House of Wax- Aw gee, hope you`re back to normal soon. Having all that time off might be educational- see which lifts do *NOT* suffer from all the downtime. I never realized how overtrained I was until circumstances make me cut back drastically.
Remember that you`re losing a lot of water while sick, so do the "deliberate hydration" thing.
craigdt- I too am (was?) an extreme ectomorph/hardgainer; at age 25 I weighed 125 despite having lifted for a good while, not much for a guy who`s 5`9". (FWIW, at age 57 I`m at least as lean but weigh ~170.)
The point of all that was to show that you and I aren`t all *that* disimilar in some regards.
For *decades* I followed the Conventional Wisdom with regard to what I should do...from exercises to reps to frequency. I did OK but could`ve done better.
These days I do *MUCH* less per session. Rather than the routines that do indeed make perfect (theoretical) sense, I do much better by doing less each time and emphasizing recovery. I focus on intensity and feeling the muscles work. I hit every muscle to failure, even the "ones that don`t matter".
I`m now 100% satisfied with my results.
NOTE: maybe my age factors in a lot, IMO it definitely does regarding recovery but probably does *not* regarding sufficient stimuli for improvement.
Sets- after warming up (briefly) I *NEVER* do more than one set of any given exercise (to absolute failure). NEVER. Best single change I`ve ever made though it took a little while before I was able to apply myself properly and get that one set to do the job. Heh heh, one all-out set of squats/deads/etc. will leave most anybody collapsed on the floor and will be plenty to stimulate adaptation (ditto for cardio sessions, but that`s another topic).
Reps- experiment to find what works for *you*, might be surprising and very different from "what everybody knows". Momentum is generally not beneficial so I do every rep rather slowly under complete control with a lot of thought regarding what that muscle actually *does*.
Exercises- Similarly, I try to dial it back so I don`t do any duplicates. Don`t ignore one aspect (e.g., stretch/contraction) or one angle/area (e.g., the back is *complicated*, the triceps less so, calves are pretty simple). Get the job done with no "excess". Again, don`t worry if what works for you isn`t what "everybody says you gotta do".
E.g., Deads and presses are great for a lot of things, but they leave a *LOT* of the body unworked and are both subject to that "gravity pulls straight down in a linear manner" thing.
Recovery- You might need a lot longer than you`d expect. E.g., two days for the stimulus to take hold, some time for the inflamation/etc. to die back, some more time for overcompensation...it can take a while. For me, each bodypart rests 10-12 days between workouts and I don`t lose any strength if I go two weeks. Yeah, ectomorphs can require extended recovery periods too.
Eh, guys often don`t want to "cut back" for silly reasons like "I`ll lose poundage on my bench!" but then those same guys aren`t always 100% happy with their pecs
assout:
:dance1
:burn:
