The Quickest Way to Drop 10 lbs...

Last Sunday night I was feeling pretty good, my plan of using fives had been working--I was upto 220lbs. However, making a transition to my low volume weeks didn't turn out the way I envisioned them. The tension around the house was so thick this week--the contractors have been in my house in some way, shape or form, for almost 4 months (all this to do a 3 week job) that you could cut it with a knife. My wife is not happy which means I'm carrying her burdens. In my book they were seriously slacking last week and the week before. I offered them a bonus to get done by Easter and suddenly their butts' are on fire.

So, combine that stress, with training stress, and my body was not too happy. It's unloaded the 10lbs I've gained. Bottomed out at 210lbs yesterday. So I got a pizza for dinner. That was good.

Now on top of this, both my knees have been sore for the last 3 weeks or so. And my right knee went haywire after front squats on Wednesday. Popliteus is not happy, methinks. This has made me rethink the following post from 3.26.07:

As far as resistance, I really truly favor the low reps: 1-3 is best for
me--at least for my mind. But when I read my training logs and look at the
tonnage I was able to lift in the past, I accomplished this by training in the
3-6 rep range between 60-80%. When I needed to peak, then the reps were lowered and the intensity was increased. Bottom line: I need to build mass to fill out
the 105's. The surest quickest way to do this is to use the aforementioned
parameters. My pysche doesn't necessarily like it, because, let's face it, the
loads used are just plain lighter. I like heavy. But the proof is in the past.
As long as I'm using the Elements of Efficiency, I'll grow like a weed
again.

I think all the time I spent loading the body with those parameters would've been even better if I weren't so compensated at the time.

So here's the theory (some of this I came up with, some of it was corroborated by Dr. Cobb, and the rest is me trying to distill/repeat some of the heady concepts I discuss with him to the best of my ability--I often think much gets lost between my calls with him and these posts, so apologies to everyone ahead of time):

My CNS responds so quickly that this type of loading reproduces my past "pain patterns" based on it's past experience with these loading parameters, which drove my body to it's breaking point. Of course, this seems not to make any sense upon a second read. So, I'll try to break it down even more. Based on the SAID principle, you get what you train for. In the past, the unfortunate by-product of this type of training was pain. My body has been conditioned to produce pain as a result of this type of training. So I do get some positive from the training, but also with a harsh dose of negative too. Perhaps this is why I instinctively prefer the lower reps: no/less pain.

The frustrating thing about this is the constant change. I really wish I was a "6 week guy"--one of those people who can stay on a program for 6 weeks an make progress. So, back to the drawing board: sets of 1-3 and I'm just going to have to push the volume there. Freaky stuff.

I'm taking the rest of this week off and just playing with the KBs. A little CNS detox I guess. Next week I'll start back in on the lower reps and the get back to the O-lifts. I'll eat a little extra and hopefully the weight will rebound back up to close to 220lbs...

Today I used a 40kg KB and did Pavel's ETK Rite of Passage: ladders + chins: 5 ladders of 1,2,3 followed up by the corresponding number of chins with 60s of rest between sets. Worked up a good lather. Good stuff.