Table Tennis and Powerlifting

In the grand scheme of life, I rank table tennis and skiing as my most important hobbies. I rank powerlifting and music as passions, rather than hobbies, because they've kept me off of depression/anxiety medication for over half of my life. I'm finding it harder and harder to recover from powerlifting AND table tennis in the same week and am not sure how to structure my training plans to minimize interference. Right now I lift twice a week and play TT matches once a week, with a few robot sessions throughout the week time permitting. I think I need to switch my lifting days so that TT is after my upper body lifting days and so that my lower body lifting days are at least 2 days after TT matches. Any hints/tips on how to mix the 2? For context I'm about a 1300 USATT 2 wing looper that likes to block too, and my powerlifting total is around 1250lbs, entailing a 450 squat, 300 bench, and 500 deadlift. Short term (this year) goals are 1500 USATT and 1300lb total.

chikuy said:

Hey Thekleifheit13, according to exercise, 1st. if i were you i tried to start getting healthy food and as much carbs ( good carbs ) the better for you... 2nd. the rest is your best friend for recovery, 3rd. Stretch everytime with a good warm up and after that you can do everything!

other thing i want to mention is about the depression, i know 100% that all depression does not have to do with brain, cells, ect ect, it is all about demons , claim the name of Jesus and you will be heal or will be free of that

Click to expand...

Last time I did a food journal I was around 300g of carbs, guess I could try and keep increasing until I start seeing weight gain and then drop them a little. I'm very adamant about the Agile 8 for a warm-up and I stretch for about 10 minutes after any activity.

LordPippington said:

How is your lifting structured? Do you lift heavy % of max on each of the two days? Have you experiment with light/medium/heavy days or weeks?

Click to expand...

I currently run 5/3/1 where you work up to 1 heavy set with a compound movement (squat, bench, deadlift, standing press) each day, then follow it up with lighter assistance work. The heavy set is never heavier than 90% of my max though.

NextLevel said:

Carbs and sugars especially have a link to depression so be careful. Sleep is important for all things in life. So is sun exposure.

Click to expand...

I try to keep sugars low but without at least 300g carbs a day I start losing muscle, strength, and endurance. So I'll have to keep them elevated. Regarding anxiety/depression, they're pretty well under control. I quit lifting for a few months in college thanks to heavy workload and the anxiety especially got bad. But as long as I keep lifting and playing music I stay in a decent headspace.

LordPippington said:

For the natural lifters, many were fond of the light/medium/heavy days to aid in recovery and progression. For instance on monday you only work with 60% of your max at most for the light day. Then on a heavy day you go up to the 90% or close to it and the next session go for medium 70-80%. So you're not always taxing the muscles at near maximal levels every lifting day. It helps grooving the CNS and not burning the muscles out, while still working them out.

The recommended split days and such that pros put out in magazines or online articles are often nearly impossible for a truly natural lifter to stick with. Especially if you're already having problems with recovery time, you may want to tone down the %'s on more days. I'd assume you're still fairly young, so the HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY!! mentality is still strong within

Click to expand...

I'm probably gonna start of by re-setting my training max for all the lifts so that my working weights are at a lower % of my actual maxes and see if it helps. And I'll try and leave another rep or two in the tank on my AMRAP sets to see if that helps. Luckily I've never been dumb enough to fall for muscle magazine routines and have always been a full body or upper/lower split kinda guy.