Fatigue Indicators and How to Use Them

hey folks dr mike israel here for

renaissance periodization

today's topic is fatigue

indicators and how to use them for

strength

and or hypertrophy training here is the

thing

if you want a ton more detail that i'm

going to give in this relatively short

video just a grand tour

there's an article on the internet i

believe it is on

juggernaut training systems which is an

excellent site by the way a very good

friend chad wesley smith runs it

their youtube is amazing so i'd

absolutely subscribe to that or at least

give some videos some looks

and on their website there's an article

called fatigue indicators and how to use

them it's by myself

and dr james hoffman also of rp you've

probably seen him on the webinar in a

bunch of other videos

we wrote that together a while ago it's

aged pretty well

that's the super fine point detail so

here i'm going to give a grand tour but

if you have any specific questions of

course you can shoot them in the

description and

somebody may very well answer them or

sorry shoot them in the comments and

edit the description on the video but uh

at the end of the day i think it would

be really really cool if you guys want

to check out that article

every time you click on an article um

the russian cia gets a scent

or whatever so you're going to be

tipping the scales of global balance

into evil but before we do that let's

check out fatigue indicators and how to

use them there are

three categories of fatigue indicators

basically things signs in your training

that you know

fatigue is accumulating to the point

where it's time to back off

whether it's through recovery sessions

light sessions technique sessions

deloads more days off

more food something to handle the

fatigue because it's getting out of hand

that

fatigue out of hand point is

the point we're looking for but we have

three sort of time points around that

that we can be intelligent about

there are leading indicators that start

to red flag

before fatigue actually hits you in a

way that interferes with productive

training because that's our point

so we have leading indicators happen

before we have concurrent indicators

that tell you like

now is when it's probably time to deload

really soon

and then we have lagging indicators that

either

tell you okay it's real close slash here

the time to deload and or if you feel a

lot of them together

or perceive a lot of them together

there's a decent chance that like

you're overreaching now and now is the

time to pull back

because then you get a functional

overreaching super compensation boost

and then you get better but if you

ignore the lagging indicators

after this sort of peak of fatigue has

occurred any more fatigue on top of that

if you just keep going

and don't address the fatigue could land

you into non-functional overreaching

which means you the super compensatory

effect just brings you back up to normal

or worse

or it could start you on the road if

you're really for weeks and weeks ignore

it to over training and all these other

really bad things injury and so so on

and so forth you don't want any of that

so here's the deal

let's start with leading indicators

first some of these leading indicators

are also causes but if you're using them

to cause higher fatigue

then there are also indicators that have

cheek is coming because like you know

x yields y right so here's the deal your

previous days

either yesterdays or several days

prior to that nutrition is a leading

indicator of higher fatigue

if your nutrition sucked in the last

several days like you missed tons of

meals you ate way too few calories but

you're still training super hard

you are going to have a fatigue bump

soon okay

plain and simple right and that fatigue

bump could be large

next one is several previous days

stress and recovery management let's say

you spent several days

fighting with your parents or you spent

several days like worrying about if

you're going to get into college and

that letter hasn't come in a mail what

the hell is going on

or you haven't slept a ton so on and so

forth your fatigue will be skyrocketing

soon even even if you don't know if you

sort of feel normal now

these leading indicators remember it's

never one for one there's never a

guarantee that okay

this indicator is coming so fatigue is

going to be high but watch out

okay they're like little red indicator

lights and like a a submarine they start

to go off it might not be the end of the

world but you're going to look at them

ships because they might be telling you

something

next one is the previous week's training

volume and intensity

so if in the last week you crushed it

don't expect

fatigue to just be blah this week it's

going to go up because fatigue is

cumulative right

let's say you were doing a normal

program and you had some friends visit

you for a week and stay with you

and they're all muscle building friends

so muscle building friends tm

right and you go in the gym you fuck

crush it you know how you

around your boys around your ladies you

get after so

the next week they all leave and you're

alone and it's maybe another week of

training

no deload don't expect to be like 100

hunky-dory like that's just going to

mess you up right so know that when you

make a huge

inroad into training volume and

intensity and so on and so forth

you're going to be paying for it in a

delayed fashion just don't let it

