[vinceguidry]

What I want before I start lifting again is rock-solid advice on avoiding injury. I have Starting Strength and have trained it before with a trainer who went through Rip's program. Stopped after a couple of injuries in a row. Rip's injury advice is "you're going to get them, train through."

Fuck that. It's just not worth it. Injuries are massive, debilitating events and having even a minor one makes all the previous months useless. Only a pro or someone desperately trying to believe that strength training is the key to being a man or whatever would train past that. Being able to deadlift 325 is in the "nice-to-have" bin of life achievements.

The other thing I want is to be able to do it without making my hands all rough. Eventually I think I'll just build a t-handle kettlebell* and just go super slow on the weight increases.

When I finally get back into it, I plan on doing it for the rest of my life. Without a single injury. I do not think this is possible with barbells. At least not without a lot more study than is currently being done on it.

* http://www.instructables.com/id/T-Handle-Kettlebell/

[stephenbez]

I'm in the same boat. I had worked out on my own seeing reasonable progress for a year and decided to work with a trainer to see if I could improve my routine. He had me do some deadlifts and it caused injuries that set me back over 6 months.

I really wish places like r/Fitness would talk about risks of training more. Unfortunately I was going to post there, but they pretty much ban any discussion of injury.

I've been reading this book and have found it really good: https://www.amazon.com/Strength-Training-Anatomy-Workout-II/... What it does differently than other books is tells you what are the pros, cons, and risks associated with each exercise. That way if you want a chest exercise but you have an injured shoulder, you can choose the one that is the best choice for you.

The book also talks about how its a myth that the best way to gain strength for everyone is to do heavy compound barbell exercises and talks about how your individual morphology makes certain exercises better or worse for you.

Another plus from reading this book is that you will learn what the individual muscles are and their purpose much better.

If anyone knows a good place online to discuss avoiding injury, please let me know.

[grzm]

I've been fortunate that the trainers I've had have focused very much on proper technique and form which lays the foundations to prevent injury. Online, Kelly Starret's Mobility WOD (https://www.mobilitywod.com) is a great resource. I really like his philosophy of teaching people the tools to diagnose their own problems and working on them, both to prevent future injury and notice when injury may be sneaking up on you. His book is good, too. I'm unfamiliar with the one you already have, so it may cover a lot of the same ground.

[vinceguidry]

I suspect what caused my injuries was that I was training the muscles harder than the tendons. Eventually the tendons gave way. I could never get any solid answers from anyone about how that part of your body really works and what causes it to fail.

[arkades]

It’s undervascularized. It doesn’t fail so much as the normal process of microtrauma-and-repair that strengthens muscles is mostly just microtrauma in tendons. It was once thought he damage was inflammatory, but histological studies have shown otherwise: the tendons degenerate into more-poorly-organized collagen; effectively, a disorganized scarring.

There’s a great article on it. I was going to summarize it, but honestly, I think it’s super accessible to non-medical folks: https://academic.oup.com/rheumatology/article/45/5/508/17888...

[Gatsky]

I can't recommend Michael Boyle's books enough - "Functional Training for Sports", and "New Functional Training for Sports". He trains athletes at a national and olympic level, and injury prevention is a key theme running through everything he says. In contrast to Starting Strength et al, he actually makes the point that heavy bilateral squats and deadlifts are often too hard to teach and do well. He doesn't recommend doing back squats at all. The programs they use for athletes focus on single leg work, the argument being this is both safer and more 'functional' (how often do you back squat heavy stuff in the real world?).

[andy_ppp]

Brilliant advice, I will definitely look into it but right now I’m not lifting huge weights so even though I’m loosing fat and feeling good my squat is nice and deep and controlled. I’m not sure if I’ll feel comfortable in a few months as by then on Strong lifts the weight would be huge!

[curyous]

Single leg work with heavy weights puts a massive torque on your body that I would view as very dangerous.

[Gatsky]

I would trust expert coaches who have tried both approaches.

[marzipan]

It's hard to pin down the source of injury because there are so many factors, but I suggest looking at it holistically:

* The weightlifting equipment - whether the barbell is balanced, if your shoes are flat to allow proper force driving, and lifting belt or shirt if applicable.

* Basic limitations of your body. I have scoliosis, and while it's a noticeable condition, it doesn't affect ordinary activities. But in the gym, compound lifts are considerably harder. I have adapted towards favoring bodyweight-centric exercises like weighted dips and leg lifts. I haven't had any injury from it in years now.

* Other health and nutrition factors. At 32, all it takes is one meal of junk food and I stiffen up for the next four hours or so, or one poor night of sleep and I'm struggling to do cardio the next day. Worse mobility transfers to worse form, and performance degrades from there.

For gathering information specific to me, I've just done a lot of data collection of both the "mental note" and "exercise log" kind. I don't aim to be in the gym more than once or twice a week, and as long as my numbers are going up(which I usually measure by total volume to allow weight/reps/sets to shift around) I'm happy.

