Hitting the Wall

[Barfly]

Does this happen to anybody else?

 

I fast twice a week for 24 hours, from after dinner the previous night to dinner on my fast day.

Usually on these days I only do morning cardio, but now I'm ramping up and adding a weight routine in the afternoon. 

 

After 20 or 25 minutes working out I feel like Gumby; not normal tired, but weak. Really wrung out.

 

Has anybody had this experience? Should I break my fast before working out? I hope I didn't break something important ;-P                   

 

Thanks,

 

Barfly

[PaulG]

Sounds pretty normal for what you're doing. Two things are causing this:

1. You're working out in a fasted state, and

2. It sounds like you might be doing weightlifting... after cardio? Not sure from your post. But if that's the case, that tends to exhaust people very quickly. Most people find it easier to weightlift before cardio.

[Waldo]

I hit the wall during longer workouts when cutting.

Perfectly normal. Sign of too low of a carb intake for the exercise you are attempting to do.

[El Exorcisto]

Skip weight training on an empty tank. Without additional aminos floating around you can't do any repair, so you are just causing muscle degradation. That's why the meat heads (myself included) always crush a protein shake or a very proteinacious meal immediately following their training. If you want to fast, do so by all means. Leave the iron for when you are in a fed, or even overfed state.

[Barfly]

Got it, thanks! I'll be moving my fasting window back 6 hours or so before a weight training day, eat before and do a recovery drink after.

PaulG - yep, kinda have to do cardio first thing in the morning. It gets waaay too hot here (central Cal) to run by 9 or 10 a.m.

Exorcisto - degradation? oh yeah, it hurts today :-P

[JakeJoh10]

Yea, I would say it's pretty normal, especially when in a caloric deficit.

 

I'm personally leaning out right now, and I've found that decreasing overall volume has helped tremendously as far as being able to maintain strength while dropping weight.

[Barfly]

OK, I can do that. Right now I do 2 sessions, AMRAP 20 minutes and AMRAP 15 minutes. I'll try 15/10. Thanks.

[El Exorcisto]

No, degradation as in the muscle gets canibalized by the body as a source of fuel, leaving you weaker and slightly smaller than you were before... Fasted resistance training = canibalized muscle = VERY BAD. Like, crossing the streams bad.

[Barfly]

You're preaching to the choir, man. I could really feel it for, like, 2 days. It wasn't a "good" hurt, it was a miserable, achy hurt.