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fatigued as f**k

T

tasgymbrah

New member
Hey everyone,

I've been following the westside barbell program for a few months and due to sore knee joints I was unable to squat for about six weeks. One my max effort days for lower body I have been doing a deadlifts (and variants) warming up to a one rep max for one set, then 3 sets of 3 reps @ 90%. This was all going well, and I have been maxxing out at 245kg @ 95kg bodyweight.

I haven't maxxed out on bench for a while due to the fact that I train alone and don't have a spotter. I haven't done upper body yet this week, so am not sure if my performance has been affected on that. I have started squatting again, with a wide stance which was recommended to me due to my long legs putting a strain on my knees from narrow squats, which I think has helped.

This sunday I went to train and struggled to pull 225kg for a one rep max, then finished off doing 185kg x 3 for 3 sets. I was sluggish through the rest of the assistance exercises and even skipped a few exercises and finished early. I've been tired as shit lately, not eating as well as I used to and my appetite is shit.

My mate reckons I've been training heavy for too long. Please any opinions would help thanks.
 
Most people mistake lower back fatigue for general fatigue. I would look at that first. Also, strength will go up and down, it's no big deal really. Some weeks I feel like shit and I just switch to deadlifting and squatting variations that are easier on the lower back (pulls from blocks, front squats and so on) and then when my lower back recovers I switch back to the regular exercises. I'd limit any lower back assistance also but do some very high rep 45 degree hypers for a max pump. This tends to help me!
 
You can try getting more sleep, its free. For me 7-8 hrs a night is normal, but I try to get 9-10 once or twice a week. Seems to help stave off the beat-up/over-trained feeling. Yes I'm aware of the irony of posting this at 2am, that's because I took a nanny nap at 6pm that resulted in me sleeping solid till midnight, then waking up confused and seedy as hell =p
 
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I wouldn't be too concerned I have these all the time throughout the year.. take some time to get a bit more rest, maybe a few days off & just freshen up. You'll come back stronger. Good idea to get the diet back on track!
 
Doing Max Effort (ME) Deads all the time is going to be pretty harsh. There's a reason why a lot of people can squat heavy multiple times a week, yet can't pull heavy every week for a extended period of time. The stress from full range pull is a lot to recover from.

Like Oni said, a few other exercise variations should be rotated into your waves if you're not squatting.

Also doing 3x3 @90% AFTER your ME work is a bit much and could be contributing to the fatigue.

Are you working in waves for the ME and DE (Dynamic Effort) work?

What stance do you use for box squats if you do them? If used properly the wide stance box squat can help with the sore knee's. Keep in mind that it will be a little different than your free squat but it will allow you to work around the sore knees's.
 
I have been changing up the deadlift exercise each week (rack pull, defecit deads, regular). Until recently was just doing deadlifts and variations for max effort on lower body day beacause I had some joint issues in my knees. Last week I trained light to give my self a bit of a rest. I am incorporating squats back into my routine now as my knees are better, I am squatting with a sumo, low bar stance now as I find it is kinder on my joints.
 
My workouts aren't feeling as intense at the moment, I will have another deload week this week to give my central nervous system a rest.
 
IMO unless you are at an elite level and therefore a highly skilled and efficient lifter, a full de-load week is just wasting valuable time, and if anything allows you to become 'de-conditioned', like this guy says:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_adfaC9VN4]Deloading and Taking A Week Off - YouTube[/ame]

For example on 531 I like to do 'mini-deloads' where I just have a session or two of not exceeding ~%80 for a triple, but still lifting as explosively as possible. I find doing this a few days into the 'deload' week I'm feeling ready and eager to go heavy/volume again.

I'm curious as to how Westside programming works for raw/natty lifters, there seems to be a popular view that it only works properly for equipped lifters on gear - Having tried it for a few months, what kind of gains/opinions do you have on it?
 
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I've never done Westside but Chad Wesley Smith wrote a great article on it.
He essentially said switch box squats for explosive regular squats, don't do bands and keep your ME lifts very specific.

