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08-30-21 08:48 AM - Post#912917
I can agree with that Brian. My first real training break came with my first child. Didn’t work out for 8 weeks. Over the 3 years since his birth I’ve taken more 2-6 week breaks.
It’s eye opening when you start taking breaks and doing less - less volume, less intensity, less frequency, all of it - and ultimately suffer no ill effects in daily life. Really, the surprising part is when things get better. Better sleep, better mood, less aches and pains. The other eye opener came when, during one of these breaks, I got significantly faster and quicker while playing hockey. Then one asks, if the heavy weights aren't even making me better at sports why bother... especially if it's holding you back.
The only thing that tends to change for the worse is how you look.
I had another aha moment this last weekend. I haven’t really trained with weights much lately and frequency/intensity has been low. 2 days a week maybe and most of the summer was doing armor of war body weight stuff. My gym lifts are way down. It’s embarrassing. Demo’d the bathroom this weekend. Ripped out an old metal tub and cut out the old moldy walls. I swear the tub was 1/16 or 3/32 sheet metal. I had to cut it in half with an angle grinder but my disc ran outta steam with a few inches to go. I had enough room to wiggle it loose. Yanked it out all in one piece cause the bottom bracketing held it all together and carried it to the trailer. My pregnant wife commented how nice it was that I was strong cause there’s no way she could help me in her current state. After I dumped it in the trailer and my wife made her comment it got me thinking… I’ve lost a lot of ‘gym’ strength, but I can’t think of a single situation in everyday life where I feel less strong than I used to be. If anything, maybe stronger because I’m more mobile. Since someone posted in a previous thread the last week and a bit has been Steve Maxwells daily dozen every single day except once. Wow. It’s made a bigger difference than any other mobility thing I’ve tried. But there’s that bit where it’s been consistent, and that’s easily the most important part.
That Jim wendler thing, that speaks my language right now. Just the basics, mostly body weight. I like it. To use that to jump onto the chins vs curls comment I think it’s really body dependent. Chins and rows gave me arms where nothing else did. Not that mine were ever huge though. Curls never did much. This whole thread: find what works for you. You tend to enjoy what works for you so they are usually one and the same. That’s where I’m at. What do I actually *want* to do.
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