BEASTIO THEORIO: Whatever Doesn’t Kill You, Leaves You Temporarily Weak, Wounded, and Woebegone: A Brief History of Injury

Prior to his death, Nietzsche suffered from tertiary syphilis, manic depression, dementia, psychosis, two strokes, paralysis, and pneumonia. How this made him stronger, I don't know.

“Oh! I think I’m becoming a god!”---last words of Roman emperor, Vespasian, as he succumbed to a case of fatal diarrhea

I write this article as I nurse a newly acquired scapula strain (self-diagnosed) and prepare to squat ungodly amounts of weight in an hour or two. I’m glad Vespasian could be so optimistic and strong in his moment of abjectness, but let’s be honest, injuries suck. As athletes, we exist in a state of physical transcendence and superior ability. When injured, we are fully conscious of how our capability has fallen and how far from our apex we are. It is our equivalent of a layman’s sickness. Those who don’t embark on the journey of physical growth cannot commiserate with injuries; it’s a foreign qualm. However, they are burdened with illness; their daily routine is compromised, they’re cantankerous, they are torn from their physical status quo. But we athletes have far surpassed illnesses. I can’t remember the last “sick day” I took from training. That stuff is child’s play. You’ve got the sniffles? Squat those bastards out.

With those chins, I'm sure Vespasian became the Buddha

Since I’ve begun my lifting and combat career, I’ve acquired a laundry list of injuries. Simply put, they are absolutely exasperating. When I take the time to add up all the time I’ve had to take off from certain lifts, it seems that I’ve been in prime condition less than half my career. Sometimes I ruminate upon the thought of being injury free since I began. The progress I would have made! How high my numbers would be! Alas, much time has been devoted to convalescence and even working back up to a strength level which preceded the injury.

Today I read an essay by former President John F. Kennedy, entitled “The Soft American.” The essay expressed JFK’s concern that the nation was departing from their priority of being physically fit. He cited statistics which proposed that the European youth were far more fit than the American youth. JFK also alluded to the Greek and their consummate nature; their intellectual advances were made possible by their priori on athletics. You think this generation is being emasculated? JFK wrote this portentous essay in the 1960’s. He foresaw all these male ninnies, hipsters, pansies, etc. who have their masculinity trumped by many casual females.

"Jackie, do you think I'll be able to get back before the gym closes?"

I believe this attitude can be applied to the treatment of injuries in some sense. When I was a young lifter, I made several rash decisions in regards to nursing injuries. I was cursed with a puerile sense of invincibility. The cure for everything was to push forward with a sense of machismo and recklessness that acts as an anesthetic to the pain. However, with age comes wisdom. Many times my youthful impetuousness exacerbated my injury and cost me excess time on the mend. So, ideally, you must discover equilibrium between gall and conservatism.

At 1977 IPF World Championships, Doug Young posted a 1,956 total at 242...with 3 broken ribs.

So if you are an athlete reading this while sidelined by injury, don’t fret. While the present seems bleak, the future is fecund for you to fertilize with brilliance. In the meantime, I will provide you with my prolix list of injuries and the manner which they were dealt with and whether it was wise or not. Get ready to have your sense of schadenfreude appeased, here is my brief history of injury.

Overtraining

Not actually an injury, but can be equally as frustrating. The thing about overtraining is that it surpasses the physical and begins to torment your mind. Again, I was blighted by overzealousness and lack of reprieve as a youth. I figured the more work I put in, the more results I would see. Everything was heavy, everything was taxing, everything flirted with failure. Of course, with this approach, overtraining swoops in, comfortably perches itself on a branch, and begins to disassemble you from insideout. I would consistently feel lethargic, find my sleep cycle punctuated and intermittent, feel my appetite diminish, experience my strength levels fall, see muscle turn into avoirdupois. And of course, how does an inexperienced lifter combat this? Lift with greater intensity and volume! That’ll show your obstinate body!

Be wary of this vicious cycle. Lift with intensity, yes, but not like every session is a meet or competition. Prioritize where you put the majority of your energy: the compound movements. Accessory and supplementary work should be done primarily as hypertrophy, recovery, or cardiovascular work.

The truth is, the greater you are as a lifter, the less you need to do. Many of the greatest lifters have only two heavy training sessions a week. At an elite level, you begin to go primarily by how your body feels. If your body isn’t ready for another session, don’t hastily try to go through the motions anyway.

If you’re not an elite lifter or a beginner, be sure to find that happy medium.

Avoids overtraining

Lumbar Sprains

I’ve had a couple of these. As a lifter whose posterior chain developed late, I had a tendency to utilize by back/lumbar as the primary movers in squats and deadlifts. You know you’ve incurred a lumbar sprain when you feel a sharp and warm sensation in your lower back. The trauma immediately forces your body to shut down and you no longer feel like lifting. The next few days your lumbar is inflamed and normal movement is hindered. Shortened limb syndrome is a possibility. Sitting for a prolonged period of time causes discomfort due to compression/inflammation of the lumbar.

I’ve had all these symptoms. It makes every second of existence torturous. During one particular lumbar sprain, I decided to be a bold bastard and decided to lift as if nothing had happen. Yes, I kept deadlifting and squatting. Bad idea. The injury became so bad and painful that I had to TAKE OVER SIX MONTHS OFF FROM ANY FORM OF SQUATTING OR DEADLIFTING. Yes, you can imagine how far that sets a lifter back.

