Getting back to normal…

I’ve started toning down on the junk food eating. I pretty much have the cravings out of my system now. And I’m getting back on a sound eating plan.

I’ve put on about 15 lbs. since the contest. Now that may seem like a lot, but compared to the rebound that some people go through it is really not that much. I know guys who have literally gained upwards of 30 lbs. in the matter of 2-3 days after a contest. This is caused from the extreme rebound of being so depleted and dehydrated and then cutting loose and eating and drinking everything in sight.

I started back working out on Wednesday. For the next month or two I’m not really going to push myself too hard, I’m going to go through an “active recovery” training phase to give my body a break from the rigors of contest prep. And then gradually build up to a heavy off-season training routine.

A big mistake that a lot of novice weight trainers make, especially younger guys who are really full of motivation to make gains as fast as possible is that they never give their body any down time or active recovery training. They just want to go hard-core “balls to the wall” all the time. But the body just doesn’t work that way and eventually you’ll burn out, overtrain, and probably get injured.

You’ll make much better (and faster) gains over the long term if you purposely have cycles in your training where you push yourself hard for about 8-12 weeks and then back off for a few weeks and before building back up to a new peak in training intensity. That’s one of the benefits of competition training because it purposely forces you to cycle your training.

No body can operate at 100% intensity all the time, regardless of how motivated you are, the body does need some down time to rejuvenate, recover, and prepare for the next growing phase. It works similar to the seasons in nature… The spring and summer months are the peak growing time, then things slow down in fall and winter months.