Prerequisite I'm not a doctor. This is not advice. Everything in this post has worked for me when I've been hurt or trying to prevent being hurt for different body parts. Take as you will.
Lower back
Injury history
- 2011: L5/S1 herniation. Could barely move.
- 2018: L5/S1 and other (forget which) herniation. Way fuckin worse than 2011.
Healing tactics - Charlie what do now
- daily walks. Frequency is way more important than length (3x 10min > 1x 30min).
- abdominal work. Whatever is possible - planks, side plans, ab wheel, mace/club swings.
- Romanian deadlifts/good mornings. Bodyweight (i.e. unloaded) if need be. Wait until traumatic injury pains are dulled or gone before embarking. The goal is to move through a long range of motion and get copious amounts of blood flow.
Training while injured - Charlie what do
Calisthenics are your friend. If an angle or range of motion hurts or makes your pain/sciatica worse, don't do it. Crazy right?
Good example with me. Pullup and dip variations feel great. Pushup and row variations felt awful because of massive pressure I felt on my back. If it hurts, don't do it!
Prevention tactics - Charlie how not do again
- repeat of daily walks and abdominal work from healing tactics.
- strengthen and stretch hip flexors and hamstrings.
Neck
Injury history
- 2021: Multiple disc bulges. My entire left arm went numb for an extended period of time (note: as of 2024, some residual nerve damage is still present). I lost the ability to pull with my left arm entirely.
Healing tactics
- repeat of daily walks from lower back section
You really just should be walking a lot bruh.
- stretch chest and neck as possible. Mobility through large slow arm swings and neck rotations. Only work in pain free ranges of motion or ranges that do not increase your numbness.
Training while injured
Not gonna lie, this fucking sucks. Your options are very limited unless you want to prolong your injury timeline.
What worked for me was all lower body focused where load was not a main factor. Specifically:
- bodyweight squat variations.
- sled drags.
Prevention tactics
- repeat of healing tactics.
- avoid blatantly dangerous exercise variations (note: for me, this is barbell overhead press) until your shit is fixed.
- mace swings are greatly assisting with mobility of my chest, shoulders, and lats. This has been $$$$. Notably, mace swings when I was healing was the exact opposite of what I needed. I would have been better off doing pendulum swings (which I do for warmups now) to open up my last and shoulders).
Knees
Injury history
2019: decided to do multiple weeks 20 rep front squats with bodyweight. Lol ok. Nothing diagnosed other than it fucking hurt.
2021: hurt my neck and knee at the same time. Again no diagnosis.
2023: weird ass nerve damage due to a swelling of the patella tendon.
Healing and prevention
I don't know man. I'm still working this out, but I'm making progress. I've been to multiple rounds of physical therapy, and they were great to help me move from barely functional to absolute shit but could walk ok, but the move back to athletic is ongoing.
Finding one arm.weighted walks feel VERY good
What has helped:
- knees over toes 'zero' protocol. Exactly as written.
- engaging my entire foot when lifting and spreading my toes.
- sled work sparingly. Knees over toes touts this a ton, but backwards sled especially tightens me up.
- slow introduction back into leg training has been helpful. Ripped directly from Julien hard:
1. Add frequency before volume and fatigue
2. Add volume and fatigue before full range of motion
3. Add full range of motion before adding load/tension
4. Add load/tension before adding speed
5. Add speed before impact
Add one variable at a time.
