Throughout my lifting career, I have been fortunate to have very few injuries—none of which having been major ones. I’ve had tendonitis so bad that I had to shut workouts down early, and a pinched sciatic caused me to miss a workout. Last year, I also had some hamstring issues that made me miss a session. However, all of it was very very minor. Still, you don’t truly realize the value of training injury-free until you’ve been plagued with pain week after week.
August 17th was a squat day, and I had high hopes for that session because I had been struggling pretty badly with squats. Basically, weights that should have been super easy felt very, very heavy. When you are having a tough time with weights that you have lifted raw, it can be pretty disheartening. Well, the session was going pretty well—I hit 580 pounds for four sets and jumped to 600x4. On my fourth rep, however, I felt a mild twinge in my lower back which caused me to lose tightness for a split second. Once I caught myself, I think I may have strained the muscles a little bit, so I foam rolled a bit and walked around. Everything seemed to be back to normal, so I went on with my workout as planned. I ended up doing all my brief work with the Yoke bar—all pain free. I then moved over to Romanian dead lifts, but on my fifth set I felt the same twinge in the same place. This time, however, it was far more severe. I ended up shutting down the workout at that point because it was hard to stand upright.
After a few days of rehab, ice packs, anti-inflammatorys, and stretching, deadlift day rolled around. It was supposed to be the heavy week of the three-week wave. Therefore, I was supposed to do 635 pounds and had planned to keep going up as long as nothing hurt. To be extra careful, though, I put on my gear much earlier than I normally would, and I worked up to the numbers that I had penciled in. Thankfully, there was no pain. I was on cloud nine and feeling like I had dodged a bullet since I had felt like total shit Saturday. (I contemplated getting an MRI).
When Saturday came around again, I was pretty reluctant to squat. Still, I warmed up really well and put on my gear early. At first the workout was going fine. I didn't have any problems with my back and there was no sign of pain whatsoever. I thought whatever the problem was had passed, and I was well on my way to having a great training cycle...but boy was I wrong. It happened when I came to my final exercise on the Al Caslow program of death—pistol squats. If you don’t know what a pistol squat is, it’s basically a one-legged squat. Well, on my last set of these I felt a minor twinge, but I kept going with a little discomfort. I didn’t feel anywhere near as badly as I did the prior week, so I chalked it up as a win.
The squat, for whatever reason, was the only lift causing me issues. I benched and deadlifted with little to no pain.
On Saturday, August 29th, two weeks after the initial injury, I was warming up just like last week—plenty of sets with the bar, foam rolling, and I even walked on the treadmill for five minutes to get the blood flowing. There were no issues with 135 pounds and 225 pounds—they felt light. So, I loaded up my next jump, which was 315 pounds. When I got to my second rep, I felt the same pain I had felt the previous two squat workouts. This time, the pain was similar to the first week, but I decided to get my gear on and see if I could push through. Well, I could not. I put 510 pounds on the bar and it was excruciating the whole time. I felt like the biggest pussy in the world because I have never done a meet where I didn’t compete in all three lifts. I knew it wasn’t worth it in the long run to push through, especially since this meet was just for fun, so I shut it down for the day.
Fast forward to today: October 2, 2013—three days out from the meet. I tried squatting one more time since that previous train wreck, and I got up to 275 pounds before I felt the tweak. It was nothing major, but I knew squatting was completely out of the question and I wasn’t going to try it again. I had seen the chiropractor countless times, which allowed me to feel halfway normal, and I even got grastoned, which usually fixes anything that is wrong. Yet, as I am sitting here writing this, I have an inflamed right hamstring that only hurts when I am bending over or straightening my leg while sitting down. However, I went up to 545 pounds on the deadlift last night with no pain other than setting up to pull. I have no idea what is causing the pain and no one can really offer me much insight on the matter either. I am still holding out on getting an MRI though because I really feel like it’s something trivial; otherwise, I think I would be in pretty bad pain when I was deadlifting (which I’m not).
The whole point of this article is to let everyone know how much emphasis should be put on recovery and mobility. Before this little incident, I could get away with going to the chiropractor every four to six weeks as a tune-up session. Since the injury, on the other hand, I have been going every week, sometimes twice a week just to feel somewhat normal. The more preventative you can be with your training, the stronger you’re going to get. More than that, not only will you get stronger, but you will also have longevity in the sport!
