Coming back from a sickness to 531

[Morgan McPherson]

Hey everyone,

I have been out of commission since Monday morning, woke up and started puking. Today I ate the most, two meals: a couple of protein shakes, bananas, apples, noodles, and crackers. I pretty much slept the last two days, although I feel a lot better today. My last workout was bench, on Sunday night.

This was supposed to be my max week for my lifts (the "1" week, in 531) but I have not been to the gym yet. I was supposed to do deadlift last night, military press tonight, and squat Friday or Saturday, and Bench after that. I think I will try and eat for two steady days before I head back to the gym on Saturday. Typically if I have a cold I just go to the gym and lift like normal, but this stomach flu is something serious, really whacked me out. Under "normal" sick conditions I have found it best to just go and stick with wherever I am at in the program, but this has been one of the worst sicknesses I have had in years. I am not joking when I say I pretty much slept for 2 days. No food the first day, very little liquids, more liquids the second day, just a little chicken noodle, and normal today with liquids, with more food than the previous two days. If in a normal 3 day period I eat 18 meals, right now I am on 2, it's that bad.

When I get back to the gym on Saturday, should I

A. Do my max rep and just go for it?
B. See how it goes and play it by ear?
C. Just use this as a deload week, and start with 5 again next week, repeating the cycle?

Any other thoughts would be helpful. I know Wendler has spoken about this, but I was also wondering if anyone had any practical advice from experience. Who knows, I could come back strong, but since I haven't eaten in 2 days, I don't think that is going to happen.

Thanks for the help.

[ScottYard]

I would go as planned. Life is unpredictable. I have done a few meets sick and did as planned. Dont sweat it. Just dig extra deep for some motivation.

[Morgan McPherson]

So the maxes I missed, deadlift and military, would you just skip those maxes? Or roll them into next week, and just do a proper deload on the squat and bench. Then start a new cycle the week after that?

[ScottYard]

id roll them into next week.

[Morgan McPherson]

I wanted to post an update about what happened. I got done with the flu around Thursday, went to school, and caught a cold! I was still not eating fully, so I ended up taking the complete week off due to sickness. When I came back to the gym for bench, I was roughly 8lbs lighter! Went from 198 to about 190ish! One of the things I did differently was that I cut down on the actual work. Rather than doing 5-3-1 for my max, I stuck to 3-1-1. I did this because I was feeling so weak and I just didn't think I could handle that many reps without getting fatigued. I ended up hitting 2 reps on the bench. On deadlift day I was still feeling wrecked, constant trips to the bathroom were necessary during the workout, it was not fun. I ended up hitting 1 rep max, it felt horrible, and I felt as though I might pass out, but I did it! With full health, I think I should have done 2-3, but I was happy I just got it. My military press was around 6 reps, because I had recently de-loaded due to stalling. Squat was by far the trickiest. I took the max, lost focus and seemed to die due to lack of attention, missed the weight. So I waited, re-wrapped my knees, and took it again, better focus and it went up!

So all in all, after loosing nearly 10lbs, being sick for a week, I went in and hit my maxes. I am glad that I did not start the whole cycle over. Thanks for the encouragement Scott!

[Brian Hopper]

So all in all, after loosing nearly 10lbs, being sick for a week, I went in and hit my maxes. I am glad that I did not start the whole cycle over.

That's awesome bro!!!