Remember that you need to develop the BOTTOM for a raw lifter. No one misses at the top. This means paused and halting reps and anything that uses a larger range of motion or a mechanical disadvantage. None of this board press or good morning shite. I think some raw lifters use a 1 board press though which isn't really very different to a raw press...
 
tasgymbrah said:
My workouts aren't feeling as intense at the moment, I will have another deload week this week to give my central nervous system a rest.
Click to expand...

Planned deload's like in 5/3/1 are useful but I think even then it's a bit much taking one every 4 weeks. Thats 3 months out of the year deloaded.

I do my deloads as follows:

Week 1-3 Normal Training
Week 4 Deload on ME work, assistance only. Work up to a heavy double on DE days.
Week 5-6 Normal Training
Week 7 Deload on DE work, assistance only.

Start over.

Picking ME exercises is simple, have 3-4 for each lift and stick with them. You can go for rep PR's, weight PR's or volume PR's (where you did more total work than the previous week).
 
0ni said:
I've never done Westside but Chad Wesley Smith wrote a great article on it.
He essentially said switch box squats for explosive regular squats, don't do bands and keep your ME lifts very specific.

Remember that you need to develop the BOTTOM for a raw lifter. No one misses at the top. This means paused and halting reps and anything that uses a larger range of motion or a mechanical disadvantage. None of this board press or good morning shite. I think some raw lifters use a 1 board press though which isn't really very different to a raw press...
Click to expand...

Using both box squats and regular paused/explosive squats for DE days is something that I've found yields the best of both worlds. Time will tell if it holds true lol

I wouldn't say no one misses at the top when it comes to raw lifters. I can think of a handful of my strongman mates who miss deads and squats at the top. So bands (not reverse) and chains do come in handy there if used properly for a main movement. Boards, pin movements and good mornings should, 90% of the time, be used as an assistance exercise only.

Do you remember what that article was called? I always like Chad's stuff.
 
bams_101 said:
Using both box squats and regular paused/explosive squats for DE days is something that I've found yields the best of both worlds. Time will tell if it holds true lol

I wouldn't say no one misses at the top when it comes to raw lifters. I can think of a handful of my strongman mates who miss deads and squats at the top. So bands (not reverse) and chains do come in handy there if used properly for a main movement. Boards, pin movements and good mornings should, 90% of the time, be used as an assistance exercise only.

Do you remember what that article was called? I always like Chad's stuff.
Click to expand...

I miss deads at the top, I can't imagine missing a squat at the top though, my quarter squat is 100kg more than my parallel squat.
 
Oh yeah people miss deads at the top. I meant squat and bench really.
Im on phone but article is called how i would westside
 
I checked out the articel "how I would westside" and it says:

Lower your percentages from what is outlined to ovoid break down of body. What do you think I should lower it to?

Wear gear (briefs, loose suit) to protect your body and overload the movement and train you central nervous system. What is your opinion on this? I always thought it was best to train without gear to build up stabilising muscles. I rarely wear a weight belt, am I doing it wrong?
 
I wouldn't wear gear. Probably could do with briefs IF you box squat though. I can't box squat for shit and would not be able to without briefs... you don't need to box squat though.

For percentages, he means on the DE day I suspect. Just pick the weight that allows you to move the weight the fastest. This is the point of DE work there is no magic percentage
 
I want to compete with CAPO and they allow knee wraps for squats (please correct me if wrong), should I be wearing them during training?

Are weight belts just one of those things that people seem to think benefits them as I always see big guys at the gym wearing them for everything?
 
Wear them for your ME competition style squats once you get to about 80-85% of your max. Or you can alternate between the two, treat them as two different exercise variations and so on. It really does not matter, strong is strong.

Belts are good and you need one if you want to be competitive in a fed that allows 2.5m wraps in raw. Unless you're really good at squatting and want to embarrass people for even showing up lol.
 
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