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by jniedrauer 2351 days ago
I did once throw out my back while deadlifting. It was completely preventable, but it turns out that the consequences were minimal. I've become a lot less worried about my back since then.

It was the day after a hard 20 mile run, and I stupidly tried to deadlift my 1 rep max in that fatigued state. Something popped and I felt a sharp pain in my lower back. It hurt really badly for about 3 days, and made it difficult to put on socks and pants. And then it healed right up. No pain ever since, and I went right back to deadlifting.
2 comments
matwood 2351 days ago
As an aside, there is almost zero reason to PR on any exercise unless it's for a competition. The risk of injury at a PR load is simply too high for recreation. Your 3RM is a good indicator where PR lies, and carries far less risk of injury.

I'm saying this as someone who loves the dead lift and picking up heavy things.

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loh 2350 days ago
Good advice here. 3RM in my opinion is even pushing it and not something you want to do often. 5RM is probably more ideal to do on a semi-regular basis.

Form is critical too, so with every single lift that you do, make sure you're using the correct form first, otherwise you're potentially wasting your time and putting yourself at risk of injury.

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matwood 2350 days ago
Agreed. Even a 3RM is something that I would no more than 2x/year. As I've gotten older I don't even do that. My workout weight goes up over time which means I'm getting stronger. But I'm not a complete young idiot anymore, and know avoiding injury is job one.
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fhbdukfrh 2351 days ago
3 days? I'm glad you got better but this is not a serious or chronic back injury under any definition.
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jniedrauer 2351 days ago
It was probably a back strain/sprain. Before going through that, I expected that a deadlifting injury would be debilitating and would take months to heal from. The reality was... different. That's my point.
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nitrogen 2351 days ago
Someone I know hurt their back during a deadlift. They were out of commission for months until they had surgery to shave a disk.

So.. don't assume that your results are predictive of the results for everyone (typical mind fallacy/typical body fallacy?)

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