Recovery when intake is low: what to cut first Writing it up because I had to work it out twice and would rather nobody else did.
Question about training and intake together, because separating them has not worked for me.
Sessions are the same, the load is the same, and intake is a long way down. Something has to give and I would rather choose which than find out.
What would you cut first, and what would you protect at almost any cost?
Picking up the opening post: that is the part I would want checked first.
Nothing here is medical advice and anybody with a relevant condition should have a programme reviewed by somebody qualified rather than assembled from a forum.
If anyone has run this properly I would rather read that than my own guess.
Worth separating two things that the opening post runs together.
Cardiovascular work has its own benefits and is not a substitute for a resistance stimulus for this particular purpose.
If anyone can point at the primary source I would be grateful.
Deload weeks: periodic weeks (every 4 to 8 weeks) with reduced volume and intensity can help with recovery and sometimes reveal strength gains that got obscured by fatigue.
I would call that likely rather than established.
Nothing to add on the substance. Thank you for taking the question at face value.
The arithmetic in post #10 is right; the assumption feeding it is the part to check.
The strongest argument against my own position on recovery, stated as well as I can state it, since nobody else has yet.
The reports here that state the programme, the load and the timeframe are useful. The ones that state an outcome are not.
Someone should write this up properly, and it should probably not be me.
Anybody returning after a break should expect to start lower than they left, and expecting otherwise is where injuries come from.
Post #12 put the caveat in the right place and I want to underline it.
Machine-based work is often better tolerated when energy is low and is not inferior for this purpose.
Narrowing post #14, because the general version has more than one answer.
Intensity: using weights that allow 6 to 12 reps before fatigue is a reasonable range for preserving muscle. Heavier weights with lower reps can work but require more recovery.
Everything in post #12 holds. The case it does not cover is the one I have.
Recovery sits at the boundary between what this community can usefully discuss and what it cannot, and I think it falls on the discussable side, narrowly.
An update on my earlier recovery post: the pattern held for another six weeks and then stopped, which I did not predict and cannot explain.
Reduced appetite makes fuelling a session harder, and that is a practical problem with practical solutions rather than a reason to stop.
One more caveat and then I will stop qualifying: the sample selected itself.
Recovery: heavier training on a energy deficit and on a compound that slows gastric emptying requires attention to recovery (sleep, nutrition, stress). Recovery capacity declines with deficit, so training volume might need adjustment.
Stating my assumptions rather than smuggling them in.
Frequency: three sessions per week of full-body training is easier to maintain than higher frequencies on an energy deficit. Consistency beats intensity when recovery capacity is limited.
Worth separating two things that post #17 runs together.
Two things can be true about recovery at once: the mechanism is plausible and the evidence for the size of the effect is thin. Most of the argument here is people defending the first against attacks on the second.
That is a cleaner way of putting what I was circling around.
Adding the boring version of recovery, because the interesting version keeps getting posted and the boring one is usually right.
Check the ordinary explanations, in order, and stop when one of them accounts for what you are seeing. Most of the time the second one does.
Post #21 and I disagree about the size of the effect, not about the direction.
Practical note on recovery: write down what you expect before you look. The number of times I have found what I went looking for is higher than chance would allow.
I disagree with the framing of recovery above, and I think it is a substantive disagreement rather than a terminological one. Setting out why, so it can be checked.
The reasoning depends on an assumption that is doing a lot of work and is never stated. If the assumption holds, the conclusion follows. I do not think it holds generally.
The reports here that state the programme, the load and the timeframe are useful. The ones that state an outcome are not.