A few months ago I had got to the point where I believed that it’s not generally to do with being woman.  Instead, we need to think about each person as an individual and address the physical requirements of each individual.  As a result, I felt that it was quite possible that there might be a man who has a similar training programme to me.

After reading an article that Bret Contreras put up the other week, I’m beginning to think that perhaps there are actually some generalisations that Bret has been able to draw some significant generalisations about how women train when compared to men, if you were to split a group of trainees by their sex.  As a result I’m now completely torn.  However, my view remains the same – in the basics (eg. lift heavy) women should definitely train like men.

Here’s eleven articles and posts to get you thinking about whether we should train like men (though I confess now that there is a definite bias).

• Let’s start by questioning what training like a man is?  I mean, after all, a lot of men are actually quite weak.  In fact, there’s a lot of abuse at various times in the blogosphere about this.  I was therefore amused to see that this isn’t actually a function of our current lifestyle.  The stylish men have never really been very manly…
• Next up is the Bret Contreras article, Training Women, which I referred to in the introduction.  Bret has identified ten key points where training women differs to training men (or differs from perceived wisdom about training women).  As I read down the list I could identify all the lessons that Chris and I have learned over the years through trial and error while trying to build effective workouts for me.  Things where we started out thinking I was unusual or where I believed these were individual needs rather than potentially related to my sex.  Particular points that stood out for me were those about women benefitting from plenty of glute work, tolerating greater volume, working best with total body training, having specific anatomical differences and tending to need more stability work than mobility work.  These are usually the rules I stick with these days, despite the fact that I am currently playing with less frequency (down to training three times a week) and an upper/lower body split and am struggling with a need for more thoracic mobility.  But that’s just what I’m playing with right now to mix it up.  For the previous year or more I was seeing fantastic gains from the approaches identified by Bret.  If you are woman trying to write your own programme or a trainer writing a programme for a woman, I thoroughly recommend this article as a must-read.
• There was an entire series on World Fitness Network about whether women should lift like men.  Part of the reason it caught my eye was because it starts the series off by considering the situation where women control their weight and measurements by careful eating but, as they age, muscle is replaced with fat until their body composition is no longer attractive, despite the fact that they still fit into the clothes they wore before.  The article is trying to address the point that women should lift heavy weights but I think this is also something relevant to a weight loss diet.  You need to lift heavy weights while losing weight (as well while aging) to help maintain muscle.
• Here’s an article contemplating the top five things that women do wrong in the gym.  To a certain extent these are the things that many women do in the gym which differ to the things that men do in the gym (except possibly the point about working out on ridiculous machines – I’ve seen plenty of men doing that too).
• If we women are going to train like men then we need to learn to do proper push ups.  Yes, I know they are hard if you start, like most women do, with almost zero upper body strength.  It took me at least a year before I could confidently do multiple reps with my feet on the floor (instead of working from my knees).  As a result I always think that a set of good quality press ups and a pull up is an excellent mid-term goal for a woman starting out on strength training for the first time.  It’s important that you maintain good form on push ups, so I’ve found Mark Sisson’s handy How-to on push-up form from his recent Primal Fitness series which should help give everyone something to aim for.
