I'm Fucked!

[Mr. dB]

Today was my first day back in the gym after my recent hospitalization for cardiac symptoms. I've missed two weeks of workouts, which seems like hardly an insurmountable obstacle.

While I'm "recovering," I've decided to do a simple three-day split -- push-pull-legs, where push = chest, triceps, front and side delts; pull = back, biceps, rear delts and traps; legs = legs.

Today was push. My thought was to do two exercises per body part, so I was planning to do flat bench and incline bench for chest, close grip bench and skull crushers for triceps, and seated dumbell presses and dumbell laterals for shoulders. But I was running very late, so by the time I got to the gym I knew I'd have to cut that to one exercise per body part if I wasn't going to be late for work.

Bench press -- after two warmup sets, I started work sets with 20 pounds less than what I had been doing before. One rep and I could tell it was too heavy, so I dropped another 20. It went up okay, but I had to really concentrate to keep the bar level, my left side was lagging. Did three sets of that and felt fairly miserable about it.

Skull crushers -- I stuck two 45s on a 20 lb cambered bar, and it went up easy. I could have done more.

Shoulder presses -- here's where it gets bad. I had been doing 85 lb. dumbell seated presses, and owned that pretty good. I was planning to step up to the 90s for my next workout. But that was before my hospitalization. I decided to go light, so I picked up a pair of 75s. Got them from my knees to my shoulders with no drama (I look like I'm gonna bust an aneurism when I hoist up the 85s... ). Couldn't even do one rep. Well, my right side could've, but the left was weak Weak WEAK! I had to drop down to a pair of 65 lb. dumbells, and even that was wobbly. I've never been more depressed in the gym in my life.

I guess I've suffered some sort of neurological damage to my left side during my recent medical adventure. I'm calling the doctor tomorrow.

 

[pullinbig]

damn pops good luck. i injured a nerve last year that ran to my right tri. my bench went from 575 to couldnt push 225 in three weeks. it tok 5 months to get full use of my tri back. it even got noticably smaller too. chiro care, massage therapy and seeing an ortho (who said to keep the chiro and massges going) finnally helped me back to full strength. sorry to hear about you probs. i know they suck at our age. =0)

 

[DADAWG]

sorry dave hang in there bro

 

[hornedfrogs07]

That sucks Deebs. Don't feel bad though - I went to the gym last night, bench was down 40lbs, dumbell press was down 35lbs/side, and flyes were down 20lbs/side. And I haven't had any problems; only thing I'd done was wash and wax my truck yesterday, so I was a little drained, but no excuse for that big a drop. I've never been that depressed and pissed after leaving the gym.

 

[phoenixphyre]

I've been down for a few days with a sinus infection and made it into the gym last night and it wasn't exactly a stellar performance either. Give it time Dave and you'll be fine.

 

[Insane_Man]

You just need to get back in the swing of things.

Your body is deconditioned now. In a few weeks you should be back up around where you were. A lot is just loss of neural drive.

Since the problem is neural drive, you notice the drop a lot worse on bigger compound lifts, since they require a hell of a lor more recruitment. This is why you didn't see much of a drop on your skullcrushers.

 

[gator_mclusky]

You just need to get back in the swing of things.

Your body is deconditioned now. In a few weeks you should be back up around where you were. A lot is just loss of neural drive.

Since the problem is neural drive, you notice the drop a lot worse on bigger compound lifts, since they require a hell of a lor more recruitment. This is why you didn't see much of a drop on your skullcrushers.

Well put I.M.
Itll take a lil time but already ur back in the gym so ur priorities are where they shuld be.


Hang in there
Gator

 

[pullinbig]

i feel the love

 

[Golden_Muscle]

Why did you have cardiac problems? What do you think caused it?

 

[Bimmer]

It sucks coming back when being sick. Every time I come back after taking a week off from an illness I feel as if I havent lifted in 9 months. I know the weight is light but it feels so damn heavy. Anyway Its called muscle memory. Im sure with in 3 weeks youll be back around where you were if not farther. Alot of people actually come back stronger after an injury.

 

[Mr. dB]

Why did you have cardiac problems? What do you think caused it?

Who knows...

A couple of weeks ago, I thought I was having a mild heart attack, so I went to the ER. My blood pressure when I got there was sky-high, 192/125. Blood enzymes tested good, though, and no blockages could be seen on the chest film, so they say I didn't have a heart attack.

Symptoms were tightness in the chest, running up through my neck, and some surface numbness of the skin across my left chest, left shoulder, and left side of my neck.

I was on cycle at the time, in week seven. I was taking test and EQ, and for the first five weeks I was taking anadrol; after I stopped the anadrol I added tren. If I was already hypertensive before the cycle, then I suppose the anadrol and the tren might have pushed me over the top. Damnit, the cycle was going well, too, all my lifts were going up right on schedule. I had also not been dealing well with a lot of work-related stress lately.

Obviously, I stopped the cycle. I was sent home at the end of the second day of hospitalization, with presecriptions for a multitude of blood pressure meds, and one for cholesterol, which also measured through the roof.

I'm still experiencing some very slight tightness in the area of the aorta, and where the arteries run under my left clavicle and up to my neck. The numbness is also not completely gone.

