Getting Back to Basics!

Every now and again a person needs to evaluate where they are and why the do what they do. This fall I have struggled through training or ,not training, as the case may be. After the August competition I was pretty well tired of training. I think that in the months leading up to competition I had over trained or trained improperly which lead to burn out and some minor injuries. That really discourages a guy from wanting to train harder and heavier.

I took quite a bit of time away from all things training related to just get away from it; partly for a rest, and partly to see if I miss it and end up being drawn back into it. I still did just enough to maintain and prevent atrophy, but really stayed away from any real training.

Last month I started to get the itch to start training again. This time I decided I was going to get back to basics and see where it goes. I use pre-made workouts published by Muscle and Fitness and I run a mile at least four days per week. This week will be my third week on the running schedule, and my third week on the current lifting program. I am also trying to follow, somewhat unsuccessfully, a training diet. I think I will get better at that and it will be more helpful too if I get back into heavy training.

I think that before I was doing two things wrong in particular. First, I was jumping into hard training without getting the basics back up to speed. I wasn't running with any consistency, I was leaving off good core training, and I didn't perfect my form on big lifts before I started going heavy. All of this lead to a lot of bad form, pain, and discouragement.

The second mistake was that I was trying to reinvent the wheel all of the time. I spent so much time trying new lifts and workouts instead of choosing something simple that met my needs. This time I am just going to follow a pre-made work out and switch it up every six weeks or so to prevent a plateau.

I know I need to look at supplementation now too. My recovery time is very long right now. I know that a couple simple supplements would help that a lot. I need to be careful though, I don't want to build the muscles faster than the joints can keep up. There needs to be moderation in all things.

I hope to be able to continually give positive updates and pics as I get back to basics and possibly back to hard training.