• If you still don’t believe that women should train heavy then here’s some evidence.  Gubernatrix is a woman based in the UK who competes at powerlifting (amongst other things).  She’s got a great blog and recently reviewed some well-known basic barbell programmes.  If you’re starting out for the first time you do need to be aiming to lift real weights, in an ideal world a barbell should feature and this article should give you a feel for where to start with your barbell.
• This list of posts seems to be rapidly moving sideways into how to train like a man once you’re convinced, but never mind.  Here are Tony Gentilcore’s best three accessory exercises for each of the main powerlifting moves.  I particularly agree with the goblet squat and movement work for squatting, technique work for bench press and good mornings for deadlifts.  I’d also add Romanian Deadlifts for squats if you can’t get deep enough yet and hip thrusts or weighted glute bridges for both squats and deadlifts.  Those additional moves are also on Bret’s list of exercises that are particularly suitable for women.
• Here’s an example from a client of Bret Contreras, The God of Glutes, showing that women are perfectly capable of lifting some heavy weights and still looking feminine.  Just in case you still didn’t believe it is possible at this point in the post.
• One exercise that I used to do quite a bit and now rarely go near is the front squat.  This is mostly because of the discomfort I get where the bar is resting.  While I can see that Chris has a nice big chunk of muscle right where the bar rests on him, I’ve got nothing, or at least nothing worth writing home about.  I was therefore pleased to see this post by Jason Ferruggia where he acknowledges that the front squat may not be the right exercise for everyone and in particular females and skinny hardgainers may find it doesn’t work for them.  The lesson?  While women should train like men, sometimes acknowledgement of our different anatomies may affect our exact choice of exercise.
• I’m pretty comfortable with the conclusion that women should train with big weights like men, rather than using the little dumbbells.  However, from an evolutionary standpoint it’s worth questioning what activities women are suited to in general.  Are these the same activities as men?  Should we be questioning the “men hunt, women gather” concept or are there things we, as women, aren’t able to do?  I was fascinated to read an article on Hunt, Gather, Love which considered this question and concluded that women probably also hunted but that traditional hunting is not just about running around chasing prey.  It’s also about patience while stalking prey, dexterity for netting and snaring and similar skills which sit well within the abilities of women.  As a separate point in that article the author touches on the idea that while “humans” are quite possibly well-designed to run, “women” have a few design flaws for running, such as breasts and an exaggerated Q-angle.  I’ve covered the subject of whether women should run before so I agree with the viewpoint that women are probably not designed to run, but I question the point raised in this article about amenorrhea caused by running leading to infertility and low bone density.  I’d be interested to see from the studies if amenorrhea is the cause since I think it is more likely that there is another cause and amenorrhea is a symptom like the bone density.  Melissa states that it is the elite running and not low body fat percentage causing the amenorrhea.  The studies I have seen so far all conclude that women with low body fat percentages suffer from amenorrhea so I’m starting to wonder if there is something about overall bodyweight, rather than just body fat percentage which is leading to symptoms like amenorrhea (or if, in the case of elite female runners, it is the stress put on their bodies by the running which is causing amenorrhea).  Definitely something for me to explore in a future blog post.
• Finally, I’m going to return to that age-old argument put forward by so many women who are reluctant to start training heavy because they are worried that they will bulk out with muscle.  The Iron Samurai has posted up five videos which make up the programme covering the women’s 48kg weight class at the World Weightlifting Championships.  The coverage isn’t in English but there is some amazing lifting and none of those women look overly bulky and they all look very feminine (or at least those who don’t look like they are still children do, anyway).  If the world champs don’t look like they are exploding with muscle then a few sessions in the gym each week to get in shape and gain the health benefits isn’t going to get you there either.

