Becoming Antifragile - My Attempt is Failing

[jklein]

Hi All,

 

I've read Steve's post on becoming antifragile, and a lot of it rings true for me. Unfortunately, the parts that I can relate to are the parts about feeling fragile. I've spent the last couple of months trying to fix this, but today I feel even more fragile than ever, even though I think I'm doing everything right. Here are my stats/lifestyle choices:

 

Age: 28

Height: 6'0"

Weight: 149

Diet: Pretty solid, low carb/high fat with very little cheating. Lately I've been trying to eat more since I've always had trouble gaining weight, and I'm up 3-4 pounds over the last month or two. 

Sleep: I regularly sleep 8+ hours a night

Exercise: I do yoga almost every day, foam roll often, I'm working through Becoming a Supple Leopard, I lift 3x per week (Stronglifts), I do 150 push-ups a day, I go to Taekwondo twice a week, and I'm in the middle of week 4 of the 7 Weeks to 50 Pull-ups program. I'm also training for GORUCK events by doing the occasional ruck march with 40+ pounds on my back. I always try to warm up before workouts, but if I'm being honest I tend to cut this short. 

Injuries: I've been dealing with ITBS for a while, but it's mostly under control. In October of last year I hurt myself, and it ended up being diagnosed as piriformis syndrome. I went to a Chiropractor for a few weeks, PT for ~5 weeks, and got a few massages over the past four months. My piriformis is at about 80-90% now, but my back is still giving me trouble. 

 

This past Sunday I did a group workout to help prepare for an upcoming GORUCK Challenge, which involved a 6.5 mile ruck march with 40+ pounds, followed by an hour of calisthenics with our rucks on. After that workout and through today my back is killing me. Bending over to touch my toes hurts, and mobility is definitely decreased. 

 

Basically I feel like I'm doing everything I can to stay healthy, but every time I do a hard workout my body feels destroyed for days. Is this just part of getting older, or is there some step I'm missing? Any advice would be much appreciated!

 

-Jonathan

[Bookworm_Tess]

I think the key information is the "couple of months".

 

Rome wasn't built in a day, you know. Give it time and things will get better. 

 

I'm dealing with knee/ lower back problems right now. But I was the victim of plantar fascitis on both feet for YEARS! and got better, really a lot better, by strength training. I hardly even remeber how I felt back then. So... things do get better if you work it.

[hwrdfrnd]

That sounds like a lot of stuff to try to do all at once, when do you take rest days to let your body heal?

[Dradis]

The first thing i thought was "holy moly how does anyone have enough time to do all that?".

Too much man, too much. I need a sleep just reading that.

No wonder you have trouble gaining weight, with that much exercise you'd have to spend the little time you aren't exercising constantly eating.

[jklein]

I typically take Saturday and/or Sunday to rest and do mobility work. This past weekend that didn't happen, I did Taekwondo on Saturday and then the hard ruck workout on Sunday. I certainly acknowledge that part of the problem may be that I'm not taking enough rest time, and perhaps I have unrealistic expectations of how long this will take. I guess I just get discouraged when things get worse instead of better some weeks. 

[danica]

Bro, it sounds like you're trying to jump right back into high intensity fitness instead of easing in. Be patient. Don't just jump into extreme stuff because you're almost there...ease in so you can continue to get better and build back up to the high intensity stuff. I say this as someone who was incredibly impatient with a stress fracture, but managed to wait it out and thankfully didn't snap my foot. Don't overwork your back and then injure it worse. 

[Toxophilite]

You might not be getting enough rest although my guess would be that you're not eating enough. It sounds like you get a lot of exercise so you're probably burning thousands of calories a day. I don't do anywhere near as much as you but I tried to calculate how many calories I needed vs. what I was actually taking in and I was shocked.

 

I would suggest looking into your diet and counting calories, macros etc. for a week or so.

[jklein]

Thanks for all of the feedback, I have a hard time "taking it easy" even when I know I should, so this is a good reminder to ease back into things after an injury.