surprise you

right next one these are actual

uh things you can perceive there's not

things you are doing they're not causes

of fatigue

they are indicators of fatigue in a pure

sense okay

technical coordination and learning

proficiency this is easy to do

especially if you play another sport

like for example i do brazilian jiu

jitsu as well as hypertrophy

and strength training and mostly i

purchase for training now

i know that when i'm starting to feel

real sloppy in jiu jitsu learning

techniques or executing them

i'm still good for hyper i'm not

overreached on hypertrophy or strength

mechanisms

but it's coming okay because uh

technique

ability to learn and to execute is a

very very fatigue sensitive

so your fatigue is climbing it pings

your technical ability first

and then it'll ping your ability to add

muscle and or get stronger later

but it's not that much later a week or

two later so when your technique starts

to fall apart

it's okay if you're not a technique

athlete you just kind of know if you

just feel like sort of uncoordinated

even at the gym

you just feel less athletic even though

you're still hitting pr's and stuff

just know that that might be an

indicator that your fatigue is going to

be really high really soon

another one this one you can test we use

it a lot

with athletes that are not physique

athletes sport performance athletes jump

height

okay jump height uh because speed and

explosiveness is again more sensitive to

fatigue

than strength and hypertrophy then uh

what ends up happening is if your jump

height starts to crest and come down

it's probably a chance that you're

excessively fatigued

soon and it's going to be time to back

off so now if you're training athletes

that are explosive athletes and their

training is explosive this when jump

height

is starting to fall off that's not a

leading fatigue indicator that's a

concurrent fatigue indicator it's

already happening

okay but for strength hypertrophy

explosiveness is not a requisite

and you can still pass the point of

fatigue where

where explosiveness starts to fall off

there's still more volume and intensity

you can add and more fatigue

in which it's productive to train so you

don't have to stop but just know it's

coming soon if you're training for

strength and hypertrophy

next concurrent indicators how do you

know

you're experiencing fatigue now because

you may have a very legitimate question

of like

okay uh do i have too high fatigue right

now

to continue to train productively and

strength training it's pretty easy i'll

see why in a sec

and i purchase training it's not

immediately intuitive but we'll explain

in a bit so

first is bar uh movement velocity if

you're not moving weights as fast as you

were

it probably means that especially

weights you're used to

like you get under 315 as your last

warrant for the squat and you're

grinding it it's slow you're like

feel like i have a lot of fatigue now

that may next set may go well but it may

not

even if you're in working sets the bar

speed is really low you have to really

grind

chances are your fatigue is pretty high

and it's pretty soon time to back off

right next one this is a bit subjective

but if you're an advanced trainee you're

honest with yourself you get really good

at this

is what we call bar weight feeling or

perception of effort right like

if you unrack 225 you usually like all

right

sweet on rack 225 and you're like

and even if your velocity is good you're

like that felt heavy as fuck

five times out of ten no big deal the

next set feels fine and everything is

great

but the other five times out of ten it's

a sign that maybe

you know maybe your fatigue is rising

right

the ultimate sign comes next and that is

actual performance so in strength is

really easy as soon as you undershoot

your pr that you were trying to hit

you're underperforming right and maybe

that's due to fatigue maybe it's a bad

day

do you come in later that week and try

the same movement pattern

like front squats sucked monday if

squats

high bar back squats suck again thursday

you probably have excessive fatigue it's

not just a one time thing

right reps per set versus capability

load versus reps versus uh your ability

to do them versus rir for example

in the gym for hypertrophy training is

the gold standard for how to measure

fatigue so for example

if you hit 315 for sets of 10 roughly

last week and then this week you hit 320

for sets of 10. like you're good to go

you're still getting stronger awesome

if you hit 325 this week and it's a set

of 10 then

8 then 776 like ah

definitely underperformed okay why i'm

not sure it could be cumulative fatigue

maybe not now if you have all this other

stuff going on and leading indicators

happened a week ago you're pretty sure

it's cumulative fatigue but maybe

you just have that you try it again

later in the later in the week say

muscle group

right or even more telling a different

muscle group and you still underperform

like you try you know later that week

you're supposed to leg press

450 for sets of 10 and you got like a

set of eight and then six and three and

you're like i can't even i'm not going

to be able to one or end this

like any kind of fall off and

performance doesn't have to be big any

fall off of performance where you're

really trying your hardest

is almost always indicative of excessive

fatigue and a time to back off deload

and then push back up again right lastly

