Wanting advice from anyone who has had extended time off from lifting..

Wayne_Cowdrey said:Sorry to hear that you're feeling like that. You seemed really positive recently when you were training alongside Benni and co.

CAJ said:It's not life as such although it is a contributing factor, it is mostly health implications.

I feel absolutely terrible, strong but so unhealthy. It's hard to describe exactly. My weight has fluctuated for a long time as I have peaked for a competition or mock meet and then dropped down again. I think the issue is that I have been around 145 for quite a while now and my body simply doesn't like it, I can feel the health implications of this weight starting to catch up with me. So much so that I have already decided I cannot hack another 8 weeks and even more weight gain to compete in the final. I feel all the negative effects I am feeling have started to vastly outweigh the enjoyment of it and I'm starting to question why I'm doing it at all.

So as of yesterday I'm dieting down, my workouts will become a lot more 'grass roots' getting back to basics and there will also be some cardio thrown in.

As for why future power lifting I can't say for definite exactly what when or why because I expect my goals and desires to evolve over the coming months. I also want to become a lot less autistic about the whole thing and hopefully improve my life outside of the gym. For a long while now it has dictated my life and whilst I have had much enjoyment from it, it is not a sustainable lifestyle to lead right now.

Despite knowing logically that life has a lot more to offer than just obsessing over how many metal discs you can lift on a bar I would be lying if I said it wasn't ruining me mentally right now.

Robbo91 said:This is very similar to how I felt a few months ago. December of last year I was 148-150kg body weight. I'm tall but it was still far to heavy but my pressing became very good with it.
But I just felt old, I'm 24 and my knees and hips would ache after walking around town. My wife and I looked at a trip to Norway and this hike to a place called Trolltunga looked fantastic but I realised I couldn't do it because my back wouldn't take it.

Losing strength was difficult, but realising that there are lads on here who are under 100kg and lifting more than me at 150 made me think that I could do it at a lighter weight.

I'm 128-130 now and feel so much better. I can run again, my back doesn't hurt and I look a lot better for it. My strength suffered but then started to come back, but the more weight I lost the less I started to care about absolute numbers. I benched 195 at 150kg, I may never bench the 200 I wanted but I'll bench 180 again and look good doing it hopefully.

Losing the size is difficult to get your head around, after lifting for a long time you start to define yourself by what you lift. I've been 'Big Rob' to most people around town for a long time and getting smaller was tough, but to the bloke in the street I probably look stronger nowadays at a lighter weight.

I wish you all the best with whatever you decide to do. I've become happier in the long run after a tough time adjusting and I would never go back to that sort of weight again.

matthewvc said:
there's no reason why most people (outside of the dan green's of the world who've maxed out every amount of muscle mass they can carry at 100kg) can't achieve a certain strength at a far leaner bf% and lighter bw. we get addicted to the gains from just piling weight on and ignore how much flab is piled on. i put inches on my waist in a year going from about 98kg to 113kg. some was muscle and some water, but most was just flab from gorging.