So there you have it.  Various recent articles and posts about whether women should train like men, the areas where we should, perhaps, differ our programmes, and the proof that training like men with heavy weights doesn’t turn you into a monster skull-crusher.  Well, not without several years of hard work behind you anyway! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp1QIBv8BL0

Are you convinced yet?

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: interviews with strong women
2. Blog-watch: should women run?
3. Pod-watch: Super Human Radio for women!

Getting it right doesn't mean I'm not exhausted at the end of the last exercise (glute bridges)

What lessons did I take away last time?

It was a short but valuable list of lessons that I took away from my previous attempts to increase work capacity through increased workout density.

1. Don’t try to increase workout density the week my period starts.
2. Don’t try to put the workout density right up to maximum amount I’m aiming for in the first workout.

Timing workout changes with my period

Thanks to the contraceptive pill, I know exactly which week will be the one where my period will affect my strength and ability in the gym.  I’ve found that my strongest week is generally the week leading up to the start of my period, the weakest week is the week when my period happens.

The first thing I did when I realised that I was going to have to change my workouts was look at the calendar and check where I was in my cycle.  Well, I didn’t because I knew off the top of my head where I was, but I did think about it.  If my period had been about to start I would have taken a rest week before starting the new program.  In fact, I had been tempted to take a rest week before I started anyway, but when I realised that I was in that precursory week – my extra-strong week – I went straight into changing the program.

I went for it and it paid off.  I’ve seen improvements throughout the week and I’ve survived without tears and mental weakness (though there’s been plenty of lying on the floor between exercises, bemoaning my foolishness).

Gradually building up the workouts

I realised that, with my strong week, I could take a slightly light-touch to this.

For the very first workout (actually my fourth workout in the previous week) I did some lightweight squats at the start but not the full heavy weight squats that should have featured as exercise one.  This was partly due to the poor form that I still had when I started but was also a conscious decision that I would need to drop one of the 3 main exercises for the first workout.  The poor form just decided for me which exercise would be dropped.

The second workout (ignoring the strongman workout which was the true first workout of the week) was during the weekend, so I could take my time over it. 

This was the workout where I felt physically sick from the lactate in my muscles, so I could going and walk in brisk circles (until I got dizzy) on the patio between exercises to try to get rid of some of the lactate.  Despite this, I dropped the reps on my pull ups (the third main exercise) from the previous workout and only did just over half of them.  Normally this would have upset me, but having learned my lesson from last time, I was content to take this as part of the building blocks for my new workout.

The third workout took a different format to workouts two and four, being the deadlift workout.  It was unpleasant but for the first time I did every exercise that was planned.  Finally I felt like I was getting there.

Finally, workout four was the test.  It was the same format as workout two but this time I did all the exercises.  I also increased the weight and quality of performance on the previous workout.

Success comes to those who learn from past failures

I was pleased to see that by taking on board earlier lessons and applying those I’ve got to the end of the week and I’m where I hoped to be.  I’m a great one for setting out the lessons that I learn from things I do but I’ve not previously had the belief that I would take those lessons away and apply them the next time I’m faced with a similar situation.  This week was evidence that I can do that and that it pays off.

I hope this also inspires some of you to ensure you learn lessons from things that go wrong in order to learn from them.  This can be done through training logs and personal journals.

It also reminds me of one of the first things Chris ever taught me when he first took me to a gym – you should always keep a written record of your training.  Not just to see your progress and give yourself a confidence boost in the bad weeks but to learn what does and doesn’t work for you.

Related posts:

1. Increasing work capacity
2. Lessons learned this week: the menstrual cycle and making workouts more challenging
3. Lessons learned: exercise and the menstrual cycle

Beginners get it easy!

When I was a beginner I followed standard beginner programs.  I started with really light weights and high reps.  This helped me learn the movements at the same time as building some basic strength, since I started lifting weights just after recovering from two fractured elbows and could barely pick up a 1kg plate when I began.  It gave a whole new meaning to the “Starting Strength” program!

Most trainers say a beginner can do almost anything and gain strength.  There needs to be some purpose to the exercises and this is a valuable time to learn the building blocks of correct form and mobility, but as long as the weight goes up each week, the beginner will build strength.

Be prepared for the next stage

I don’t want to put down the hard work of anyone reading this who is a beginner.

It’s fantastic that anyone should pick up weights and decide to start training, especially women who rarely have exposure to lifting in their teenage years and for whom big weights is a secret that the fitness industry seems to want to keep from us.  It isn’t easy learning the right moves and grooving the movements.  I recall many frustrated hours spent in the gym in those early years.

The problem with the beginner years is that you end up believing that the weight will go up forever.  The first time you hit a wall it is completely destroying.  For a few weeks I felt like a failure.  I wasn’t ready for it.

