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Listener Q&A Episode #2: Feeling Burned Out After a Meet? + Training Through Life’s Seasons
In this candid and insightful listener Q&A episode, Dr. Rori Alter and Dr. Alyssa Haveson of Progressive Rehab & Strength dive deep into two thought-provoking questions submitted by a competitive powerlifter navigating the post-meet blues and nutrition challenges.
They unpack the psychological and physical impacts of taking extended time off from training after powerlifting competitions, explore ways to manage training stress, and discuss how to realign your training goals during life transitions. Plus, they address the complex question of when to transition to maintenance calories after bulking or cutting.
From athlete burnout and life balance to nutrition periodization and sport crossover (hello BJJ!), this episode is full of real talk, actionable advice, and behind-the-scenes coaching strategy.
Key Topics Discussed:
When and how to take intentional time off after a powerlifting competition
Psychological burnout vs. strategic off-season programming
Communicating openly with your coach to optimize your program
Training through lifestyle transitions like busy work seasons, family obligations, and other hobbies
Adjusting expectations and recovery strategies in your 30s and 40s
How to maintain strength without a meet on the horizon
Pros and cons of adding high-stress sports (like BJJ) to your training in-season
When to transition from a caloric deficit to maintenance
Body composition discomfort vs. performance trade-offs
Sustainable strength strategies and nutrition for competitive lifters
Listener Takeaways:
You don’t have to earn your time off — you need to plan it intentionally.
Your training should adapt to your life, not the other way around.
Weight gain doesn’t always mean strength gain — and that’s okay.
Lifters in their 30s and 40s need smarter recovery strategies and realistic expectations.
If you’re feeling something — mentally or physically — say something to your coach.
🔗 Resources Mentioned:
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Email: podcast@progressiverehabandstrength.com
Rori IG: @rorimegan_prs
Alyssa IG: @alyssahope_prs
Bre IG: @breannejulia_prs
[00:00:00] Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: Welcome back to the Progressive Rehab & Strength podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Rori Alter, head clinical coach here at Progressive Rehab & Strength, and we are here today with Dr. Alyssa Haveson. She is another clinical coach here at Progressive Rehab & Strength, and we are tending to some questions that were received through our Q&A. If you're new here, we do Q&As about once a month. You can submit questions any time for the podcast. If you head to the link in the show notes, there is a question link or there should be, it's like a survey, like a Google survey, whatever, and you just submit your questions and we will do our best to answer them. If you don't see the question link there, because it might not be on some of our old podcasts, you can just email us at podcast@progressiverehabandstrength.com and we will get you set up with the questions anyway. So this question was received by a lifter and they actually submitted two questions, but we'll start with the first one. So I'm curious, how do lifters feel about taking scheduled time off from lifting? I mean more than just a few days, like several weeks? Sometimes after a big meet like nationals, I feel like I want to unplug and not deal with the mental stress of training, but I also don't want to lose my gains. So I love this question. We don't get this question a lot. But as competitive lifters ourselves, we definitely have dealt with this and we work with a ton of competitive lifters at the local to international level. And this is something that across the board can be felt by many lifters, not all the time, but it definitely pops up. Some people feel it more than others, and I think depending on the way that it's programmed or depending on the way that you're programmed and how hard you're training all the time will definitely affect that. But I want to hear your thoughts, Alyssa, so why don't you you start us off?
[00:02:17] Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC: Yeah, and I also really like this question, and I think that as a coach, I think that it can be easy to forget that sometimes people need this when we're thinking about the big picture, and maybe our client or lifter is not communicating with us because there's sometimes clients think, you know, there's an expectation that they just need to perform and perform and perform. And sometimes people have a hard time saying, hey, I need to switch things up. I'm kind of feeling mentally burnt out. So I would say, first off, if you are a lifter and you have a coach, communicate this stuff with your coach because we can't always read minds and we always want to accommodate whatever it is that you need to keep your head on straight.
[00:03:06] Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: I think that's so important. I actually was doing a free call earlier today and the person, you know, many times, I would say the majority of the time, people come to us injured, and so we were dealing with that, that topic that you were just talking about, communicating with your coach in regards to or from the perspective of an injury. But I think what I was talking to this person about was that sometimes the lifter forgets that it's about the lifter and thinks it's more about the coach, and they won't communicate what they're feeling to their coach because they feel like they're obligated to perform for their coach to make their coach look good. They don't want to let their coach down. And the biggest thing is like, remember that you're the one who hired your coach. You pay your coach, and this is about you, not about your coach. Obviously if you're like a sponsored athlete and someone's doing like free coaching for you because they just want you on their team to benefit their look as a coach or whatever, you know, you might feel a little differently about that, but I think that you should remember that you're only as good as your abilities to show up mentally and physically and emotionally in the gym. So if it's not there and you're not communicating that information to your coach, regardless of if it's free coaching or you hire the coach, you're going to burn out at some point, right?
[00:04:51] Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC: Yeah, I agree with that. And I do think I think that that what you're describing happens a lot, and I think it's unhealthy, honestly. Actually there was one time I had a lifter who missed an attempt and apologized to me.
[00:05:06] Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: I've had that.
[00:05:07] Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC: We have a long talk about that afterwards because I was like, no, don't go out there and think you want to make me feel good. Like, if you're not doing it for you, you know, when the weight's heavy enough, you got to be, like, doing this because you want to make yourself proud, not me.