I know that all of you reading this dont compete in powerlifting, but the information in this blog can be very useful to anyone who trains hard.

With the prime season for weightlifting competition approaching, many of you are no doubt planning your training for the coming several months. I thought you might find the following information useful as you prepare for the coming season.

During my decades of competing in sports, I was always puzzled by the fact that many times when I was in the best condition, I would get the flu. This happened both during my running career and during my quarter century of powerlifting.

Getting sick can really disrupt your progress, especially if it happens within a few weeks of a contest. So, avoiding routine illness is always a priority.

It seemed counter-intuitive that someone who is in top physical condition would get sick. That was supposed to be something that happened to weaklings and people with kids in a day care.

Even though I got flu shots regularly, I could almost count on getting a bug once (or twice) each winter.

In the 1990s, I thought that my international business travel might be exposing me to some alien viruses. This was true in some cases, but when I stopped going to Russia and Ukraine, I still kept getting sick.

Being a researcher by profession, I kept looking for an explanation. The answer was given to me by another researcher who understood the big picture.

Like all of you, I trained really hard. Like you I had a full work life, family, and social life. All of this takes a lot of energy. So called normal people our age dont do physical training that would cripple the average high school kid.

My huge energy expenditure in the gym meant that a lot of the time my immune system was weakened. I had less resistance to some viruses in part because I literally burned the candle at both ends doing healthy stuff.

Whats the solution?

I know all of you like to train hard, and have very full lives outside of the gym. As we get on in years we can continue to do physical things that boggle other people minds, BUTwe must pay attention to our recovery in ways that we didnt have to when we were 30 or even 40.

There are two big things:

• Backing off on hard workouts from time to time
• Getting adequate sleep

Most of us who compete are a little compulsive (a little?) when it comes to workouts. The idea of skipping a training session is something few of us ever consider. We also seem to operate on the theory that if four sets of an exercise is good, then five or six must be great.

Unfortunately, this approach can be our undoing at times.

Even though gurus such as Louie Simmons say that sometimes, less is more, many of us operate as if that never applies to us.

Both the positive and negative effects of heavy training accumulate over weeks and months. Without adequate recovery from each workout, your body goes further and further into a deficit condition.

Sometimes you cant fully recover from a heavy workout by the time the next training session comes along. If you try to tough it out, you may make it through that session, but the week following you may be looking at an even deeper deficit.

If you find that it is getting harder and harder to get through your heavy sets, particularly in the squat and deadlift, then your body is telling you that it is time to back off and recover.

Im not suggesting you completely skip a workout, but consider cutting out a set of two of heavy work. (Dont immediately do a bunch of high rep light work to fill in). You must recover from heavy training.

One of the best ways to do this is begin cutting back on the number of heavy sets you do. For example, if you have scheduled five heavy sets in the squat, try doing four or even three. If you feel tired or the weight feels unusually heavy while doing any set, consider that a signal that it is time to cut back.

Obviously, you can also cut down the reps you had planned. If you were going to do 3, maybe 2 is better.

Lets look at another often under-appreciated factor in recovery: adequate sleep.

More sleep allows for more recovery from heavy training.and from a very full life.

When planning your training cycles, remember to factor in extra sleep almost every night at least in the month before you plan to reach your peak.

How much?

It starts with how much sleep you get now, and what the quality of the sleep is. That tends to be a little different for each person.

One nights good sleep will not make up for weeks of depleting your energy reserves. You must get extra sleep almost every night during heavy training cycles.

Sleep alone will not compensate for excessive heavy training. (I speak from experience on this). You must manage both your sleep and your total training workload.

Good sleep and listening to your body during heavy training are essential to doing your best in a meet.

Remember, as the late Wilt Chamberlin once said, the purpose of training is to win the game, not the workout.

Richard Schuller