New To Peat: Weightlifting?

Cirion

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TL;DR - what should my weightlifting routine look like when trying to heal my endocrine system?

I come from a background of intense weightlifting, and have slowly toned it down over the years. At my peak (which probably helped trash my health), I was powerlifting training using 5/3/1, Starting Strength, etc. I made a lot of gains, but I also trashed my endocrine system.

Now I'm going to a top-end coaching facility, that tends to focus on health more than gains per-se, although they actually train a lot of more elite clients like professional baseball players in particular, and I know of one Olympic athlete they train as well. It's very expensive ($300/month), but I can say that I've learned a lot since going there, and they have helped a lot of my chronic aches and pains go away (I used to have chronic left shoulder pain, lower back pain etc) so they have done a great job of teaching me the proper movements to do to avoid problems.

However, as good as they are, now that we've passed the remedial exercises to fix my pains, and now we actually train heavy-ish again, I STILL feel like I'm overtraining - even though I only workout 3x a week, and each workout isn't insanely long (around 45 min). I don't feel anywhere near the symptoms I did from way back in my powerlifting days, but I do feel like this still negatively impacts my endocrine system. I don't feel horny after workouts (ironically, some of my lowest intensity workouts, I do), and I often feel a lower desire for a while afterwards as well. I told some of this to my trainer, so he told me to take a week off training which I did, and after that I did have some positive effects, but then slowly after incorporating workouts it started to degrade again. I remember reading here from another forum member that if you are not feeling an increased sexual appetite after a workout, then it's a waste of your time because it's not increasing your T (which is the whole point of working out - improve your endocrine system).

I have a contract with them for the rest of the year, so it'd be a waste of my hard earned cash to stop now, so what do you think I should do / tell them?

I really like these guys, and trust them SIGNIFICANTLY more than myself to design a well-balanced workout routine that results in symmetry rather than too much bench pressing or squatting, for example, which I tended to do when I tried to train myself, so it'd be a shame to ditch them entirely. I'm afraid if I went my own way, my problems would return because I wouldn't train with symmetry properly.
 

YourUniverse

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Damn, that's so cool. We have a similar lifting background, I've done start strength and "Texas method" style lifting myself.

I felt exactly how you felt, just drained, annoying aches and pains (shoulder, T-spine right side), symptoms of overtraining like irritability and etc.

Personally I think my problem was related to intensity. Without realizing, I was pushing to failure too often. If a set was 5 reps, I would tend towards doing a 5-rep max, instead of leaving 1 or 2 reps in the tank.

Do you think it could be a fried CNS?
 
T

tca300

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Lower reps, with lengthy rest periods. Not getting out of breath. If they have hydraulic concentric machines maybe focus on those. Or if they have airdynes, rowing machines, bikes, those can all be used at a low intensity allowing you to focus on concentric exercise, which is restorative/anabolic to the mitochondria.
 

Sobieski

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Same situation here; I believe many of my health problems stem from weightlifting. Give it a break for a few months. No lifting; you'll be surprised how much muscle you retain. Start back either doing very light 'pump' workouts or calisthenics.

Having a week off is not enough to get your hormones working properly. I know it can be hard to stop; it took me a slipped disc and torn ligament to finally have a break and it was the wake up call I needed. Plenty of rest, saturated fat, carbs and protein are your friends. I'm speaking from experience.
 
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Cirion

Cirion

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Damn, that's so cool. We have a similar lifting background, I've done start strength and "Texas method" style lifting myself.

I felt exactly how you felt, just drained, annoying aches and pains (shoulder, T-spine right side), symptoms of overtraining like irritability and etc.

Personally I think my problem was related to intensity. Without realizing, I was pushing to failure too often. If a set was 5 reps, I would tend towards doing a 5-rep max, instead of leaving 1 or 2 reps in the tank.

Do you think it could be a fried CNS?