How I spent much of my days of youth

How did I compensate for this injury? Well, sensibly, I took time to work on my bench. As for the lower body, I did a lot of sled work. And I mean A LOT of sled work. Pushing or pulling the sled became my power movement for the lower body. I worked at the sled so diligently that I came very close to pushing/pulling 1,000 lbs. The sled is great for developing muscular endurance, conditioning, and it does a decent job maintaining leg/posterior chain mass.

The lumbar is a primary muscle in practically every single lift. If you feel as if you’ve injured it, take the necessary steps to a proper recovery.

Various Strains/Micro-tears

I have several chronic strains that flare up from time to time, primarily in the scapula, rhomboids, lats, and traps. They’re a nuisance, yes, you’re always aware of them and they prohibit range of motion. However, I’ve noticed that they rarely affect many lifts and generally abate within a week. My advice is to ice for a day or two, gobble down as much fish oil as you can, and keep pressing forward.

Does not contain fish oil*

Callous tears/Sore thumbs/Other miscellaneous hand qualms

Quit being a pansy. I lift gloveless and with a hook grip. Callouses are constantly tearing, my thumbs are continually bruised, my thumbnails feel as if they are being plucked from their roots. Deal with it. The hands are tough, they are meant to perform labor. They were designed to climb, fight, grasp, kill, tear, and other primal movements. Your ancestors didn’t wear gloves bought fresh off of Bodybuilding.com when they needed to beat a bison to death and then skin it. Don’t be so impudent to them.

Either stigmata or a heavy deadlift session

Lip Laceration

Yeah, you’re reading that correctly. While doing a perfunctory warm-up set on bench with 185 lbs., I somehow took the mother of wrong turns, veered way out of my grove and ended up with the barbell on my face. The result was a well’s worth of blood and my lip schismed into two like one side was Church and the other was State.

Didn’t have much of an option here. I had to go get the stiches. I think this may have been the only time where I was forced to see a doctor due to a lifting injury.

It did not affect my lifting, however. Unfortunately my girlfriend at the time did have me attend her high-school dance of some sort about a week later, with my lip turgid and discolored. The injury did, on the other hand, manage to get me a date with a foxy chick in my college Intro to Literature class. The lip managed to spark a conversation and she was bizarrely fascinated by it. Some sort of sick, twisted fetish, I suppose.

Yes, now just move in for the kiss...

Dropping an 800 lbs. tire on my leg

Not sure what other appellation to give this injury. In my brief period of doing strongman style training, I did once drop an 800 lbs. tire on my leg. As my training partner hoisted the tire off me, I lay on the concrete floor, writhing in pain, fully convinced I had shattered every bone in my leg. No exaggeration here, for the first 30 seconds, I felt one of the worst pains in my life. I imagine it was the brief period before the endorphins were able to flood my body to act as an analgesic. After these 30 excruciating seconds, I was able to pop right back up and finish the workout, believe it or not. Well, after the adrenaline had subsided, there was some major swelling and bruising. I performed the good old RICE method (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) for a couple days and then was able to get right back to training.

Not necessarily the RICE method

Subluxed Shoulder

Perhaps my ultimate act of reckless machismo. In one single wrestling training session, I subluxed my right shoulder FIVE TIMES. You’d think one would stop after the first sublux. But no, not me; the shoulder kept popping out, I would desultorily fidget with it, it would pop back in, and I would carry on. That cocktail of adrenaline, norephirine, and dopamine can be damning in regards to accurately assessing damage. When you experience an injury, go cool down for about 10-15 minutes. Wait for the chemicals to subside and then see how you feel.

Seems legit

This injury was quite the burden. It is likely a given that I could not do any bench or overhead press, effectively causing the attrition of my chest and shoulders. However, in addition to this, for some time I lacked the shoulder mobility to even hold a barbell on my back. This meant no back squatting. How did I compensate for these restrictions? A ton of pulling motions and front squats.

Unfortunately the shoulder took about 4 months to heal. By the time I was ready to use it again, I could barely push press 185 lbs. I believe this injury significantly changed my lifting career. Shoulders were at one point my biggest strength. Now I notice that I bench with a very narrow grip, relying more on triceps and back.

Blows and Barbells to the Head

In my combat career, I’ve been lucky enough to possess the wherewithal and technical skill to avoid most strikes to the head. However, when I’ve been hit, I’ve been truly hit. In addition to this, I went through a phase of being primarily an Olympic lifter. This meant the loaded barbell falling onto my cranium during some aborted lifts. Needless to say, I’ve been mildly concussed a few times. Nothing major to see here. Don’t be a ninny and keep trudging forward. As far as I know, teh dmage dun iz nOOThing SIGnificunT.

Usually how my fights look

So there you have it; my bruised and battered past. Now that I perpend upon it, it is shocking to see how much time I’ve been forced to take off. It makes it seem as if I’m entirely new to this lifting thing. But I hope that in some perverse way this encouraged all you injured Supervillains out there. Injuries are compulsory. They are our medals and honors for being wounded in the battlefield. Accept the inevitability of injury, take the necessary steps to recovery, and return with a surly vengeance.