Dr. Squat - Dr. Fred Hatfield

This is just an opinion; I'm not a doctor. I guess it depends on what you want out of your training. But at the gym I train at we don't make any excuses at all. That's for powerlifting. We train heavy most of the time. And we don't do a lot of total volume per week; 2-3 workouts per week is good enough. Our workouts are long though, sometimes 2-3 hours.

The thing is for me that sometimes I know when its time to back off. I did a strongman contest in June, and powerlifting contests in October, November, and December. I bombed the last meet and felt like crap and I knew it was time to back off a little bit. So I trained a little bit lighter for a few weeks and then I backed off on the volume and session length for another few weeks. I also switched to a permanent 2 days per week instead of 3. And I started eating better again. Its working so far as I am getting stronger again.

So I guess this kind of reminds me of how Doc has talked about how powerlifting is a sport you can continue to do as you get older, because you can keep on getting stronger and stronger. All guys testosterone levels drop as they get older. But you can keep on getting stronger anyways.

So I guess that's one of the reasons why I think training for strength is the best, especially for natural athletes and as you are getting older. The other thing is that I am a lot stronger now than I was 10-15 years ago, so it takes a lot longer to recover; I can't train every day like I used to.

Some thoughts:

-Only workout when you want to, and do what you want to
-Make sure you're getting enough fats, especially saturated fats in your diet
-Meditate
-Take the drugs they want to give you. HRT or something like it would obviously be a big help.