Training Through Injuries

Let me start this post off by saying that I am not a doctor, and I am not offering medical advice. I advise you to discuss any of your medical conditions and limitations with your doctor. Gotta get the legal stuff out of the way, you know, it is 2022 and acceptance for your choices is a thing of the past. Now on to the topic, training through injuries. If I had a dollar for every person I know in one of my gyms or my lifting organization that has trained and competed with injuries, I would have a nice little savings going. For people who are very serious about their sport, their fitness and their goals take precedence over their aches and pains. Then there are people who tend to find excuses to get out of their gym days by giving themselves an out when something hurts.

Let’s start with me. If you have read my blog, you know I have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. I have the hypermobility type, and it can cause lots of pain. Luckily, with the amount of muscle I have built up, I have been able to minimize my pain and injuries, but I still have my fair share. I have herniated discs, severely damaged my sternoclavicular joint, injured my shoulder, had golfer’s elbow, injured my wrists, and most recently I have fractured a rib. All of these things have caused severe pain with my lifting, but I have come up with ways to work around those injures.

Let’s talk about herniated or bulging discs. I have herniated or bulged 4, not from lifting, but from every day life things like picking up my shoes, sitting in a car too long and shaving my legs (true story). When those injuries happened, the back spasms were intense, and it was difficult to even walk. The ones that happened before I was a gym rat were very difficult to recover from, and took up to a year. The ones that happened after I started working out were way easier with a shorter recovery time. X-ray above shows my rickety crooked spine (in another post I talk about all my spine abnormalities so I won’t elaborate here).

So what did I do? Well, my sport friendly doctor recommended that I continue with my lifting, even deadlifting, because I needed to keep the muscles in my back strong. If I lost muscle, there would be more compression. SO I lowered my weight and I did the best I could. I would literally barely be able to walk into the gym, but by the time I left, my pain was feeling better. With one herniation, I went from severe pain to competing in only 4 months. With my last one recovery was literally 3 weeks.

Let’s talk about the sternoclavicular joint. This joint is where your clavicle attaches to your rib cage. I actually injured that joint AND the other end of my clavicle at the shoulder doing front squats. My joints are too flexible, and the way I held the bar twisted my clavicle. I do not heal normally and on MRI it actually looked like a bone infection. It took a long time to heal this one, so what did I do? Well, I stopped doing overhead press at all during the whole recovery time. I switched to using dumbbells so I could hold them at a different angle that would put less stress on my injured areas. I also had to really improve my bench form to avoid the extra stress on my shoulder…this took some time and work. And if there was a movement that was hurting, well….I just didn’t do it, but I did find an alternative movement that didn’t hurt. AND, I stopped doing front squats because my over flexible joints can’t handle it.

What about the golfer’s elbow? This injury is common among lifters and is a grip injury. It can be rather annoying and takes a long time to heal. SO what did I do, besides give it time? With this one I used a golfer’s elbow strap, and worked hard on making sure I was gripping the bar correctly with my lifts. It took a while to heal, but I didn’t really have to avoid any lifts with it.

Then there was the injured wrist. I have mild tears in my wrist that actually came from a car accident. I started getting severe pain when I was curling and benching. The fix for this was simple….I started using wrist wraps to stabilize my wrists with those lifts. I also worked on gripping the bar correctly as to not strain my wrists.  I had gone to a hand surgeon, who advised me to stop lifting completely for 3 months. I laughed at him, informed him the I lift to keep me walking as I have a genetic condition, then I got up and walked out….never to see him again. I then went back to my regular “sports friendly” orthopedic doctor who decided that we manage with time and wrapping. That resolved a few months after using the wraps.

Now on to the pesky fractured rib. To this day, I have no idea how I fractured my rib, and neither does my doctor. We are certain that it is not from lifting…I could have sneezed too hard, bumped into something, or …ehem….been a little to active in my private life, if you know what I mean (what can I say, we are fit and have endurance). ANYWAY….it really hurt during deadlift. I actually had to take a little time off deadlift because of it. Because I have a collagen defect, I have a hard time healing bone, so this one has been going on 9 months. I have really had to dig deep to keep up my deadlifting with this one because it can take my breath away. There has been some crying, some cussing, and my lifting belt has definitely gone flying across the gym on more than one occasion. But I kept going, after a little time off, and I upped my important bone healing supplements. I am also using a bone simulator daily (shown in pic below). I had an important meet to train for, so I really pushed through this one. It is finally starting to heal, and I know it will be stronger in the end. It has kept me from getting to where I wanted to be by this time, but I can’t let it discourage me, I can only move forward.

I also would like to add that I do go to physical therapy when I feel I am not healing fast enough. They know what they are doing, and they can really help to strengthen areas that can lead to faster recovery. And because I am a gym rat, they rather enjoy kicking my butt while I am there. I leave feeling better, and with more knowledge to help myself.

While I was at my last meet, there were so many people competing regardless of their pains. One guy was recovering from a broken wrist, so he didn’t deadlift. One 61 year old lady has an artificial knee, and has had 4 shoulder surgeries. She didn’t squat because of the knee, but kicked butt otherwise, setting national records! Another lady has had to have her lower arm rebuilt with rods and transplanted bone after shattering her elbow and severely fracturing her arm (x-ray below).  She is 72 and deadlifted 309 pounds! One guy had injured his back, so he limited his lifts, but still did it. I also compete with a guy who has a full spinal fusion.

My partner severely injured the nerve and muscle in his upper leg putting 100 pound dumbbells down too hard when he was pressing them. His whole leg bruised and was very painful (pic below was only the beginning, it got worse). He never missed a lifting day and had to adapt to let his leg recover. It is now recovering very nicely. He has also lifted through disc injuries, not to mention that he has broken his pelvis in 4 places and has hardware in his ankle.  In my gym, there is a guy who has been run over by a car going 70 miles an hour. He has a loss of feeling in his legs. He had to learn to walk again, but you wouldn’t know it looking at him. Another lady also got hit by a car, and broke her neck…and she is working out there. There is also a double amputee who works out in my gym, and does amazing lifts. Another friend of mine had a motorcycle accident and had to have his leg rebuilt….and he is a gym regular. So many of my gym family have worked out through broken limbs, hobbling into the gym with their casts and boots. And soooooo many of my friends have back problems and go to the gym to make their pain better, because it works.

And if you are paying attention to famous strong men and powerlifters throughout the world, you know how much they work through injuries! I am not saying hurt yourself more, I am saying find what works, what still gets you moving, and what can help speed up your recovery while you heal without completely stopping your progress and destroying your goals by leaving the gym.

So you will in your life have aches and pains. If I took off the gym every time something hurt, I would never work out! If it hurts, I work around it. I find another movement that doesn’t hurt. There are many ways to work around injuries and pain. If one body part hurts, remember all the other body parts you have that don’t hurt….and work those. Make progress, make solutions……don’t make excuses.