Work with your body

I now find that the gains aren’t so easy to get.  I can bump the weight up each week for a few weeks and then everything stalls.  To get things moving again I often need to change the program or my approach.

A lesson I was reminded of this week is that it is much easier to work with your body to ensure that any program changes continue to use your natural advantages to best effect – in my case, my slow twitch muscle fibres.

Fast twitch or slow twitch?

I have found that accepting my extreme slow twitch muscles and building my program to suit them has been essential to the bigger successes I’ve seen so far.

Slow twitch muscles make me incredibly good at endurance work.  I can sit on a bike for hours or walk for days and, with a few exceptions, I’m able to go again the next day.  In the gym I’ve found that this seems to translate to rapid recovery, brief rest periods and an ability to still handle heavier weights for this.

Of course the range in the weights I can lift for different rep schemes is already narrow.  With my bodyweight a 5 kg change to the weight I’m lifting is 10% of my bodyweight.  It was because of this that we invested in 0.5kg plates.  They’re really cute and make it possible to adjust the weight by single kilos.

Giving "girly weights" a whole new perspective

Chris, in contrast, is very fast twitch.  He’s an excellent sprinter and wipes me out on hill sprints, but he doesn’t recover as well.  He needs longer rest periods in the gym and fewer reps, but as a consequence of this (and his heavier bodyweight) he can shift much heavier weight on those few reps and still get an effective workout.

Is it a gender thing?

I don’t think so.  I wrote the other week about my scepticism over the gender issue with workouts.

Reading training programs on male-dominated forums there are some men who also thrive on the sort of program that I benefit from.  It may be that a greater proportion of women have slow twitch muscles than amongst men but that doesn’t mean it will be right for you.

Fitting the program to the body

I don’t know if fast twitch or slow twitch is a major consideration for most people.  I’ve seen some trainers comment that muscle fibre type is not the decisive factor some people see it as and that trainees use it as an excuse.

To a point I agree with them – you should always train your body to cope outside of its comfort zone.  I had a brief period last year when I did evil bike sprint intervals to learn to deal with lactate in my quads and now handle steep hills better.  But for general progress you’ll get best results working with your body, rather than fighting it.

There’s no denying what we’ve seen in the gym.  Chris gets most progress on programs with big rest periods (e.g. 2 minutes), fewer sets (at the moment the most he seems to do is 5 sets), fewer reps (usually 2 or 3) and really heavy weight. 

I get most improvement on programs with short rests (doing the exercise on 60-90 seconds, so I usually get 30-60 seconds rest), more sets (10 seems to be optimum) and more reps (e.g. 3-5).

Make it work for you

Ultimately, the lesson I’ve learned over the last few years is that you need to try a few different things and fail at a few things along the way while you learn what works best for you. 

Don’t fight your body.  Work with it to get the best results.

Related posts:

1. Lessons learned this week: the menstrual cycle and making workouts more challenging
2. Lessons learned this week: grip workouts
3. Lessons learned this week: listen to your body

A personal perspective

Managing fatigue has become important to me as I have increased the cardio activities for the summer and recently had some very active holidays and weekends while continuing to work at my powerlifting goals.  I don’t want to stop one thing to make way for the other as the powerlifting, cycling and multi-day walks in wild-country are all important to me, but if I overdo it then I may impact on my performance in any of these areas.

Interestingly, the work I did through the early part of the winter on work capacity seems to have had a beneficial effect on the amount of cardio I can now combine with weight training.  In particular, it was noticeable when I was stripping fat in January that I could handle 6 workouts a week. 

As my activity levels continue to increase into the summer, I decided I should share a few articles that I’ve seen more recently training frequency, rest periods and CNS fatigue, all of which I consider to be interrelated.

Getting outdoors more takes it's toll on the body

Big picture – how often to train

An article was posted on Fitness Black Book in February on the issue of training frequency.  There are numerous other articles that have been written on this subject, but this is a nice reader-friendly starting point and highlights my own belief that how often you can train is very personal to the individual.