 

I also like the idea of tracking calories/macros. According to my fitness tracker I burned 3000+ calories on the day of the ruck, and I doubt I replaced all of those + whatever I burn when at rest. 

[danica]

Thanks for all of the feedback, I have a hard time "taking it easy" even when I know I should, so this is a good reminder to ease back into things after an injury.

 

I also like the idea of tracking calories/macros. According to my fitness tracker I burned 3000+ calories on the day of the ruck, and I doubt I replaced all of those + whatever I burn when at rest. 

You might want to log your food in MyFitnessPal if you don't mind taking an extra few minutes each day to do it...sometimes I end up with a 1500 calorie deficit so I spend some time just plowing through protein and stuff in my fridge so I don't wake up exhausted and sore.

[Papa Raf C]

Man, all that exercise and activity makes me feel fragile.

[Nubbins McGee]

According to my fitness tracker I burned 3000+ calories on the day of the ruck, and I doubt I replaced all of those + whatever I burn when at rest. 

Of course you didn't replace them all.  That's OK.

 

People get waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too hung up (in my opinion) on tracking everything in the micro.   Look at the trend line on a weekly basis, not daily.  Unless you are an elite athlete in the top 1% of your field, anything more is just enough to make yourself crazy.

 

You like GORUCK?  That's awesome, personally, I got enough of that in the BS Army, but my old Army room mate travels all over the world to do them 20 years later.  Those days are going to be hard.  Really hard.  You will burn a ton of calories.  You don't do those every day.   Drink some beer and eat some carbs when you're done and don't sweat it.

 

Incidentally, your injuries hardly put you in the fragile category.  Hell, they hardly count as injuries. You can train smart, or you can train hard, but the balancing act of doing both is damn near impossible.  Right now you're training hard, and you're going to end up old, and injured for real as the years wear on.   Pick something that you want to focus on and work on training smart in that thing.  Everything else is a distraction. 

[Toxophilite]

Of course you didn't replace them all.  That's OK.

 

People get waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too hung up (in my opinion) on tracking everything in the micro.   Look at the trend line on a weekly basis, not daily.  Unless you are an elite athlete in the top 1% of your field, anything more is just enough to make yourself crazy.

I used to work on a pharmacy and probably 90% of people wanting information about weight-loss had this problem. Can't see the wood for the trees...

[jklein]

Of course you didn't replace them all.  That's OK.

 

People get waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too hung up (in my opinion) on tracking everything in the micro.   Look at the trend line on a weekly basis, not daily.  Unless you are an elite athlete in the top 1% of your field, anything more is just enough to make yourself crazy.

 

Fair enough, it's a pain in the ass to count calories anyway :-). 

 

 

You like GORUCK?  That's awesome, personally, I got enough of that in the BS Army, but my old Army room mate travels all over the world to do them 20 years later.  Those days are going to be hard.  Really hard.  You will burn a ton of calories.  You don't do those every day.   Drink some beer and eat some carbs when you're done and don't sweat it.

 

Yeah, I never served in the military and have no plans to, although it was a path that I came pretty close to taking. GORUCK is a fun way to meet special operations folks and get a small taste of the training without the commitment. Definitely agree that these kinds of workouts are rare enough that I shouldn't worry about replacing all of the calories that I burn during them. 

 

Incidentally, your injuries hardly put you in the fragile category.  Hell, they hardly count as injuries. You can train smart, or you can train hard, but the balancing act of doing both is damn near impossible.  Right now you're training hard, and you're going to end up old, and injured for real as the years wear on.   Pick something that you want to focus on and work on training smart in that thing.  Everything else is a distraction. 

 

Maybe I'm just frustrated because I used to be able to train this hard with no issues. Sitting in a chair 8+ hours a day for the past 6 years hasn't helped though (I have a standing desk now), and neither has getting older. Also it may seem like I'm doing a random assortment of things in my workouts, but all of it other than Taekwondo is focused on preparing myself for GORUCK events.