol