Many of you may already suffer from lingering injuries or maybe a few of you just have temporary injuries that you would like to figure out how to work around. This post is designed to help you get around that “limitation”. A quick background on me in this regard. A few years ago I was having issues with a lot of back/leg pain. The pain became excruciating and basically left me laying on my couch at home until I finally did something about it. I found out I had a huge herniated disc that had obliterated one of my nerve roots (causing the pain going down my left leg). This was a non-workout related injury. I elected to have back surgery to fix the problem. My surgeon (who did an awesome job by the way) told me I should never place a heavy load on my spine or have any significant twisting force to the trunk. The first thought that went through my head was “there goes my legs day”.
It’s a tale as old as time, old farts like me injuring themselves in the gym, or injuring themselves outside of the gym and it impacting them going to the gym. I am going to focus on two things here; what to do if you have an injury and how to prevent injuries in the gym.
If you already have an injury you need to rest the impacted joint(s)/muscle(s). I would also urge you to see your physician or physical therapist if you have nagging joint or muscle pain because you can’t just ignore this stuff. I can’t tell you how to specifically rehab an injury or give you physical therapy advice because I am not trained in those areas and frankly just don’t know enough about them. If you only have pain when working out certain body parts or only have it doing certain exercises you are either not fully recuperated from said joint or muscle injury, lifting too heavy or not using proper form with the exercise. For the longest time I had left AC joint (shoulder) pain whenever I did the bench press. It went away the next day but came back every week and impacted my ability to really hit my chest in the gym. Now I didn’t have any specific injury to this area that I knew of, but it became a recurring theme. My form was fine and I didn’t have pain outside of my chest day. This meant one thing…I was lifting too heavy (plus I was not doing the proper exercise to help the smaller recruitment muscles in the shoulder (such as the rotator cuff) become stronger, which falls under lifting too heavy). Lets face it…no one has every come up to me at the beach and said “dude your rotator cuffs are jacked” (I know you can’t see them, it was a joke) so I wasn’t paying attention to them. If you are going to lift heavy then I urge you to use impeccable form and you NEED to focus on the smaller stabilizing and recruitment muscles for each exercise/body part or you’re going to pay the price eventually if you aren’t already.
After my back surgery I counted down the days until I could get back into the gym. The pounds were adding up fast and it was all fat. Months of laying around and babying a bad back is not good for the body or the mind. I had to completely change the way I worked out my abdominal muscles and my legs. For most injuries there are ways to work around limitations. I had to find back safe leg exercises that were more than just bodyweight squats (because doing a hundred or so of those was getting very boring and taking forever). I listened to my physical therapist and did some googling as well. I now have a legs day that doesn’t put significant compressive force on my spine (no squats or deadlifts, which used to be some of my favorites) and still makes me walk around with noodle legs for a few days. Moral of the story is you have to put in the work in order to work around these permanent injuries and rest your temporary injuries so they don’t become permanent (see below as well). Talk to a physical therapist, do your research and be safe about it. Some nicer gyms have physical therapist on site now that can help you rehab an injury or just give you advice.
You don’t need to push through a shoulder or back injury and not be able to pick up your kid in the future.
How to prevent injuries? As I have stated in a previous post, I do personally believe lifting heavy is the OPTIMAL way to gain muscle and strength, but if you aren’t stepping onto a bodybuilding stage or getting paid to risk injuring yourself, the risk/benefit ratio is no longer in your favor to lift heavy (especially the older we get). I fixed my shoulder pain issue by dropping the weight of my bench press significantly, focusing on impeccable form and increasing the volume of my chest workout (more repetition, sets or exercises). Now the only pain I walk out of the gym with on chest day is that oh-so-sweet burn I crave after a good workout. Just because lifting safely is not the optimal way to gain muscle, doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. I still add plenty of lean muscle to my frame every time I go on a mass building phase. For my age, my workout age and amount of time I put into it, I’d say I do pretty darn good. Leave your ego at the door when you go to the gym. Who really cares if the guy or girl across from you is pushing heavier weight around? In my younger and slightly more egotistical days, I know I did. But now I see some scrawny kids pushing around ridiculous amounts of weight and I just think to myself “good for you kid (if they have good form)…I hope you don’t get injured.” All you should be paying attention to is personal gains and making sure you are becoming a better you month after month (see my body image post).
If you have a question regarding a specific injury I would urge you to speak to your physician or a physical therapist, but remember we also have a community of people forming here who may have experienced the same injury and might have some suggestions as well. These suggestions shouldn’t replace solid and professional medical advice, but could help supplement it. As always, please comment if you have any questions or have ideas for future posts, but keep it civil and constructive.
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