It is important to remember to look at training frequency alongside your “non-workout” activity levels.  For me in the summer this would include the amount of cycling and walking I do.  Most people who have a natural tendency to be active are likely to find that they are more active when the weather is better in the summer and can therefore reduce the amount of “programmed” exercise they are doing in the gym.

However, I think you also need to take into account the type of activities you do.  The Fitness Black Book article focuses on cardio activities and compensates by reducing the gym-cardio, but if you tend to do some strongman work during the summer months (as I am doing in the garden each weekend), or are undertaking a serious strength-related DIY job (eg. building a rockery) then you may also need to compensate by reducing your strength work by an appropriate amount.  For example, I have dropped my weight training sessions from four to three sessions a week so that I can incorporate a strongman session once a week.

Find out what works for you

Every individual is different.  As a beginner I originally found I could only handle three workouts a week whereas I can now do four sessions each week and I struggle to get any benefit if I consistently do less than this.

Plenty of articles and websites will try to be proscriptive but while there are some broad common sense rules to apply (for example, I’ve not heard of anyone who has had benefit from doing less than three workouts each week) it is important to take these rules as guidance.  Each individual will find that they start to suffer from the symptoms of fatigue with a different level of training. 

The point I always return to is that I seem to get the best long-term results if I’m doing the minimum possible – enough to get the gains without the fatigue.

If you do start to feel fatigue it is important to back off from the workouts, potentially considering a full week of complete enforced rest before trying a new program armed with the knowledge of what didn’t work for you. 

Rest periods within workouts

Moving down a level we can also look at the amount of rest to take within workouts.  There is again an element of trial and error to be found here with each individual responding differently, often depending on whether they have fast-twitch or slow-twitch muscle fibres.

Over the last few years I have learned that I respond best to shorter time periods.  I have a very small difference between the weights I can move for lots of repetitions and my one rep max effort lifts.  I recover quickly from most activities and therefore taking longer rest periods between sets achieves nothing and means I potentially lose some of the hormonal benefits of doing multiple sets.  In comparison, Chris often needs longer rest periods than me or has to significantly reduce the weight.  He has a big differential in weight between his higher rep efforts and his one rep max in most exercises and moving the significantly larger weights for fewer sets takes a big toll on his body.

The best example of this is our current squat workout.  We both follow a program of 5 sets of 2 reps.  I do this on 1.5 minutes but if Chris tries to go near the bar before 2 minutes is up he would struggle to get through more than 3 sets.  Instead he works on a 2.5 minutes period per set.

A study was carried out by Buresh, Berg and French in 2009 that compared long and short rest intervals between sets.  Unfortunately it is almost impossible to extract anything worthwhile from the study, other than it being a perfect example of why studies of this nature are difficult to carry out.  For a good analysis of the study and the problems behind drawing any conclusions from it, I recommend reading an article by Helen Kollias on Precision Nutrition.

Helping CNS recovery

When all else fails and you overtrain, which is always a potential risk, you are likely to find that not only are your muscles sore but you have also negatively impacted on your central nervous system (CNS).  As the CNS, made up of the brain and spinal cord, controls the whole nervous system, it is common sense that once this is no longer able to fire messages around correctly you will no longer get the muscle responses that you want.

Iron Man Magazine recently reported on a study that has shown that BCAAs (branched-chain amino acids – essential amino acids that cannot be created by the body but must instead be supplemented through diet) can regulate alterations within the CNS that adversely affect physical performance and growth potential.  Benefits of BCAAs in addition to this include increased protein synthesis and reduced muscle tissue breakdown, making BCAAs excellent for both mental and physical recovery after a workout.

Iron Man Magazine is recommending using supplementation, but I would instead recommend trying to supplement BCAAs through your choice of diet.  In particular, they can be found in dairy, red meat and eggs.

