This is the second post in this two part series. Check out the previous post here: https://chasingstrength.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/what-causes-injury/
4. You’re Broken:
Prior injury is possibly the greatest predictor of future injury in an athlete. A trainee with a history of lower back injuries must program accordingly to avoid future problems. This does not mean avoiding training the lower back, but instead intelligently selecting exercises and manipulating volume and intensity so that the back is strengthened, rather than re-injured.
Range of motion is also a factor that needs to accounted for. I have had great personal success with training after a back injury by slowly increasing ROM in my movements. Rack or block pulls are a great alternative to pulling from the floor when dealing with a lower back injury. These can both be progressed in terms of weight, as well as range of motion. Manipulating both of these factors can ensure long-term training of the posterior chain, while preparing to begin pulling from the floor again.
5. You’re Stressed:
Stress, and adapting to that stress, is the underlying factor that drives training. This was made apparent by Dr. Hans Selye and the concept of the General Adaptation Syndrome. The GAS consists of three stages. The alarm stage, the resistance stage, and the exhaustion stage. Each of these stages has its own physiological responses, which if you are interested in you can read about here http://adaptometry.narod.ru/Selye1stPaper.pdf. Don’t worry, the paper is short and well worth the read.
The take away message from the General Adaptation Syndrome is that in order to receive a training effect, a certain dosage of stress must be applied and then recovered from. This stress must be substantial enough that it disrupts homeostasis and creates a training effect, but not too significant that it cannot be recovered from in the desired amount of time.
There is a certain “sweet spot” if you will for the desired training effect. This sweet spot is quite large for the novice trainee, but narrows considerably as the individual goes into the intermediate and advanced stages of training. Novices can apply a stress each training session and recover from it by the next session, allowing them to add more weight to the bar each time. An intermediate trainee may need to plan their training and recovery on a weekly basis. An example of this is the Texas Method. A certain amount of volume (stress) is applied on Monday in order to set a PR on Friday. Wednesday is a lighter session to help facilitate recovery from Monday, while ensuring progress on Friday. The advanced stages of training may require manipulating stress and recovery on a monthly basis or, in cases of elite athletes, even greater durations of time.
So we have established that stress, and recovery from that stress, are essentially the two driving forces behind training. Most people spend an awful amount of time focusing on the stress aspect (training), while neglecting the recovery aspect. In reality, recovery is a much more significant aspect of your training life. Lets say, for example, that you spend an hour and a half in the gym 3 days per week. That’s a grand total of 4.5 hours per week. That leaves 163.5 hours left in the week that consist, or should consist, of recovery.
So how do you increase recovery? There are a lot of ways to do this. The first is making sure you are sleeping enough. Remember that 163.5 hours a week you had left over after training? Well 56-70 of those hours should be spent sleeping. That’s right, 8 to 10 hours a night. Now I know for some of you this may be unrealistic due to work schedules or other obligations. But before you write this off as impractical, take a good honest look at how you budget your time. If you’re missing an hour of sleep a night so that you can watch reality TV, you may want to rethink your priorities.
The next big one is food. I’m not a nutritionist, and I don’t want to get too in-depth here, so I’ll highlight the basics. Eat enough calories to recover, eat at least 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, drink a gallon of water per day, don’t skip your veggies, and throw in a few choice vitamins and supplements. Focus on these basics before you start worrying about how many grams of sugar you have in your morning coffee. Keep it simple.
A couple other important recovery methods are active recovery and contrast showers. Active recovery can be in the form of mobility work or light exercise done on off days. Make the light exercise fun, as it shouldn’t detract from your motivation to hit the iron the following day. Go for a hike, kayak, split wood, walk the dogs, chase your neighbors around, you get the idea.
Lastly contrast showers are something I have been using for the past few months with great success. I won’t go too in-depth here, as I plan on writing an article about this in the near future. The basic gist is that they consist of alternating between hot and cold water during your shower. I like the guideline of 1 minute of hot water, followed by 30 seconds of cold water, for 5 rounds. Yeah it sucks, but it really does make a difference.
An important thing to remember about stress is that it is not only physical. Mental stress plays a huge role in recovery as well. Eliminating or controlling the mental stressors in your life can have a drastic improvement on your recovery capabilities. Things such as shying away from people who bring you down, planning out your day better, or not procrastinating on that work assignment can all do wonders for your mental health.
Sometimes life provides you with stressful situations that cannot be avoided. Funerals, break ups, or the birth of a child are all things that are quite stressful. Be aware of how your recovery will be affected during these times, and program accordingly. Cut back on the volume a bit, and shy away from testing your one rep maxes or doing anything too high in intensity for a brief time period. It is during these high stress times that your body is more prone to injury, and avoiding injury should be one of your top priorities.
Lastly, remember that stress does not always come in the form of bad things. Eustress (coined by Hans Selye) is a term used to describe the good stressors in life. The birth of a child that I mentioned before is a type of eustress, as well as weddings or even the responsibilities of a new promotion. Be aware of this, and always remember the relationship between stress and recovery as it applies to training.
These are not the only ways to get injured. There is always that freak accident that nobody sees coming which leaves everyone scratching their heads and muttering to themselves. There is also always the stupidity factor, which seems to be quite high lately. However, these are, in my humble opinion, the most probable causes for injury in the weight room.
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