and this one can be done for folks

that have a hard time telling how

they're performing maybe like uh

somebody like a wrestler how are you

performing it's tough to tell

you go against the same guys in training

all the time and you don't know if

they're going hard or you're going

easy so on and so forth grip strength

can be used in that circumstance

so if you have a gripper a grip

dynamometer they're really super cheap

and you just test your grip strength

maybe every day in the morning or

something like that and we're up a

little bit and test your grip or like

three times a week

if your grip strength starts to uh

starts to go down that probably means

you're under recovering not for sure but

it's

definitely another piece of the puzzle

lastly and i do mean lastly

are the lagging indicators again these

indicate

that there's a good chance not on a

percent that you're already well into a

very high fatigue state that's no longer

optimally productive for hypertrophy and

strength training

and now is the time like now now like

today or tomorrow not like in a week

to deload right or to take an active

rest phase or at least some

recovery sessions something to back away

in the fatigue here we go

heart rate variables people ask this

question all the time like what about

hrv what about

all these all this heart rate stuff uh

they work right except they don't work

for every individual all the time so

they're better used on teams

and also a lot of times by the time

they're notably off

you could have told anyone in the world

you were crushed like you're weak into

shitting the bed and hitting zero pr's

and being sore everywhere and your

joints all fucked up

your hrv app is like hey you might be

overdoing it you're like

thanks okay but not always

and if your heart revealability is off

it could be nothing but if the other

signs are there

then you know it's kind of time because

sometimes you do a decent

week and you sort of hit some decent

pr's but you know it was really tough

you basically run through you could ask

like

should i train this next week super hard

or should i take a d-load and like

during that weekend

your hrv starts to go sort of off the

charts and your heart rate

monitoring is like oh something's up

you're like uh okay okay

with this piece of evidence remember

we're using multiple measures at the

same time

with this piece of evidence maybe i'm

not going to push it super hard maybe

it's time to back off

right another one desire to train this

one

can be a leading indicator a concurrent

indicator and a lagging indicator but

for

this video as targeted for super

intellectual hardcore lifters

okay folks motherfuckers like you that

want it

okay they're addicted to training that's

why the fuck you're spending your free

time watching dumbass youtube videos and

ranting about training science right

because you want the shit bad

so for you for your training desire to

fall off some real deep shadows has to

be happening

and high fatigue is number one culprit

so like if you

are like thinking about going to the gym

next week and you've done six

incrementally harder

uh weeks and you're like thinking about

going to the gym and you're like ugh

someone like shows you a picture of a

hack squat you're like no

no that hurt me last week like show me

where it hurt you point to your quads

uh if that's the case if you really uh

you usually love to train you're

confused like you even have to admit it

to yourself like do i really not want to

go to the gym what the hell is wrong

with me

well nine times out of ten it's gonna be

high fatigue and that means your fatigue

is already

very very high right if you're super

dedicated if you're not super dedicated

it's a leading indicator

right or no indicator at all because you

could always just not want to train then

like probably not watching this video so

if your desire to train starting to fall

off and you're a serious lifter

um deloading is almost always a good

idea of some kind reducing the volume

intensity so on and so forth

mood disturbances you start to like get

catty with people like

like that you're sort of uncomfortable

and anxious all the time along with

these other factors can

can be a conclusion that you're just

really really uh pretty overreached

appetite suppression uh a real big one

is like when you're in a hypocaloric

diet and you're pretty hungry

and then five weeks into an accumulation

phase you're not hungry anymore even

though you're the lowest calories ever

gee whiz you're probably real deep in

the hole right and a lot of times your

performance and the other metrics

reflect this as well

also happens on mass gaining and it

sucks on masking because it's kind of

like a benefit on cutting

which just kind of makes it dangerous

because you're like i'm just going to

keep overtraining

and i'll never want to eat again i'll

get results except not right because

you're going to just

spill over and nothing is going to

happen when you quit right or you get

hurt

on massing this is a pretty clear one

like if your appetite suppression starts

to occur

and it's just objectively a lot of food

okay no big deal it doesn't mean

anything

but if it's a food you've eaten before

it's not objectively that much and

you're like i should be able to finish

this

and your training volume has been

climbing it's really high and you have a

lot of these other things going on and

your appetite is suppressed and you