Oh yes, I'm familiar with Texas method as well. I've done just about every PL routine that's out there lol. My biggest bench press occurred when I had this one crazy PL coach that had us max out just about every session. I kinda miss those days. Topped out at a 270lb bench press (damn, heavy weights are no joke. I'm not even as strong as some, I can't imagine how heavy 405+ feels in your hands, even 270 felt like I was trying to bench press a house...) So much fun, hard to quit. before I took a break from PL and around a 4 plate squat (Not sure exact 1RM, but did around 355 for 5 reps I believe). I wanna get back there one day, but with being healthy doing so.

Lower reps, with lengthy rest periods. Not getting out of breath. If they have hydraulic concentric machines maybe focus on those. Or if they have airdynes, rowing machines, bikes, those can all be used at a low intensity allowing you to focus on concentric exercise, which is restorative/anabolic to the mitochondria.

I agree, I do better when the sets aren't extremely difficult. Even still, I feel a hit to my stress levels. I guess if you're not healthy, even lighter exercise can negatively impact you.

Same situation here; I believe many of my health problems stem from weightlifting. Give it a break for a few months. No lifting; you'll be surprised how much muscle you retain. Start back either doing very light 'pump' workouts or calisthenics.

Having a week off is not enough to get your hormones working properly. I know it can be hard to stop; it took me a slipped disc and torn ligament to finally have a break and it was the wake up call I needed. Plenty of rest, saturated fat, carbs and protein are your friends. I'm speaking from experience.

Sorry to hear man, I hear ya. The wake up call for me was almost tearing my pectoral muscle on the left side, 8/10 back pain, chronic neck pain to name a couple. Oh, and the feeling like I had micro fractures in my ribs (argh).

I guess the fact is I just need super light workouts (or none at all) until I'm healed. Just trying to figure out how to get the most out of the money I'm spending on my coaches in the meantime...

Some of the members around here train very infrequently (every 4-7 days) it seems, and when they do train, it's super brief (as short as 15-20 minutes).

Seems like the super brief workouts are the way to go. Happened to read somewhere in the life of a millionaire what he does every day, and every day he has a super short 15-20 minute workout session or so. I think the average person is deluded on how much training is required to elicit muscle/strength gains. I bet a lot of this stemmed from people on AAS. With AAS, your endocrine system can be better regulated even with intense, frequent training, which in turn allows you to do these 1-2+ hour long sessions every day, while still getting benefits from them. Average joe is not going to get these benefits, unless perhaps you're a teenager and eating all food in sight...
 

Ulysses

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Are you training to failure?
 
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Cirion

Cirion

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Are you training to failure?

Almost never these days. I now kinda feel like even getting close to failure is not wise... even doing that seems to negatively impact me. I guess that's something that will improve with better hormonal balance though. And I never, ever do 1RM's anymore. If I do hit failure, it's generally on a high rep set like 15 reps or something.
 

Ulysses

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Almost never these days. I now kinda feel like even getting close to failure is not wise... even doing that seems to negatively impact me. I guess that's something that will improve with better hormonal balance though. And I never, ever do 1RM's anymore. If I do hit failure, it's generally on a high rep set like 15 reps or something.
I totally agree. I think the further you stay from failure the better these symptoms will be. Maybe try switching to a higher volume, lower intensity regimen. That should decrease the burden on your nervous system.
 

Spartan300

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Same boat as OP here.

I think mine has been a cumulative effect over a couple of decades as I'm the wrong side of 50 now. Workouts were leaving me washed out, no progress and libido killers.

I've been trying to work it out for a the last couple of years and slowly making some progress towards getting more productive sessions recently. Upping calories definitely helps.

Avoiding other stresses in life also helps if possible and recently using some estroban seems to have made me more physically resilient. Maybe I was deficient in fat solubles. Libido slowly improving too.

If I could sleep soundly right through the night that would make a big difference. One the fleeting occasions this has happened I feel like I'm 25 again.....
 
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Cirion

Cirion

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I totally agree. I think the further you stay from failure the better these symptoms will be. Maybe try switching to a higher volume, lower intensity regimen. That should decrease the burden on your nervous system.

