PED Policy

Public health officials have concluded that possible serious health problems exist that are associated with the misuse and/or abuse of performance-enhancing drugs, including anabolic steroids. All athletes should rely on these messages in making all performance and health-related decisions.

EliteFTS believes that all athletes should be guided by the conclusions of health officials and medical professionals regarding the health effects of performance-enhancing drugs, including anabolic steroids when deciding whether or not to incorporate these substances in their training regimes.

Have you ever wondered how elite athletes can get back to training days after an injury or compete six to eight weeks later?

In the current world, everyone seems to be a self-proclaimed expert, but fewer people are getting results. The information on rehab and recovery is difficult to find and often wildly outdated. Many clinicians still suggest taking time off or immobilizing joints for long periods, which can lead to worse health. This bothers me a lot.

The following is a 'secret' protocol covering many rehab-related factors. If you want to be known as the guy with a bad tricep, bad pec, etc, turn away. If you want to progress and forget you had an injury while returning much better, do as instructed below. 

To recover optimally, a synergistic combination of factors is required. These factors include creating a hormonal environment conducive to recovery, moving and loading the tissue appropriately, using rehab modalities to accelerate healing, and bolstering tissue repair through chemicals and supplements. Each is essential, yet they boost each other through synergy for optimal results. 

Taking a boatload of BPC and playing video games does not get you back under heavy weight.

Peptides are the new fad that is still highly misunderstood. Peptides are often underdosed, in the wrong location, without the synergistic compounds, and without supporting the accelerated chemical processes. 

A Few Guidelines on Peptides

Ideally, inject as close to the tear location as possible; there are local and some systemic effects. It is silly to pin your glute if you have a tricep tear. Next, use them for six to eight weeks to ensure you get the most out of them (run the full course, not partial). It is wise for most athletes to push themselves to have stock on GHK-CU, TB500, and BPC157 when they get hurt. It is inevitable you will need them if you are pushing the limit.

Yes, you need all three. GHK-CU is an uncommon one but very cheap. It is bright blue and can be fairly painful. With my recent grade two pec tear, it felt worse for three to four hours each time, and I could not move. This is why it is best to use it before bed or in the morning if you do not have much to do. In the early phases, using this in the morning can be a rough mental battle with the increased pain.

Peptides

Day 1 Tear

  • Administer as fast as possible. 
  • Use a full 10mg bottle of Tb500 as close to the tearing site as possible (if you can tell where), then go cry for 15 minutes in the shower. 

Morning Dose

  • 1mg Tb 500 
  • 500mcg bpc157 
  • 2+ iu GH 
  • 2-5mg GHK-cu You’ll be sore for 3-5 hours. Do not use pre-training. 

Pre-Bed Dose

  • 500mcg bpc157 
  • 5mg GHK-cu 
  • 2+ iu GH 
  • Can substitute 50-100mcg igf1lr-3 for GH 

Should You Stop Your Cycle? 

Probably not; those hormones are powerful agents of accelerating tissue repair and growth. It is advisable to keep some in rather than going on a full cruise. 

Within the first few days, it is worth reducing pain so you can start moving and getting blood flow in. Often, enhanced athletes have higher levels of inflammation, and with an injury, it can go wild, worsening recovery. Using a combination of light over-the-counter NSAID and topical CBD products can kick-start this and make life more bearable. 

Supplements are in place to bolster the accelerated collagen restructuring that happens from peptides. When you bake a cake and want to double the recipe, it would make zero sense to triple baking soda and salt. Having as many building blocks as possible is vital to get the best situation. You will also use a high citrulline pump pre-workout to increase blood flow to the tissue. More recovery factors, plus increased blood flow!

Day 1-3 

  • 100-200mg CBD through day 
  • 1-2 Tabs ibuprofen or nsaid to reduce pain from swelling 
  • 30-60g Collagen throughout the day 
  • 20g Creatine 
  • 20-60g Glutamine 
  • Pack Multivitamin 
  • 2g NAC 
  • 10k IU Vitamin D split two times with fat 
  • 1-2 Scoops high pump zero stim pre-workout 
  • Limit caffeine to 100 mg per day 

Day 3-30

  • 30-60g Collagen throughout the day 
  • 20g Creatine 
  • 20-60g Glutamine 
  • Pack Multivitamin 
  • 2g NAC 
  • 10k IU Vitamin D split two times with fat 
  • 1-2 Scoops high pump zero stim pre-workout
  • 5-10mg Cialis every three to four days for blood flow 

Topicals 

Use a CBD-based camphor or capsaicin topical to further improve blood flow. I am not a fan of menthol products and their cooling effect; for some, heavy inflammation or hot temperatures may help. My preference is to prioritize blood flow and recovery.

Treatment

Treatment is overlooked when dealing with injuries. Many practitioners are scared to even go near a muscle tear because they do not know what to do. There is not enough space to explain how my ideal modalities work. Each has its benefits, and as with the rest of the article, the synergy between modalities is powerful.

Pulsed Electromagnetic Field (PEMF)

Use a PEMF device to increase muscle control and strength, desensitize pain in rehab, and accelerate mitochondrial function for healing. Wear as often as possible and always when doing rehab movements or training. These cost about $1500 to $2000. It is a long-term investment as you will also be able to use it during training forever to be faster, recruit better, and have more power. From day one to three, I was not able to do a wall pushup on my pain scale, but the PEMF made it manageable.

Extracorporeal Radial Shockwave Therapy (ESWT)

ESWT is undisputed as the most powerful treatment modality available. It is possible to spot specifically increased stem cell activity, reduce scar tissue, and accelerate the repair of damaged tissue. It is hard to explain in words how powerful this is. I used it when rehabbing a very old tricep tear that caused pain for about 12 years. Within three weeks, it felt like a new arm. Your best bet is to find a local clinician, as these cost 10 to 50 thousand dollars. The best case scenario is a daily treatment for six weeks, but for people who do not own a machine, one to three times per week, directly to the tear and close to the local area is excellent. 

E-Stim or Compex

You can watch TV and do rehab simultaneously. In 20 minutes, you'll get thousands of muscle contractions that can dramatically reduce perceived pain and fear. Ideally, it should be done every day or as often as possible. Pre/post-training, if possible. 

Graston / IASTM / Scraping

These three are notable mentions as they are pretty cheap. Once the pain level has reduced and bruising is lower, adding two to five minutes of light general to surrounding tissue is worth it. With a tear, surrounding tissue will often compensate and get overly tight. This will change movement and make it less comfortable or lean you into a worse-off movement pattern.

Movement After Injury

The final component is movement. To get back under heavy weights, you have to start at the beginning with safe movement. With rehab, "It depends" is going to be the answer to most questions. The following are effective guidelines to use while recovering to guide you toward better choices. 

1. Your pain threshold will prevent you from repeating your mistake. Use a pain scale of one to 10; aim for three or four out of 10, which is a slight degree of discomfort without strain. The goal is to adapt to the discomfort and progress, not destroy yourself like peaking. 

2. The range of motion will start limited, and it is important to keep testing within your pain scale. Do not stretch to the pain or just hold stretches right now. Rather, move as much as possible.

3. Progressable movements are ones you can potentially use for the next several years that will not cap out like a side clam—loadable movements. I used a reverse band on an assisted dip machine for my recent pec gear. 

4. High frequency is more important than intensity initially. It would be more effective to move through range of motion for three minutes ten times per day rather than 30 minutes at once. The same goes for bodyweight movements like squatting, pushups, etc.

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5. Higher rep ranges: You will use high reps to rebuild your base and trust in the tissue. This is not the time to test or strain. Use reps of 20 plus for the first bit as you build confidence, and the pain goes down. It would not be fun to hurt yourself worse at 40 percent of your prior 1RM doing a single. 

