OMD's Journal — Powerlifting April '22: Deloading + Traveling, COVID Experience & Post-Recovery Programming
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The following is a powerlifting article for OMD Journal. None of this is health, nutrition, training advice.
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April 2022 Highlight
Period Covered:
March 27 to April 30
Training Highlights:
Squat: 430lbs x 2 reps @ RPE 9.5
Bench Press: 275lbs x 1 reps @ RPE 9.5
Deadlift: 475lbs x 1 rep @ RPE 9.5
1-arm KB OHP: 18kg x 8 reps @ RPE 7
Daily average steps: ~11,706 steps
Nutrition Highlights:
Daily average fast: ~15.7hrs
Daily average calories burned: ~2,779kcal
Alcohol consumption: seven drinks
Recovery Highlights:
Daily average sleep time: ~7h 10m
# of Sauna sessions: three
Reflections are divided into the following:
Training
Nutrition
Recovery
Last Month’s Goals:
Training
Glute/Hamstring Accessory 4x a week - 100% success in first two weeks pre-deload and COVID
Nutrition
Not buying any pastries & sweets for the first two weeks of April - 100% success
Recovery
Sauna 4x this month - 75% success achieved in first two weeks
Sleep before 1am - 31% success (11 out of 35 days in period)
The long term goal for training from the inaugural October Journal is attached at the bottom if you’d like a refresher on what the point of all this is.
Getting COVID, Plans, and Travel
When April started, I had a plan. By mid-April, everything was looking perfect. I finished off a nine-week development cycle. My body felt destroyed by the end of it and I was ready to cherish the upcoming de-load session. A two-week deload was successful last cycle so I decided to try it out again.
I had timed my travel to California and NYC so that the week and a half trip would fit right in my two-week deload period. My hotels in both locations had decent equipment for deload training sessions (i.e. Kettlebells, 80lbs dumbbells, pull-up bars).
It was shaping up to be an awesome two weeks of easy training. I hoped the limited equipment in the hotel gyms would force me to take it easy on my training and the travel would also limit my training days as well. I was going to be freshened up and ready by the last two week of April for a new 7-8 week development cycle.
But God looked at my plan, laughed, and gave me COVID. I mean, it probably was one of the humans sardined into LaGuardia airport or the many passengers on the plane who groaned when told they had to wear a mask in a Canadian-operated flight. Even as someone who was fully vaccinated, it seemed like it was going to be a matter of time before I got it.
Still, I was expecting mild symptoms. Yet, I felt like I got hit by a busload. I think it was the Omicron variant given my sense of taste and smell stayed. I showed all the flu-like symptoms of fever, body aches, chills, and headaches right when the deload week was supposed to end. Instead of starting Week 1 of the new development cycle refreshed, I was confined to my bed. It was the worst I felt in the last four years. There was nothing mild about this virus.
It was late April and I had gone through sunny California, moderate NYC, and a snowing Toronto. I thought it was a bad flu from the erratic temperature shifts. I also tested negative for COVID for the first three tests over four days. Then, on a fateful fifth day of symptoms, I tested positive.
Yet, according to my government, I had completed my quarantine requirement by the time I found out I had COVID. I might’ve been able to get an accurate answer faster if Canada offered free testing centers like the U.S. but apparently, our socialized healthcare doesn’t include getting tests to see if we actually have COVID.
Putting all the COVID rules aside, I felt awful with the virus. The deload sessions prior to COVID didn't go well either. The first week of deloads started with 4 hours of sleep to catch a flight. Then, I had my first experience of nearly dying on said flight as I saw a woman go airborne from the plane’s turbulence, people puking everywhere, flight attendants distributing more puke bags and medicine, and Air Canada giving us a $200 coupon—that was after they gave $600 and instead of eating their mistake, turned around and said it was an error and our terrible experience wasn’t worth that high an amount. It wasn’t the best of starts. But I compounded the problem by training every morning at the hotel gym. I kept it light and to an hour but coming off of an intensive nine-week training cycle, lacking sleep to start and 8-12 hour days of interviews, it may have been too much stress.
The second week was no better with a redeye flight where I slept 2 hours (thank you screaming child in front of me and the parents who decided little children should go on red-eye flights). Then, it was walking 19km daily. I was foolish to think I could “take it easy” in NYC. But my body was breaking down by this point and I managed to fit in three morning training sessions at the hotel gym. I knew I had fucked up the deload royally when doing body squats for warm-up tired me out.
Something I haven’t found an answer for yet is dealing with the sense of guilt and insecurity I have while on vacation. I know I’m supposed to rest and I had hoped combining deload with vacation/travel would help. But the irregular diet (i.e. undisciplined consumption) and general lackadaisical attitude often were at ends with feeling like I needed to “do” something productive and that often translated to training hard with whatever equipment I had at the hotel gyms. The limited equipment constrained my level of stupidity but it wasn’t enough to stop myself from showing up every day to jeopardize the rest I needed. It’s my hope that this recent mistake was severe enough for me to learn from it come the next travel + deload cycle.