Fix when you break it

[Mkgillman]

I'm curious to hear other people's methods of working back after an injury or a forced break from lifting. For the most part I finish up my peak training blocks dragging half a hundred little nagging injuries and ouchies behind me. I have also found out that I am way too stubborn and chained to routine to actually take time completely off from the gym.

TRIGGER WARNING

I found that I can undo a lot of the things I've messed up by dropping weight WAY down and running what I shall refer to as a 3 sets of 5 linear profession, three times a week on squats. I do 10 pound jumps every time and really focus on form and consistency. I don't drop bench down to that level, but I don't tend to carry nagging stuff on bench.

So, what about everyone else? What have you found to be good rebuilding blocks?

[Chebass88]

It depends on what is wrong. I've been lucky - I've only had muscle pulls.

I pulled a muscle in my back doing deadlifts with poor form a few years ago. After about a week of not deadlifting or squatting, I returned to deads, doing higher rep sets, making sure every single rep was perfect. With time. I keep increasing the weight, and eventually got to the point where I could pull a decent weight without a belt. I also tested my belted max, and it was only about 40 lbs lower than my all- time max. I was okay to return to heavy weights. That process took about 6 weeks.

I pulled the long head of my biceps tendon last year. I had to teach myself a new squat bar position and rebuild from light weights. With time I was able to surpass the max I had previously done. I laid off the bench press and dips for a while too, which helped.

[Murelli]

I drop intensity and keep volume, but I've only had some issues, the worst being when I pulled or pinched something on my hip with a knee slide, which led me to take the load on squats way down.

[BootyBeech]

I've read a fair few places that the SS 3x5 is a pretty solid way to come back after an injury or layoff. Works for me.

[mgil]

What does your programming normally look like before you hit the wall?

[hsilman]

The vast majority of my "injuries" have been letting nagging things build up for a long time without addressing them, until I have to.

Elbow, Knee, Shoulder. All repetitive use injuries. All "Cured" by stopping doing what hurts them, except in isolated instances. That is, eccentrics hurt a bit, but doing them helped. I did eccentric external rotation on a cable machine. Light weight, 3x20 reps. That plus laying off any benching that aggravated it(IO spent 2 months only pressing) did the trick.

Knee didn't hurt while squatting, but I knew squatting kept it aggravated for probably a year. Stopped squatting for a few months, and did eccentrics on the leg extension machine. Same 3x20. Cleared it up.

Elbow I did a ton of hammer curls and just gripped those spring clips for a bunch of reps till it was nice and tight. That did the trick.

So I'm a big believer in eccentric work for tendonitis/joints.

Now, I tore something up in my left leg last year. Hamstring or adductor(whichever one is inner leg). I was pushing way too hard on a RPE based program Jane Manley gave me. It was great, but I was stupid chasing numbers not listening to my body. That one took the wind out of my sails, big time. Every time I tried to start back, the pain stopped me. Just recently I've been able to give it a go. I'm happy to say that the tear is sore a lot, but after a steady month of SLOWLY working back up, once I warm up the pain is gone or almost totally gone. I expect in a few more months I'll forget what it feels like, just like my joints before it.

Listen to your body. Don't go crazy. I was chasing a 460 squat and finally moving my deadlift bast 515. Now another 18 months on and I'm chasing a 315 squat and 375 deadlift. The juice isn't worth the squeeze.