Lately I've been training jiujitsu 2 hours a week and the overall intensity/satisfaction there far exceeds what I usually get out of the gym - grappling uses everything you have - while the injury rate is "scrapes, bruises and soreness from submissions every session" and any more serious injury is generally dependent on my own caution and whether or not the opponent is a maniac, which is most common in two settings: during competition, and when they are completely new. When you're used to rolling, it becomes less threatening and more of a mind game.

[michaelsbradley]

Maybe a high-reps, low-weight format such as Les Mills BODYPUMP[1]?

I started, with great hesitation, taking Pump classes about four years ago. The results were nothing short of life-changing[2]. A couple of years later, in love with the format, I became a certified instructor and now teach classes 4 days/week.

Relating back to the OP... every 2–3 weeks I rotate the material I'm teaching. The memorization was extremely difficult at first: an instructor needs to talk (through a personalized script) for nearly an hour straight, while watching and giving feedback to everyone in the room, and while verbally staying about 10 seconds ahead of what's coming, which involves having every movement and every musical track firmly memorized (brain and muscle memory). It used to take me 16+ hours to memorize a "release" (a calendar quarter's material). Now, I can re/memorize, practice, and be ready to teach fresh material in about 3 hours. Something in my brain changed. :-) On top of that, I currently teach 3x Les Mills formats per week (BODYPUMP, GRIT, SPRINT) so nearly triple the amount of bi-monthly memorization effort compared to 2 years ago. I don't find it difficult at this point, but it is a no-shortcuts time commitment, to be sure. I also work full-time as a contract software developer; and, yes, my improved memory has had a big positive impact in that area of my life as well.

[1] https://www.lesmills.com/workouts/fitness-classes/bodypump/

[&] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oix05plG51k

[2] It's important to push oneself with respect to weight selection, after about 3 months of developing proficiency with the movement and timing patterns.

[thegabez]

Never heard of bodypump however I would recommend body weight exercises. A lot of injuries come from muscle imbalance which happens abruptly when muscle is gained quickly.

[dave84]

I’m in the same boat, I love lifting but I’m hesitant to get back under the bar again after a back injury last year. I’m thinking of going for something like the X3 Bar [0] instead because it looks like the closest thing to it.

[0] https://www.x3bar.com/

[tacon]

It looks like the X3bar (really bands) suffer from the classic problem of mismatch to your strength curve, with the strongest resistance where your lifting is weakest. Nautilus equipment generally solved that problem by the 1980s.

Free PDF of Nautilus Training Principles: Bulletins No. 1-3 http://baye.com/store/nautilus-bulletins/

Summary of research and evidence-based exercise as of 2009: Body by Science https://www.amazon.com/Body-Science-Research-Strength-Traini...

Author Doug McGuff MD has been operating a training facility since 1998, 100-120 client sessions a week, and he reports zero injuries to date. Most injuries come from excess force/acceleration, so pick an exercise protocol with very low acceleration that seriously fatigues the target muscle.

[natecavanaugh]

That advice sounds insanely stupid, unless he means to train through it with modifying.

I think it's important for both the mental and physical momentum to train through, if you're accepting reality, and not just blasting through pain.

Then again, Rip isn't known for his nuance and delicacy.

I think the keys to avoiding injury, in addition to stretching (and hardcore stretching, especially as we age), is not trying to push the progressive overload faster than getting the ideal form.

I've burned myself too many times in this regard, and I agree with you, compensating for old injuries down the road really blows, so avoiding it would be ideal.

Thankfully, in addition to their being a myriad of ways to injure yourself, folks are pretty creative on movements that can adapt to that as well.

And then there's steroids ;)

[vinceguidry]

I don't know that form is the key. Both of my injuries that put me off of lifting the last time were done under the watchful eye of my trainer. There was no cheating.

Something just 'popped', both times. And put me out of commission for weeks. First time was in my legs, the other was in my neck.

Rip does advise shifting to accommodate injury. But that's the extent of his advice.

[natecavanaugh]

Since I obviously have very little insight here to your possible situation, but was it perhaps too much weight? Or not enough ancillary training involving the supportive muscles?

And I believe, depending on your goals, there are ways to hit your goals safely, but they tend to take quite a bit longer, since it's a much slower progression and a slower set of actual set work.

It might be worth looking into, if you haven't already :)

[vinceguidry]

I was following the Starting Strength Training program, created by Mark Rippletoe, one of the most respected names in strength training, under a trainer who learned how to train directly from Rip. There's no chance that I wasn't following the program correctly.

The problem is that the program is wrong. Taking your advice, to go for a slower progression, is going against the program. That is definitely something I could do, but why not just throw the whole program out the window? Because it obviously doesn't suit my needs. If I try to go slower, there's no guarantee that I still won't get injured.

To make an analogy here, let's take a woodworker's shop. A table saw is an incredibly dangerous piece of equipment, but the way to keep yourself safe from it is simple and intuitive, keep your hands away from the blade. Every single safety protocol revolves around that, and you can pick and choose just how many safeguards you want to use. Push sticks seem mandatory, a blade guard less so.

But you can understand the danger of a table saw. Nobody says, "well you can take all the precautions in the world against a table saw, but you still might get your thumb taken off anyway." But that's the situation with barbell weightlifting.

