Mental stress is one of the biggest factors in cortisol production that we know of.

Lactic acid is a GOOD thing, and cardio has little to do with "flushing it out." Lactic acid is what your body uses when it must resort to anaerobic means of energy production. When you reach the limits and your body can't get enough oxygen to muscle cells, the lactic acid combustion takes over (yay fermentation!). The limiting factor in that case is the ability of the cell mitochondria to process the lactic acid. More mitochondria = more lactic acid used for fuel = ability to go longer.

There's no need to "flush it out." It's there for a good reason! It's helpful! It's produced by the body all the time, and is used for either fuel for ATPs or is used in the creation of glycogen. It's always going to be there. People used to think it was responsible for the "burn" or soreness in the muscles, but that's just not the case. You will build up lactic acid over time when exercising at high intensity, but the excess will be removed by the body within an hour, anyway. I suppose you could do some low-intensity cardio cooldown stuff, but that's not been proven to significantly reduce the time it takes to remove the lactic acid.

That's okay, too. It's impossible to go 100% all of the time. What I meant by not half-assing it is that if I don't perform up to my potential for that day, I'll feel like I cheated myself.

Everyone has days where they just can't lift as much. I can recognize those days pretty quickly. But that's okay. It happens. What I DON'T want to do in that situation is to say to myself "Well, you're already doing not-so-great... why don't you skip a set or go home early?" That would piss me off. I still put in the work. Even though I may not lift as much weight, I'll do as much as I physically can that day, knowing that the next workout can only be better.

Well, the reason Im referring to flushing out the lactic acid buildup is due to it's side effects. It causes acidity in the muscles, and it can also disrupt metabolites in the body. Same type of metabolites that are used in the breakdown of glucose don't perform as well in an acidic environment.

Well, I worked out my chest for the second day in a row yesterday. I bailed on my buddy Thursday, so I told him I would work chest with him yesterday. I don't know how much 'good' it did.... but for the first time in a very, very long time, my chest is sore.... truly...truly....SORE.

I am probably going to miss today's workout....which sucks..... but maybe I can squeeze it in tomorrow. (normally an off day). I am also thinking about just eating well over the next two days and seeing if I can go up another five pounds on the bench Monday. We shall see.

I can relate to that. I go through the same thing. I just don't have it in me to give up. I can honestly say that in the 2 years I've been going to the gym, I can count on 1 hand how many times I cut out "early". I have a real good idea of what I want to accomplish before I go. Usually, I try to do a little extra.

What I meant was how high I try to keep my h/r while working out. I used to shoot for the upper 160's throughout. Now, it's more like upper 150's to lower 160's. I think I was doing more HIIT style working out early on, and have shifted to a more steady state thinking more is better as far as calories go. I think it's time to mix it back up.

I had an awesome workout today. Wasn't really feeling it this morning, and decided I'd just go lift and if I didn't feel like doing cardio, **** it. So I ran 3/4 of a mile on the treadmill to warm up, went upstairs and did my lifting, and just couldn't bring myself to leave when I was done. Jumped on the elliptical, put in 2.5 miles and then got back on the treadmill and ran another mile.

That's it though. Outside of taking my dog to a big off leash park today, I'm not doing shit. And I'm definitely taking tomorrow off. I've earned it. I lifted 3 days this week, and put in 37.5 miles between running, and walking on the treadmill and then the elliptical and bikes. Easily my most productive week.

Something going up the underside side of my forearm hurts. Not sure what I did but I'm gonna put off lifting for a day.

Roses are red
Sweat is transparent
If you work out wrong
Your ass crack goes errant

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Flop,

I'm sure everything is fine... but you're a big guy. You know all of the cardio shit that goes along with being a big dude. You should probably have a talk with your doctor about it. Of course, I'm not terribly confident in the advice given by most doctors or their ability to predict heart issues, but it can't hurt.

The most important thing is that you're losing weight and slimming down, though. That's going to do wonders for your heart.

And really, I might not even know that much about it, but my wife's father (Trent's dad) was a big guy as well, and you know that he had a fatal heart attack fairly early in life. Hell, he and I had hiked down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back out a year before that, so he wasn't in horrible shape. He was just a really big dude, and I think that just took a toll on his heart.

Couldn't sleep for shit last night. Slept maybe 4 hours, and missed spin class this morning. ****. Oh well.

Went and lifted in the afternoon anyway, and ended up lifting more than I have on this workout before. Weird. Oh well. I don't know why, but I tend to have my best workouts when I don't sleep well.

Is it on the outer edge of the underside of the forearm? I had that when I was doing a lot of pushups and renegade rows and straight barbell work. I had to cut those exercises out and it went away.

Only at high levels, though. You wouldn't be able to do much for very long at all if we didn't have the mechanism to break down lactic acid. I see what you're saying, but it's another one of those things that just isn't as big of a deal as a lot of people make it out to be.

Yup.

Do you notice it in particular on certain exercises? I noticed it the most when I was forcing my wrists into unnatural positions and when I had all my weight on one arm (like in renegade rows).

Dumbbell pushups.