ME work and CNS burnout

[Sean J Hunter]

OK,

So I'm back in the game after the craziest 12 month contract I've ever had.

Lost about 20% of my limit strength, I was at around CF Advanced levels +-

Starting with a basic ramped linear program to get those old gains back fast, wait until I hit the newbie barrier and switch over to Wendeks 5-3-1 or DT or something like that.

So here's the deal I'm completely farked after this contract, my CNS is fried, total adrenal burnout.

I'm tired as hell all the time, now don't get me wrong this is part in parcel for what I do fo a living, I basically work 80 hour weeks for 6-9 months, completely destroy myself, and then do sweet nothing for a few months as I recover and look for my next contract. so this CNS burnout I'm used to.

What's new to me is lifting heavy while I recover.

My program right now as stated above is very very simple.

Rest day
Lift day A
Rest Day
Lift day B

Not rocket science

Lift A = DL+BP (Ramping Linear gains of either 5, 3, or 1 RM)
Lift B = LBBS+SP (Ramping Linear gains of either 5, 3, or 1 RM)

That's it, no running, no WOD right now, just that. My training resource is squat until I recover the CNS destroyed bythis contract.

I don't see this program frying my CNS especially at the levels I'm lifting, 300# DL kinda stuff.

Any thoughts from experianced folks, will this imped my CNS recovery, or is the volumn and weights a joke and I shouldn't worry about it

Cheers in advance

Sean

[Terry Gibbs]

Sean, not sure what you do, or how you "sustain yourself through 80 hour weeks", but when I was pushing 60-70 hours a week for a few years I certainly abused caffine and sugar.

First suggestion is go through your diet and get rid of the uppers. Without going cold turkey (amd man will you feel exhausted when you do",) it will be hard to do a recovery.

good luck

[Joe Bernard]

Lifting heavy is not going to help in recovering from CNS burnout, the best thing you can do is take some time off and wait for your body to get better, then start back slowly. The absolute weight does not matter, it's how heavy it is relative to you, and trying to doing LP while being burned out is a bad idea. Cortisol is catabolic and suppresses testosterone, so having high levels of it in your body and trying to train through it with something as intense as LP is futile as gains will be minimal and will only hurt your situation. How many times have you gone through this cycle of burnout and recovery?

I'm in the same boat as you with the adrenal fatigue stuff (though not due to work), I'm tired all the time, sleep sucks, etc. I got the results of a saliva test last week and my cortisol is highly elevated all the time, twice the amount of normal levels. I'm currently in the middle of some time off, this Wednesday will mark one month off from working out. Yea it sucks not working out but your body will thank you for not pounding it even further into the ground by working out hard (yes LP is hard). Just think what would happen if you do this workout plan for three months, don't recover from burnout, and then have a new contract?

[Sean J Hunter]

Hey Joe,

Great advice man, I've cycled this probably a dozen times, their normally shorter contracts 4-6 months with a few months off inbetween.

It LP to regain lost strength that is a little different then classic LP stuff. Hence my thought that I'm taxing the CNS not enough, also their ramped not straight across so less total load carried.

Looks like I'm gonna take my usual overtraining drill, and just lay back, clean-up the diet and sleep and life habits before I try to squeeze in the lift stuff.

Cheers for the confirmation guys.

Sean

[Joe Bernard]

Here's a good thread on adrenal fatigue from Robb Wolf's forum: http://*************/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=221 (wfs) Ignore the part about the linear progression workout, Josh has recently stopped it and has been taking time off from working out because it was causing him feel worse. Beside sleep, a main point from that thread is to increase carbs in the form of safe starches because gluconeogensis is a stressor as well.

Ramping is not as bad as sets across, but even though it's regaining lost strength it's still taxing (which increases cortisol), and you want to minimize the amount of stress you put your body through while recovering. Good move to lay off the iron for awhile.

Edit: Ugh, forgot about the censor stuff. The asterisks should read: r o b b w o l f. c o m, take out the spaces.

[Sean J Hunter]

Cheers Mate

S