[natecavanaugh]

Sorry if it seemed as if I were proselytizing any one specific program. I respect Rips knowledge, but not always his approach or even his philosophy. Biology and environment are far too individualized to speak in dogma.

My point wasnt even that you should resume barbell training (they're conveniences after all), but that weight training of any kind, especially those following the major points (progressive overload, proper macros, sufficient rest) will deliver.

But hitting those with an injury is an exercise in creativity :)

[vinceguidry]

The last thing I want in this endeavor is creativity.

When I was deadlifting 300 and benching more than I ever did in high school, my life didn't meaningfully change, like at all. And it was expensive to hire that trainer. Cool, yeah, I'm stronger than the average joe. Who cares? I didn't even look all that much better than I do now. You need careful cutting to reduce your body fat percentage to change your appearance. But that's both a pain in the lifestyle and a potential inhibitor to strength gains.

All I want is to be able to trust a program that someone with more knowledge and ability than myself came up with. The last thing I ever want to do with my life is to devise alternative strength training programs for when I get injured.

I'd just rather not train than risk injury.

[omilu]

Startingstrength is very clear about the dangers of lifting to much weight. If your form starts to degrade, or the lift speed slows at the end of the 5 rep set, do not add anymore weight. Stay at that weight, or even decrease the weight until the complete set is done with no slow down and perfect form. If you blindly add five to ten pounds to your lift every session you will get injured, the book warns about this. Progressing slowly is not throwing out the whole program.

[grzm]

I don't think Mark Rippletoe would countenance a program that invariably leads to injury, and would agree that the program needs to be tailored to the individual. If a given individual needs a slower progression to avoid injury, that's the progression they need to follow. In a brief search online, I came across this paragraph:

> "Training is the process of changing an athlete’s physical capacity over time. Its specifics depend on the precise task the athlete will perform, when it will be performed, and how often.... The process must also reflect the current state of physical preparation of the athlete: a freshman in high school doesn’t train like a strong, experienced college senior unless his coach is a fool."

https://startingstrength.com/article/strength_and_prevention...

If you happen to come across something that directly contradicts this, please do share.

There’s no guarantee for perfect prevention of injury, but paying close attention to one’s current state of conditioning and adapting training to fit, you’ve got a much better chance of doing so. Injury sucks. I hope you find a regime that fits for you and helps you reach your fitness goals.

[vinceguidry]

> There’s no guarantee for perfect prevention of injury,

That's the crux of the issue. Without such a guarantee, I will never train with barbells again. It boils down to a difference in priorities. You, and Rip, both seem to think soft tissue injury is an acceptable risk in the quest for strength gains. I do not.

Again, look at a table saw. People can use a table saw their entire lives without introducing a body part to a spinning blade. But you can't train with a barbell, with any amount of good form, with any kind of specialized program, with any kind of expertise at hand, and be 100% positive you will avoid injury.

[drumttocs8]

http://www.gymnasticbodies.com may be interesting to you. So many people focus on strength or cardio, while mobility is just as important.

[oligopoly]

Either lower the weights or just avoid injury prone exercises. Not much roi is there if you injure yourself. There's countless of ways to exercise specific body parts. If you keep hurting yourself by doing deadlifts for example at some point you have to consider if it's worth it. It's not just about the weight but how you concentrate the muscle and reps.

> The other thing I want is to be able to do it without making my hands all rough

Gloves or go to a gym that has equipment that doesn't make hands rough. Best bet is to look for franchises not UG strength gyms.

[tsomctl]

Stretch.

And stretch properly. Not some weak stretch like what you did in high school PE class. I'm talking about a deep stretch that you feel throughout your muscles, and still feel hours afterwards. There's a lot of overlap with yoga here. Anecdotally, I've had back pain that's progressively gotten worse from deadlifts. Doing a very deep pigeon pose stretched out my glutes and my back has gotten significantly better.

Check out ManFlowYoga on YouTube. Some of his videos are excellent, some are somewhat lacking.

[vinceguidry]

I'm not looking for half-baked advice here. "Deep stretch" does not connect mitigation strategy to threat. Like, at all.

Lifting is seriously dangerous. Not ruin-your-life dangerous, but definitely ruin-your-year dangerous. I want some real understanding of what causes soft-tissue injuries. Because even one more is out of the question.

Especially as I start getting older.

[arkades]

Stretching on nonworkout days is great for increasing mobility, done incrementally and carefully, since one of the major proprioceptive mechanisms that protect joints from injury respond to velocity of movement, not just total force applied.

Stretching pre-workout is a well-established mechanism for causing injury.

[DenisM]

Consider yoga?

The kind of yoga I was doing [1] consisted mainly of stretches and static own-weight exercises. It had the same muscle-building and mood-elevating effect on me as the actual weight-lifting, minus the injuries.

[1] http://shaktivinyasa.com/

[rjeli]

I do quite a bit of strength training and have near-baby hands. Rippetoe has videos on how to hold the bar. You should never be cinching skin against skin.

[always_good]

I'm not sure how you can lift and not get rough hands without using gloves. I also don't see why someone would care about their baby hands in the gym.

It reminds me of Costanza's hand modeling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZxX3-rJoNI