Training When Tired

So on Wednesday I decided to champ up and get in a few couple of workouts all in one day. To go through the itinerary, I biked in to work (20 minutes, through crazy Edmonton drivers), did some weights (compound pressing and pulling, front squats, hang cleans), taught a Boot Camp class in the river valley consisting of running, stairs, more running, and finished off with more running. Following that I took my last client of the day out to run her first set of stairs (I’m so proud of her!!), fought back the heat exhaustion vomit, and then biked home.

Today is not so good.

My legs kinda feel like the cement between Tracy Andersons’ ears. Top it off with the fact that today I have a decent-sized break in the morning and have the plan of lifting heavy things off the floor and throwing my body through the air like a jacked up gazelle doing some plyometrics, and I’m beginning to feel a conundrum.

Should I train even though yesterday was a rest day? Should I nut up and push through the pain? Or should I cave in and hit the snooze alarm a few dozen more times?

The New Zealand Assassin Bret Contreras wrote a fantastic article on T-Nation HERE about a dude in Vegas who trains some of the strongest mofo’s this side of the equator to dominate powerlifting and olympic lifting meets who goes by the name of John Broz. His mantra for training is simply effective and honestly brutal. The best one was his thoughts on overtraining and weight lifting: (NOTE: I lifted this straight from Bret’s article, and it was so good I didn’t want to paraphrase it at all)

If you got a job as a garbage man and had to pick up heavy cans all day long, the first day would probably be very difficult, possibly almost impossible for some to complete. So what do you do, take three days off and possibly lose your job?

No, you’d take your sore, beaten self to work the next day. You’d mope around and be fatigued, much less energetic than the previous day, but you’d make yourself get through it. Then you’d get home, soak in the tub, take aspirin, etc. The next day would be even worse.

But eventually you’d be running down the street tossing cans around and joking with your coworkers. How did this happen? You forced your body to adapt to the job at hand! If you can’t’ squat and lift heavy every day you’re not overtrained, you’re undertrained! Could a random person off the street come to the gym with you and do your exact workout? Probably not, because they’re undertrained. Same goes with most lifters when compared to elite athletes.

– John Broz 2002

The guy definitely knows his stuff. I mean, when you train a guy known as “The Strongest Teen in the World” you can get some street cred.

He teaches to max out with weights each workout, train upwards of 6 hours a day, and gives a big “Eff You” to things like lunges, foam rolling, accessory lifts, and other things that may get in the way and take energy from the big lifts.

I like it.

As a result, I’m gonna haul my carcass out onto the floor, stack some weights on the bar, and do my best to keep my shorts clean while I hoist copious amounts of weight off the floor. Plus, no matter how rough I may feel, there will always be more coffee to pour into the open pit of a mouth, and make all the hurt go away.