Chad Aichs: Insomnia and Marriage

Getting Married

A lot going on in the last few weeks! I tried to get in at least one workout a week and a few days of throwing, but that didn’t happen every week. I was pretty busy and took the last two weeks off because my girlfriend from New Zealand was coming to visit. We went out of town for a bit and spent a lot of time together. To everyone’s surprise, I ended the vacation by marrying her!!! The idea of going back to the long distance thing was just not a possibility and I don’t imagine I’ll ever meet a girl I get along with so well! It was because of this, we got married. She is a little thing at 5’1″ and 125 pounds, but she is very strong and eats like a horse! In fact at restaurants, I’d order my little entree and before I could finish she’d put down two entrees! The waiters look at me because they think she is ordering all that food for me, but no, it’s all for her. We went to dinner with my parents one night and she orders this huge steak. My dad ask if she’d be able to finish it. I said yeah she will and I also just cooked her three chicken breasts just before we left! She puts me to shame at eating! She’s also into heavy lifting and although she hasn’t done a meet yet, she soon will. I had trouble meeting a girl that didn’t get jealous of me spending a lot of time training, but this one goes crazy if I don’t get her in the gym enough! She’s into motorcycles and rides. Plus she likes working on bikes, cars and motors. She is into four-wheeling and hanging out in the desert. I took her shooting and normally leave with at least a little ammo, but she had so much fun she used it all up! We have very similar taste in music and almost everything! She even thought it was great I eat off paper plates and didn’t mind how I live. She’s very understanding about my sleep issues and I think she may be the female version of me!

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” ~ Unknown

Well things have been pretty hectic the last few weeks. Just lots of personal stuff going on. Haven’t had much time to throw or train to much. Basically for the last three weeks, I’ve been getting in one workout a week. With only doing one workout a week and no throwing, I was able to actually see how bad my recovery is. It was taking 5 to 6 days before the soreness from the workouts went away! What is even weirder about it, is that I can easily maintain my strength levels with one workout a week! The week of May 31 thru June 4th, I did one chest workout. I went raw up to a 500 pound bench. My shoulder was killing me and I think the tricep I tore is getting a little weak. I can’t tell if it was flaring from the pain in the shoulder or from tricep weakness. Either way, I’ll go back to dumbbells every now and again. After that, I did my regular supplemental stuff. Tricep dumbell ext, dumbell military, facepulls, lat pulldowns and hammer curls. Then, the next week (June 7 – June 11) I did a bench workout again on Thursday. I did a shit lot of sets…dumbell flat bench, tricep ext, dumbell military press, face pulls, and rear delts. Then I threw in some leg curls for my hammies! The next week (June 14 – June 18) I did some box squats. I worked up to an easy 765 pounds. My hip really didn’t feel to bad, but I had to slow down with 765 to adjust the hip and lock it out. So, I decided to stop at 765, but I could have gotten an an easy 865. Then, I went to the GHR and on my first set, I felt like I ripped an adductor. It turned out it was still sore from leg curls the Thursday before. I just did some seated hamstring curls. Later that week on Thursday, I did some light bench work, but my shoulder was hurting even more. I did some rear delts and was done.

I was really trying to pay attention to my lifting and see how long my recovery took. I would train on Thursday for bench and was still sore on Monday. I suppose you could say it’s because I haven’t been working out as much and am out of shape, but I don’t think so. I think during these few weeks, my body has started to recover somewhat and my appetite is getting better than it been in years! I seem to be hungry every couple hours and I’m eating a ton more food. I think with my sleep so screwed up my recovery is just that slow.

I had a very weird experience this morning. I was waking up a ton all throughout the night like normal. I finally got up around 6:20 AM to take a piss. I figured I had 40 minutes to lay back down and doze off before the alarm. Well, the alarm went off at 7 AM and I hit the snooze. The next thing I know, the alarm is going off and the clock read what I thought was 7:30 AM. So, I figure I better hurry up and get cleaned up to get to work by 8. Then, when I’m taking a piss my phone rings. This worries me because I never get calls that early, I thought it would be something bad. I see my boss’ name. I missed the call and realized it was actually 8:30 instead of 7:30 AM like I thought. I called him back real quick and let him know I’ll be right in. My boss is really understanding about my sleep, he sees me in the morning and understands how bad it is. Plus it’s very rare for me to sleep through my alarm because I sleep so shitty. So, I slept through my alarm for an hour and 20 minutes. By the time I rushed through cleaning up, I started to notice how weird I felt. My muscles felt completely strange. It’s actually hard to explain. They felt good, kind of tingling. Especially my hamstrings glutes, shoulders and upper back. I felt like working out right then. It was very very strange feeling! I think I actually got into delta stage 3 or 4 for a little while and things started to recover somewhat like a normal person.

My life is all about waking up feeling sore, beatup…and basically like shit! Then as the day goes on, I start to feel a little better. The best I normally feel is afternoon and night. Then, it’s time to go to bed knowing you’ll feel worse when you get up in the morning. Every now and again, I get a somewhat better morning. Maybe every three or four years I’ll get a night like this. I just want to know how to make it happen again. Apparently I can get into delta sleep, but how do I do it more often? I spent the whole morning thinking about how to get myself to do this every night. Even if it’s just for an hour – it would make a huge difference. I just can’t imagine how strong I could be if I slept like that for six or seven hours like a normal person! Very strange! I do wonder if maybe my body is finally recovering from the last few years with me not working out so often. Maybe my CNS is recovering some and my sleep will get a little bit better.

I do need to really get my schedule back on track and get throwing at least three days a week. Even if those days are mostly just drills. I’ll start working on that next week. I’ll also try somehow to get that same sleep again. Damn, how much could I lift if I slept right?

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