I hope this information has been helpful.  It’s certainly refreshed my mind as I start to become more active again.

Related posts:

1. Powerlifting progress 2010: week five (rest, recovery, rehab and re-writing)
2. Powerlifting progress 2010: week eleven (holiday and active rest)
3. Lessons learned: training outside the box

This isn’t because I dropped a weights plate on my foot (though that would seem a better reason).  It’s because I increased my upper body workload for the first time this evening and it’s hit me hard, mentally and physically.

This isn’t going to be a post about how to make your workouts challenging.  There are plenty of articles written about that.  It’s an insight into how it has made me feel and how to get past the initial pain and depression.

The main reason I’m a wreck

I wrote yesterday about my desire to improve my work capacity.  While I’ve been starting to work on this in my lower body workouts I’ve been taking the upper body workouts gently.  Historically I’ve easily over-trained my arms, but for the last couple of weeks I’ve been cruising through my upper body workouts, so it was time I upped the ante.

Of course I may have overdone that.  Let’s play spot the difference:

Last week’s first upper body workout

• 10 sets x 3 reps: Push press
• 5 sets x 8 reps: Rope upright row
• 5 sets x 8 reps: One arm horizontal row
• 5 sets x AMRAP: Grippers

 Last week’s second upper body workout

• 10 sets x 3 reps: Pull up
• 5 sets x 8 reps: Press up
• 5 sets x 8 reps: One arm military press
• 5 sets x AMRAP: Grippers

Today’s upper body workout

• 10 sets x 3 reps: Push press
• 10 sets x 3 reps: Pull up
• 5 sets x 8 reps: Press up
• 5 sets x 8 reps: Rope upright row
• 5 sets x 8 reps: One arm military press
• 5 sets x 8 reps: One arm horizontal row
• 5 sets x AMRAP: Grippers

Reasons to be depressed?

My numbers went down.  This is a natural result of doubling the size of the workload.  Fatigue was significantly increased, most noticeably in the later exercises but there was also fatigue present for my pull ups which had been a primary exercise before, done when I was fresh.

I know all of this, but it is still mentally difficult to come to terms with the numbers written on the page at the end of the workout and even harder to get past it when I’m trying to increase reps or the load for exercises.

Menstrual cycle and making workouts more challenging

My period is due to start on Friday or Saturday.  I’m usually a bit weepy in the last few days leading up to the start of my menstrual cycle, though mentally I’m not weak.  It’s a strange combination of crying my eyes out during hard workouts but stubbornly pushing on for yet one more rep.

Once my period has started I will find that for a few days I will try to do workouts but find that my mind is not up to it.  As soon as I start to struggle with the reps I will find I can no longer move the weight and I don’t think it’s got anything to do with my muscles.  I get the same rep-struggling moments during the rest of the month but force myself to carry on pushing out good quality reps.

Theoretically, the mental strength I still have the week before my period starts should help me get through such a difficult change to my workout.  But the unstable mental state and risk of depression that accompanies it makes it a difficult balancing act.

Dealing with the impact of increasing workload

So what lessons have I learned from making my workout more challenging?

1. Don’t make a workout more challenging within a week of my period starting, either the week before or the actual week it’s happening (so that leaves me with two weeks in every month).
2. Fatigue affects numbers.  Don’t be surprised when some of the numbers get worse.  Keep hold on the ones that got better, even if that was only your first exercise, and wait until you have comparatives from a similar sized workout.
3. Focus on the positives.  I made it through the entire workout.  I may have had to abandon my grip workout after 3 sets because I could no longer set the grippers, I may have got less reps on my pull ups and press ups, but I increased the weight significantly on my push press and increased the weight slightly on all the other assistance exercises. 

Related posts:

1. Lessons learned: exercise and the menstrual cycle
2. Lessons learned this week: grip workouts
3. Lessons learned: workouts to suit your body

• Be able to eat more;
• Be able to go for bike rides next summer without worrying how they will impact on my next workout;
• Do extra bits of fun workout (like mucking about in the gym with the sandbags) without ruining my numbers the next day;
• Be able to eat even more (I really do enjoy my food);
• Seriously start to work towards my medium-term goal of competing at powerlifting, which I can’t do if I’m seriously restricted in how much I can workout.

Winter opportunity

My winter muscle-building has a couple of benefits:

1. It’s winter.  I wear baggy jumpers.  Nobody (other than my long-suffering partner, Chris) sees my figure so I can eat plenty to help build my work capacity and not worry if I get it a bit wrong and put on a little weight.  Though, as I explained before, I am taking care with the diet as well.
2. Muscle-building means I’m going to benefit from doing extra exercises anyway, so if I work on building my work capacity I should get a good cross-over with my main winter goal.

So I’m going to grab this opportunity by the scruff of the neck and do everything in my power to increase my work capacity.

Where I’m starting from

I’m a lot better than I used to be, but the list below is currently the most I can manage in a standard week (not in a holiday week when I usually walk 7-8 hours or cycle 50-60 miles every day for 5 or 6 consecutive days – I usually have a week off after that).

• 4 workouts a week for 3-4 consecutive weeks, each containing one main exercise on 10 sets of 3 reps and 2 assistance exercises on 5 sets of 8 reps.
• 1 long walk, about 2 – 2.5 hours long.
• 1 long bike ride (4-5 hours) or 2 fasted bike rides (2 hours long).

If I try to do any more I keel over from overtraining after about 2 weeks.

How to increase work capacity

So how am I going to do it?

1. Increase the size of my workouts:  I’ve started with an increase to my workouts.  Each lower body workout has gained a second main exercise and I’m increasing the number of assistance exercises to 3 or 4, depending on the main exercises (deadlifts have a harder impact on the body than split squats, so deadlift day may stick at 3 assistance exercises).
2. Increase my bike rides:  Our next cycle tour is planned for March.  Historically we’ve lost cycling fitness over the winter months when we are only doing one or two short rides a week rather than our long endurance ride every other week.  This winter we are getting in two fasted rides at the weekend whenever possible (other commitments permitted) and a night ride after work one day mid-week.

I’ll take it from there.  I decided when I started this after my holiday that I should keep my upper body workouts as they are for now since I’ve had problems with overtraining my arms in the past.  After two weeks of this new workout regime I’m tempted to take a new view on that and try increasing my upper body workouts as well.

How to survive the increased workload

Eat and sleep more.  It’s that simple (or so I’m told).

Eat more:  If I’m going to have the calories to handle the extra work I’m going to need to eat more.  This is where the baggy jumpers come in.  For the next few months my callipers will become my best friend enabling me to keep track of when I am putting on fat (so eating more calories than I need) and when I’m losing fat (so not eating enough, though the lack of recovery will probably also be a good indicator for this).

Sleep more:  My body is going to need time to recover.  The best recovery time is sleep, so there are a few rules I’m going to try to stick to:

• Create a bat cave – I don’t keep any electrical items in my bedroom anyway, except for a small alarm clock which only lights up if I press a button, but winter also helps with this since it will be dark when I go to bed and dark when I wake up;
• Be consistent in bedtimes and waking times – I get better sleep if I get to bed at about the same time every day and wake up at the same time;
• Read in bed for the last half hour before I go to sleep – personal experience has also shown that sleep is a better quality if I avoid televisions and computers just before trying to get to sleep; and
• Eat more – it’s all a bit circular but I found when I was cutting that I also suffered from insomnia.  The extra food now won’t just help with the quality of my recovery, it should also help the quality of my sleep.

Before I get any further into trying to increase my work capacity, does anyone have any other suggestions for me?

Related posts:

1. Lessons learned: getting work capacity right!
2. Work-Life balance
3. The importance of soft tissue work