This month that's basically what we're doing. Only two some what intense exercises per workout (for EX: upper body - Alternate DB bench 15 deg incline with horizontal rows, 3 sets each 15 reps. There are two other exercises but they're light - also 3 set 15 reps or so (light DB flyes with the purpose being full ROM and lots of stretch, so I have been sticking to super light weights), alongside face pulls. That's it, done. Sad thing is I feel like even that has been negatively impacting me. My endocrine system is so messed up haha.

A gauge I've used for health as well as feeling horny after a workout, is DURING it... in the rare few times I've felt exceptionally good, I'll actually pop a boner DURING a workout, which is a little embarrassing though haha!!! Especially one or two times where it happened while doing hip extensions lol.... #firstworldproblems Still, that's my goal is to get back to situations like that. That's how I know my endocrine system is cranking away :thumbsup:
 

Ulysses

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This month that's basically what we're doing. Only two some what intense exercises per workout (for EX: upper body - Alternate DB bench 15 deg incline with horizontal rows, 3 sets each 15 reps. There are two other exercises but they're light - also 3 set 15 reps or so (light DB flyes with the purpose being full ROM and lots of stretch, so I have been sticking to super light weights), alongside face pulls. That's it, done. Sad thing is I feel like even that has been negatively impacting me. My endocrine system is so messed up haha.
Maybe trying decreasing frequency for a while, and see how that goes? When I was a competitive cyclist we used to train with weights during the off-season and then maintain our gains during the season by lifting once a week. IIRC, you can maintain over 90% of your gains by doing this. So you’d lose a little strength, but the improved CNS function might be worth the tradeoff.
 

Sobieski

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To put it into perspective, the standard protocol for world class weightlifters prior to the spread of AAS was 3 days a week, full body. That's world class lifters. Old time professional strong men trained frequently, but lightly, treating their training as practice. Training heavy was called 'training on the nerve' and was seen as a recipe for disaster.

Endocrine problems are rampant amongst natural lifters who try to train like pros, or even bros who use aas. I would say the majority of people who pursue maximal strength as a hobby will have low test.
 

Ulysses

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To put it into perspective, the standard protocol for world class weightlifters prior to the spread of AAS was 3 days a week, full body. That's world class lifters. Old time professional strong men trained frequently, but lightly, treating their training as practice. Training heavy was called 'training on the nerve' and was seen as a recipe for disaster.

Endocrine problems are rampant amongst natural lifters who try to train like pros, or even bros who use aas. I would say the majority of people who pursue maximal strength as a hobby will have low test.
+1
 
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Cirion

Cirion

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To put it into perspective, the standard protocol for world class weightlifters prior to the spread of AAS was 3 days a week, full body. That's world class lifters. Old time professional strong men trained frequently, but lightly, treating their training as practice. Training heavy was called 'training on the nerve' and was seen as a recipe for disaster.

Endocrine problems are rampant amongst natural lifters who try to train like pros, or even bros who use aas. I would say the majority of people who pursue maximal strength as a hobby will have low test.

Makes sense, and agreed. That being said, I feel convinced that a natural can get strong and jacked without AAS, and without trashing endocrine system, but it requires a drastically different view of training than what we're used to seeing. I feel like once you get a healthy endocrine system, the gains will come faster anyway. Sometimes, less is actually more when it comes to gains. You may not break world records this way, but I'll take a ripped, healthy body / healthy mind, pretty strong (but not world record strong) over a strong, fat, unhealthy as f*** body any day. I've done the whole getting strong, fat, unhealthy thing... it's fun for a bit, but not long term, and I'm not doing that again.

I actually do want to compete in bodybuilding / powerlifting (at least one of the two) one day, but I'm determined to find a way to do it without killing my health.
 

YourUniverse

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A gauge I've used for health as well as feeling horny after a workout, is DURING it... in the rare few times I've felt exceptionally good, I'll actually pop a boner DURING a workout, which is a little embarrassing though haha!!! Especially one or two times where it happened while doing hip extensions lol.... #firstworldproblems Still, that's my goal is to get back to situations like that. That's how I know my endocrine system is cranking away :thumbsup:
I've never had this happen, what do you think are the circumstances you're under when u get that? Like maybe after a deload, great night's sleep, ate a decent meal an hour prior?
 
