You know, I have been doing what I do a very long time - longer than most who ... do what I do. Though it doesn't happen often, I absolutely cannot stand it when I can't accurately explain why something happens. It drives me nuts. It could have something to do with my ego, but equally as important is the fact that if I don't know why or how something happened, I have much less of a chance that I can repeat it and make it happen again.
I am finishing up the 5th week of my TRT "cruise" (with roughly 6 more weeks to go) and I have destroyed PRs all week - every single workout. When I say "destroyed" I don't mean that I am adding 100 pounds to my bench or 200 to my squat but more that because I have consistently been PRing damn near every exercise for the entire week, I consider this to be "destroying" or "destroyed." I doubt I have even had one full week while ON cycle that I destroyed virtually every PR for every exercise.
I have sat here guessing as to why this is happening and even though there are some logical assumptions, they aren't rock solid; they aren't convincing enough for me to say with confidence that "this" is why it is happening.
3 things stand out as contributors (and it is very possible that all 3, together, are the reason):
1. I have had a very consistent sleep schedule in the last 10-14 days. I have not had this consistent of a schedule in a few months. I am also sleeping more hours and the sleep is almost entirely uninterrupted. There are nights (days for me) that I wake up only one time to pee and that is it. I typically wake up several times per night with 3 or 4 of them because I have to pee but a few more times just because I have to roll over or I am hot and need to take the comforter off, etc.
I have been using benadryl before bed for the last 3 weeks so I don't know how much of the quality sleep is from the benadryl but it makes me not want to stop taking it, if I am being honest. I am one of those people who believes strongly that you don't fix what ain't broke - you let it ride.
2. I skipped 2 workouts at the end of last week to allow for my left supinator to recover better and I felt that my legs were borderline overtrained, anyway. This meant that I trained on Tue and Wed but not again until Monday of this week. The added time almost certainly helped with recovery.
3. In addition to taking off the latter part of last week from the gym, I also loosened up my diet and allowed for more calories and carbs than usual, outside of my usual weekly Skipload. I kept the calories to only meals and protein drinks but I had foods like Chipotle or a Panera Cobb Salad with triple chicken and even had some BBQ, as well (smoked ribs, baked beans, coleslaw and cornbread). My weight climbed about 7 pounds more than a usual Skipload but returned and dropped quite a bit as I got into this last week. I was still up about 5 pounds, though, by mid-week so that likely played into the strength gains, as well.
It is most likely that these 3 things together were the reason for the increase in strength. However, if this is the case, it is a bummer because I can't eat like that every week or every other week or my condition will be shot by the time the cruise TRT phase ends in mid-June. I certainly don't want to give up a lot of condition to make gains right now. However, I will admit that it has me thinking of ways that I can extend the Skipload to something like 2 full days (Sat and Sun) and try to get more calories to help with growth/strength but not so many that my weight goes to high and I add too much body fat. I suppose if I add a small amount of body fat I would not have a problem with this - as long as it contributes to increases in strength (growth) during this cruise phase.
Obviously, the more strength I can hold going into the next 24-week growth/gain phase, the more of a jump I will have on my progress for the rest of the year. It is slightly tempting to just not worry about condition and grow right now and then grow even more for the rest of the year without worrying about body fat but ... that is not part of my goals and it is not what I consider to be the healthy way to achieve what I want to achieve.
I am going to continue with my plan because it has been good to me for the last 9 months. If I continue to stick to the plan and make smart decisions, I will remain healthy and be able to have a great off season, finishing out this year reaching every goal that I set last fall.
It is times like this where you start to question yourself, thinking that there might be a better way but I thought about all of this shit months ago when I came up with this plan. So, the plan remains and I will ride it out.
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