6. Volume and frequency are more important. It is better to do one to two exercises every single day than an entire session of the injured muscle.

7. Progress weights and reduce volume for around three weeks. Your injury may not be 100 percent by now, but it is time to be less scared.

8. Do not lift explosively yet. Learn to trust your muscle and take time doing lifts.

9. Increase your range of motion incrementally within your pain tolerance. At first, you may have 50 percent ROM, but it will not jump to 100 percent overnight. Find your limit, work around there, and slowly progress it day to day  

10. Every single day is now a PR since you have never lifted 'X' after your injury.

Daily Guide

Now that you have the guidelines, the following is a general idea of how to approach the first few phases, followed by some of what I did most recently.

Day 1: Your goal is to move and not hurt yourself. Start with ROM often throughout the day; it should slightly improve during the day. You may notice throughout that things are very painful or you cannot do. Take note of these and use them to gauge progress. They can also be used for your core rehab movements.

ROM 10 times three minutes throughout the day.

Day 2: You should see some progress now that you have used GHK-CU the night before. Continue doing ROM; now find the easiest, lightest exercise possible. Execute 100 reps throughout the day; it can be sets of five or 20. The rep range is not as important as your pain scale. Some people can bench the bar for 200 after a pec tear, some need to use light reverse bands for the bar.

Day 3 and on: Increase rep range on the prior exercises until you can do 20 consecutive under 3/10 pain. Continue doing a range of motion.

Day 4: Increase to 200 reps throughout the day. You will be fine.

Day 5 and on: If you have not been to the gym yet, it is time. Start with any compound you can load in the future. You will want to reverse-band it or set a safety to limit your range of motion to 25p-50% depending on how diligent you've been. With this new lift, keep doing it until you can do 4x20 with low pain. ADD lift soft tissue if you have not done so yet.

Earn It

From here on out, you have to EARN the right to lift heavier. If you can't bench the bar without pain after tearing your pec, you haven't earned the privilege to add weight. This should look pretty similar to progressive overload. Each day, you will be doing slightly more than the previous day. The first days will progress rapidly; it will slow down once you hit 70% recovery.

Now is the long game of becoming very good at the movements you have found, which are now your favorite builders. 

Personal Experience

Here is my schedule for what I did for my pec tear.

  • Day 1: Range of motion 10x3min 
  • Day 2: 150 Pushups against the wall in sets of 5 wearing PEMF 
  • Day 3: 200 Pushups, slightly lower hand placement, 4x20 reverse banded dips, 2x25 db pec flyes with pink DB 
  • Day 4: Same 
  • Day 5: 20 rep sets with the bar up to 1x10 135 ( which was stupid ), 4x20 reverse dips, 4x20 flyes, 200 pushups, complex 
  • Day 4-9: Dips, pushups, flyes 
  • Day 10: First bench session, managed 60% for a single with minimal pain 6x10 back downs, 4x20 reverse band dips, flyes, pushups on floor in sets of 8 

Final Thoughts

The first few stages are the most important. After that, I assume you know how to train if you are strong enough to start ripping muscles apart. Trust your pain scale for 6-12 weeks before you start testing it. Keep jumps small and hammer down your technique. It can be a fun, rewarding process if you follow it exactly.

Andrew Pearson is an experienced RMT with a lifelong involvement in sports, including figure skating, snowboarding, cross country, and fencing, which led him to discover the transformative power of weightlifting during high school. His journey in the strength world includes competing in bodybuilding and powerlifting, coupled with years of coaching. Andrew seamlessly integrates his deep understanding of strength training into his rehabilitation practices for athletes, focusing on recovery demands as intense as the training itself. He continuously expands his knowledge through attending numerous courses and retreats, such as those offered by EliteFTS, and by networking with elite powerlifters. Dedicated to helping clients—from concrete laborers to injured elite powerlifters—recover and return to their sports quickly, Andrew excels in managing pain and improving movement through detailed, science-based treatment approaches. His primary goal is to keep athletes training with minimal discomfort.