I took a week off of work, even though I was only in hospital for two days. Last week I returned to work; the first day I thought I was gonna stress out, but I've been coping better since then. This week I felt I was ready to return to the gym, to the dissappointing results I reported at the top of this thread.

I'm doing legs tomorrow, and Friday is "pull" day.

I'm concerned about the extreme weakness on my left side. It seems to be associated with my shoulder, since it affected bench and shoulder presses. The right side feels like just the normal weakness one would expect when (1) taking a couple of weeks off of training, and (2) suddenly coming off of a cycle and suddenly taking in a lot less food.

Rather than do post-cycle recovery, I have chosen to continue with my "self-prescribed" HRT, I'm doing 125mg test. enan. every five days, so I took my first Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) shot ten days after my last 250mg test injection on cycle.

 

[Mr. dB]

Your body is deconditioned now. In a few weeks you should be back up around where you were. A lot is just loss of neural drive.

I think this is more than just deconditioning. I haven't had to go that light on dumbell shoulder presses in two years.

 

[GettingEvenBigger]

Just my 2 cents, but don't you think you should concentrate on losing some bodyfat. I recall that your bf is high....cause so is mine. I agree in the quest to get "freaking huge" but every now and then, reality kicks in and carrying that extra lbs is not good for your health.

I am not a doctor, I just portray one on the internet. Only kidding.

Talk to your doctor but give it time, what you went thru was probably more tramatic to your body than you might think.

Best of luck,
G-E-B

 

[Mr. dB]

Just my 2 cents, but don't you think you should concentrate on losing some bodyfat.

Yes, and I am.

 

[GettingEvenBigger]

Yes, and I am.

Hey DB:

If you ever want to get a lose BF challenge going on this site, you can count me in. According to my scale, I am currently at 19.8%. .....big fat cow 5'8" 212lbs and 40 years old (May 10th was my birthday), so I think that we are pretty closely matched to lose weight and fat. Sometimes, friendly competition, is a good thing.

Regardless, take care and hope you recover quickly.

GEB

 

[Prana]

Mr. dB, glad to hear you had no heart damage. did they say anything to you about stroke? or TIA? when you said you suffered neuro damage and weakness of the left side, I think right-sided stroke...

 

[acxel]

wow bro i agree focus on loosing the bf, and getting you health right , won't do much good shoulder pressing a truck if your gonna die right after, but i agree that you might have lost stregth due to inactivity,coupled with stress and all the meds , it'll eat muscle like pac-man , id say you stay away from heavy androgens for a good little while do lighter anabolics like deca-primo-anavar when your blood pressure comes back down . best of luck bro at least your still here with us

 

[Mr. dB]

Mr. dB, glad to hear you had no heart damage. did they say anything to you about stroke? or TIA? when you said you suffered neuro damage and weakness of the left side, I think right-sided stroke...

No, but these are all good questions for my follow-up visit with the cardiologist.

 

[pullinbig]

show this to you doc.

cholesterol medications are bunk.

they are dangerous, expensive and totally unnecessary not to mention that they dont prevent heart attacks

still care about lowering cholesterol

OK

Policossanol 15mg- works as good or better than statins, i have studies
Red rice yeast- getting looked at hard by the FDA thugs, works the same as lovastatin without hepatoxicity
Inostinol Hexanianate- lowers LDL raises HDL
Theastatins from our old pal green tea working darn good
Lecithin oldy but a goody
Fish oil- lowers triglycerides and cholesterol
Resveratrol- effective
Beta sitosterol also good

there are others.

all of them work. tricky people need a combination.

through the lipid pills in the trash

also a small 20mg dose of turmeric will reduce fibrinogen dramatically.
_________________
facts are stubborn, statistics are more pliable

 

[pullinbig]

lower BP.

CoQ10
Potassium
Arginine
Magnesium
Fish oil
Taurine (RAS supression)
Rhodeola (for the asprin like effect)
Green Tea (ACE inhibitor)
Ginko (ACE inhibitor)
Garlic (improved blood lipids)
Hawthorne (ACE inhibitor and diuretic)

i usually work out from the basics like potassium and magnesium out to the more sublime like herbs and other stuff.

there is no such thing as a rhodiola deficiency but many people are walking around with low potassium and magnesium levels and even low COQ10 levels.

thats why i start with those since there are genuine deficiencies that create hypertension

what most people dont understand is that your body elevates blood pressure for specific reasons. elevated blood pressure increases blood flow to remote areas of the body and brain.
increased pressure is message sent to the arteries and kidneys by the brain in response to low tissue saturation.

artificially lowering blood pressure has consequences wether it is done by herbs or drugs. of course herbs have less side affects but deficiencies are never addressed which is at the core of the problem.

merely suppressing the symptom-- low blood pressure, does not effect the problem which is the tissue saturation.

potassium and magnesium become critical as does the COQ10 because imbalances here offset the normal blood dynamics, i also failed to mention essential fatty acids becuase they regulate viscosity.

essential fats have a cell membrane and fluid regulating effect.

cellular membranes can become stiff and rigid and their fluid and nutrition/waste exchange can get messed up when the wrong types of fats are incorporated into the cell membrane

numerous studies have shown that adding fish oil to the diet improves cardiac function and helps to regulate rythym.

this is important to blood pressure, as is the anticoagulant effect of the fish oil. thinning the blood lowers pressure to some degree as well.