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Cirion

Cirion

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I've never had this happen, what do you think are the circumstances you're under when u get that? Like maybe after a deload, great night's sleep, ate a decent meal an hour prior?

This actually happened just a couple weeks ago. I had just taken a full week off of the gym, and was doing high calories the whole week I took off (4000 calories most days). The diet was very high fat, moderate carb, moderate protein (something like 250g fat, 200-250g protein, 150-250g carb if I recall right). I was getting as much sleep as I could, and had some caffeine but not a lot (100-200 mg caffeine a day or so). Another secret is nofap, I firmly believe this is one of the keys to a super healthy endocrine system. I feel so much better on nofap. I actually had a stint of nofap I did a couple years back, where the libido was even higher than this - that I so wish I could recreate. My sex drive was so high, that I'd get very close to orgams with literally zero stimulation (like just sitting the car driving somewhere). I'm telling ya, if you haven't experienced this before, which it sounds like you haven't... it's totally out of this world and AMAZING. 99% of guys are missing out by never experiencing what high T feels like. Plus my confidence and such was out of this freaking world.

This is part of what brought me to Peat this past week or so. I want to be able to maintain this feeling.
 
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Cirion

Cirion

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Also, you mentioned you are new to Peat. What does your diet look like?

Right now I'm trying to follow the rules as best as I can. I had my first full day yesterday. Which was grass fed beef, apples, grapes, mozz cheese primarily. Almost 5000 calories! lol... I think I had too high fat though, so trying to tone that down. 150g fat, 650g carb. Today I'm having 2% milk, pineapple, and a few eggs so far. I've been neurotic about counting calories for years, so I'm trying to not count calories (though I'm tracking) and just eat whenever I feel like I need to, in order to repair my endocrine system.

From what I've seen, I think one of the biggest tricks to a healthy endocrine system is calories, LOTS of them. I always feel so good on 4000-5000+ calories a day. My problem has always been though, how to not get fat eating so much. I think part of that is eating the right foods. Aka no pufa, probably try to limit fats, get lots of sugar, and try to eat whole foods as much as possible and not so much liquid calories to maximize nutritional content.

I will say though, that I'm pretty sure that the time in my life I felt the absolute BEST, I was coming off of a Keto lifestyle. Take that for what you will. 300g fat a day or so. I tried to go high fat again recently, and it did actually result in feeling fairly good, but not as good as it did back then. Anyway, as good as Keto can actually feel sometimes, I still feel it's not optimal, as it's almost impossible to stay lean on Keto. The amount of fat you intake on a daily basis makes it impossible (almost) to actually burn bodyfat stores.
 
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YourUniverse

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Are weight lifting boners necessarily akin to high T though? And does nofap appear to increase T? Nofap should lower prolactin, increasing dopamine, but it hasn't proven to have a long-term T boosting effect. Also, the erections may be from nitric oxide more than T. There are threads which examine the relationship between libido and estrogen, you may enjoy them
 

Sobieski

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Makes sense, and agreed. That being said, I feel convinced that a natural can get strong and jacked without AAS, and without trashing endocrine system, but it requires a drastically different view of training than what we're used to seeing. I feel like once you get a healthy endocrine system, the gains will come faster anyway. Sometimes, less is actually more when it comes to gains. You may not break world records this way, but I'll take a ripped, healthy body / healthy mind, pretty strong (but not world record strong) over a strong, fat, unhealthy as f*** body any day. I've done the whole getting strong, fat, unhealthy thing... it's fun for a bit, but not long term, and I'm not doing that again.

I actually do want to compete in bodybuilding / powerlifting (at least one of the two) one day, but I'm determined to find a way to do it without killing my health.
Yes, essentially you have to be intelligent about your training, however there isn't much material out there that is any use other than this forum for being fit in both a muscular sense and endocrine sense. Welcome btw!
 

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