don't know why

the fatigue is probably why it's and and

it's a weird form of appetite

suppression too

because you look at food and you're like

i can't eat that i don't want to eat

anything you kind of shut down your body

recedes into itself not a good sign

for sustained training you definitely

want to back off at that point

a lot of times with all these mood

appetite come sleep disturbances

your sleep is just of a low quality a

lot of tossing and turning a lot of

waking up

not a lot of intervals in the night

where you wake up and you're like

oh i just had like a ball or a 50-hour

dream it seemed like i was in another

universe and i felt like i was in the

deepest sleep ever

the opposite of that like it just it's

like the equivalent of like

sleeping on a bus or a plane you slept

like that quality in your bed

not good or inability to fall asleep at

night or you wake up or this is a really

big one

you wake up really early in the morning

you can't go back to sleep you're just

like

wake up like vampire style you're like

and you're already anxious

not a good sign illness this one comes

later earlier

remember fatigue is cumulative and when

your body is busy trying to fix itself

in the fatigue

its immune system is weaker and is more

apt to be

overwhelmed short term at least by

pathogens so when you get really sick

and this is like a super predictable

thing a lot of athletes and they're

overreaching prior to big competitions

they'll predictably get like a minor

head cold during

right when they crest into the

overreaching and they start deloading

okay

a lot of times the illness actually

comes after you start to deload like you

start to deal and then you get sick

you're like what the fuck first of all

good news

you don't do hardly anything in a d-load

find being sick

right it's the best time to be sick i'll

tell you that because being sick during

your accumulation phase sucks or you're

actually training

uh that's just how it works when you

finally relax your sympathetic nervous

system and all your catecholamines and

fight-or-flight hormones kind of

taper down and then your body's like oh

all right immune systems destroy

everything because we've been dealing

with this cold virus for four or five

days we haven't been doing shit about

and then you get sick and so on and so

forth so i'll tell you this if you train

harder and harder and harder

and you got sick you ask yourself the

question of like should i keep going no

no don't keep going delahud let your

body recover and relax get over the

illness and then you can work back in no

problem right there's always a long view

there

here's some that you don't want to

affect you these are definitely lagging

wear and tear injuries okay you're

ignoring your body ignoring your body

ignoring your body your knees start to

hurt your right knee

and it's worse and worse and worse and

all these other things happen but you

sort of work through them and now you

have a bum knee

and it's going to take maybe months to

fix a bad idea

the idea of leading indicators and

concurrent indicators

is to never have to have lagging

indicators and because some of them are

nasty

some of them aren't just indicators

they're shit that's happening to you now

you got to deal with it

deal with it for a while lastly and this

is

injury is probably least as bad but this

is i think tied for worst

actual competition performance okay you

step on the power lifting platform

and you total 50 pounds under your last

best having had tons of these signs

and someone's like hey how'd your meat

go and you're like bad but i could have

told you that was going to happen

because i just ignored every sign i was

an idiot and i came into the meat

overreached

the idea behind these fatigue fatigue

indicators and how to use them

is note when the leading indicators are

arising

and be on the lookout then when the

concurrent indicators start to hit

plan that very soon after several days

after you begin to reduce fatigue

somehow usually in a deload or

taper or active rest or whatever and

then

if you ever see lagging indicators in

the mix

let's say you're on a wednesday you had

planned a train

thursday friday saturday rest sunday and

then the next week was a deload

let's say you're starting to hit a lot

of lagging indicators

on that wednesday there's a good

thought process to be had about just

starting to deload

thursday because you're deep in the ship

you very likely will be just fine

waiting

grinding out and deloading starting

sunday sure

but there's a even chance uh not a 50 50

chance but

a decent chance that you'll get sick or

that you'll start to get wear and tear

injuries or just like an acute injury

like a fuck my adductor or some shit

like that

or whatever it is you're prepping for

and training for doesn't go as well

freezing wanted

that's the stuff we want to avoid so we

want to be keen we want to note this we

don't want to be paranoid like oh my god

more weight feeling like

ultimately your performance in the gym

is the number one thing that matters if

you're still hitting pr's

you're good to go right fundamentally

but you can use more than just that to

be known to ready

to deload know when to deload and know

when look maybe the deal is going to

have to happen sooner than i planned

give that some thought read that article

we're going to link it in the

description

see you next time for the next video

you