If you have a competition *next month* I really doubt that staying up late tomorrow is gonna ruin anything. I think everyone have to find a balance between enjoying life and being competitive, we're in this for the long run (hopefully).
Ok I have a comp next month, but Ithere is a party tomorrow which finishes around 2am, im not planning to drink just chill with friends really.
Do you think this is stupid or should I be resting?
How should a social life be for a top level powerlifter in your opinions?
-- Edited by jamwithtupac at 21:28, 2008-09-11
I'll tell you what I do and you can make your own decision.
Every Friday night some friends and I have what we call Fellowship where we get together, eat some good food, do a little Bible study and just enjoy each other's company. We usually don't get done untill 11 or later. It doesn't bother me because I need that social stimulation. Life is about so much more than lifting.
I don't drink for a lot of reasons. It's bad hormonally (as well as may other physical ways), it just doesn't taste good to me, and the list goes on and on. My thinking is when I retire from the sport, did I do everything I was willing to do (within all sets of rules) to achieve my potential? If yes, then I can be happy with a good work completed. To me, drinking is an easy sacrifice.
Sleep is NOT overrated, but smetimes it's something that you can't control. So, if you ever can't control it, don't worry about it. If you're doing everything else possible (including training adjustments) then I doubt missing some sleep will break your total.
Can't log on from this computer Hope that helps Mike Tuchscherer
I'm completely with Mike that drinking probably isn't the best thing, but you are a month away from the competition. One night isn't going to hurt you really.
From a college student's standpoint now, I don't think drinking affects lifting negatively as long as you don't go ballistic the night before a big workout and have a bad hangover. I usually drink 2-3 nights a week and I never have had any issues. The one thing you have to watch with drinking is the weight you put on, not just from the beer, but from all those beer munchies too.
Note: I'm not saying drinking is good thing! So please don't take what I said the wrong way. I just am simply stating how the drinking has not really affected me at college.
Thanks Mike and college guy for replying, yeah normally I sleep around 12 midnight usually but I have 8-9 hours sleep since university lectures start later usually!
At uni for the first year, I was out twice a week but didnt drink much, few whiskeys and I would say it didnt affect me negatively, but since not drinking in the summer, my lifts have gone up lot quicker, so Im thinking maybe it did affect me a bit without realising it. Im always physched up for training no matter.
I came back from the club at 5am today and had to wake up 3 hours later, to bench press with powerlifter, but managed to PB (although only raw work today) which is good, now Im resting up until next month, very strict diet training sleep only until comp is over!
All this boils down to how your body reacts to any change in your habits. In our everyday actions are bodies are creatures of habit so it would make sense and is fact that our hormones and other functions of the body react the same way. I'm sure you've noticed a weird feeling when you sleep in and miss that mornign workout and have to make it up in the afternoon. Your hormones are balance differently at that time and have not adapted to your new schedule yet. The best thing you can do going into a competition is get into a routine and stay there for as long as you can before the competition. Now I haven't tried this for a varitey of other reasons, but Ihave thoguht about moving my workouts till late in the afternoon about three to four weeks out from a competition. Since I'm a 198 inevitably it seems I'm always lifting late afternoon, so I want to be in that groove. This is all my opinion, as with anything else only do it if it makes sense to you. You'll never get soemthing to work on a pscychological level if you don't believe in it.
As for drinking, one or two probably not too awful, however one night of heavy drinking (more than ~6 in a night) will take your body 2-3 weeks to recover completely. This is because you're liver has a great deal of work to do to eliminate the poison. Now as you know most of the work is done within a few hours after drinking however the liver takes alot longer to return to its own routine. Remeber the liver performs over 500 functions in the human body, many of these are dealing with our hormones and chemical balances. I never drink close to a competition because I want my body functioning at 100% capactiy during my peaking phase. Some competiions are won and lost by 5-10 kilos, if I lose by that little I want to be able to say that I didn't everything possible to be as prepared as I could for that meet.
