Last week was the beginning of a tough week of training for me as an injury and fatigue began creeping up on me. I learn a LOT when I have those BAD workouts.
Sometimes I charge ahead and push through, other days I lay low and rest.
I have a pretty busy schedule, so trust me, if I took a day off every day I felt tired, that would be a LOT of days off.
Here's a video of me at the end of a rough day, and I show it to stay true to you. I don't pretend to be superman although in my mind I often believe it 🙂 I'm human, susceptible to injuries, have bad workouts here and there, feel tired at times and must learn to make it to the top regardless of the shit that stands in my way, as do you.
It's your choice to move onward and upward, you have options in life except for the fact that you will be 6ft. under one day. Other than that, it's your choice to kick ass and take names.
Check the Vid.....
Through these injuries, I will step away from the powerlifts for a bit once again. I am turning 35 very soon, and I want to remain athletic, explosive and most of all, HEALTHY for my wife and kids 🙂
Check the video below and you'll get some cool ideas for Bodyweight Workouts and I'll be putting them into play myself.
Question for You: If you've got any workouts you use when injured, post them in the comments below, this will give us all a series of workouts to use and learn from, who knows, maybe we can get 30, 40 or 50 different comments / workouts!
Peace!
--Z--
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25 Responses
after not training for a while i got excited by sites like this. i jumped back into some heavy low rep deadlifts. i tweeked my back and couldn’t stand up straight for a few weeks. i did some swimming. pull ups and dips both decompressed my spine and i did low reps sets to get some work and also get some relief.
Coach Z,
been a while bro…hope your back to killing it next week!
Know exactly what you mean…ths week hasn’t been the best, I pushed
it yesterday… a little too much. Now gotta rest, recover and evaluate.
Gunna be goin through Body Weight U again to refresh and then crank
some serious BW training… Not utilized enough so time to pull the finger out.
U always keepin it real. Love it!
Cheers
AT
Z-
Been dealing with a little bit of a shoulder injury which mainly bothers me with pushups. So for my bodyweight complex I nail Chins, into lunges, into bodyweight rows, into jump squats- Complex looks like this 10/9/8/7/6/5 no rest. Always have to take a knee after this one to hold down the vomit and catch my breath.
Hey Coach!
One of my fav is a video im posting at the moment, great time efficient workout i like to do to break up my week. I usually do this on a weekend to kick my ass.
Garage workout:
Garage beam chins
Tyre Box Jumps
Hindu Push ups
Jump Lunges
Do this as a pyramid
5 of each, 4 of each, 3 of each, 2 of each, 1 of each
4 of each, 3 of each, 2 of each, 1 of each
3 of each, 2 of each, 1 of each
2 of each, 1 of each
1 of each
Rest upto 1 min between sets of pyramid. It kicks my ass. You can auto Reg the rest, if you feel good to get after it GO when you do!
GFGI!
Lachlan, and coach get that shoulder better! Im missing jersey already!
Injured shoulder a while back, think it was doing power cleans, so I went total body weight exercises. High rep/volume
squats, chins, situps, pushups. I just finished my third week, entering a deload week.
I really like the burpee pull up exercise, will incorporate that in my deload workouts.
Good post Zach. Wait till you hit your 50’s bro, old injuries seem to pop up out of no where. You just have to adjust and find things to do to keep moving on through.
zack and fellow undergrounders,i have 2 ruptured discs in my back and 1 ruptured disc in my neck ,as well as 2 troublesome rotator cuff problems to go along with my left partial pec tear! wheww!! i just realized i should be in a wheelchair and not pursuing the workout’s that i do using k-bells,chinning bar,indian clubs,mace,bodyweight,,,you get the picture. My work and other stuff keep me busy and at 57 years old,TIRED!! i have found that if i train to my tolerance on any given day it seems to keep me in the game! having many options for “functional” exercise allows me to work around any injuries that i have. bodyweight and kettlebells are the Rule with “indian”style stuff a close second! your ideas are always thrown in the mix!! peace brothers!
Z,
Tweaked my radial brachialis tendon and put the nerve running from the c-spine down my right arm a few days ago. chiropractor said not to do any flexion at the elbow or holding weight with a straight arm so my last workout which was yesterday consisted of:
(wearing a 50# weighted vest)
15 min on the clock:
lateral lunges
reverse lunges
step ups
lateral step ups
deep squats
sissy squats
pistol squats
diagonal walking lunges
ankle hops
–about 10-15 reps (per leg) each exercise and no more than 10 seconds rest between exercises
hurt my lower back because didn’t wear a belt when maxing out. been running and doing light front squats for legs now. it is time to go high reps and cardio for a while anyway because I need to lose 10-20 lbs…..
Flat DB presses and Decline presses for bech rehab(shoulder). And my favorite lately is deep squats with the safety squat bar. I messed up my knees in the Navy and would drop the squat (even with 135). So I would do partials, but I felt like a cheater. So I flipped my safety squat around and did it like a front squat. The mechanics of the movement placed no stress on the knees or shoulders. You will feel like you’re going to fall backwards so go down so. Ass to the floor!
This sounds really bad since I’m a therapist. I tend to ignore injuries still at 43. I guess 32 yrs of competing in combat sports will make you thickheaded.
Depending on the injury my “get back to it” door opener is usually cycling. I feel the intense circulatory effects speed the healing process. Usually my injuries are from doing stupid shit on my mtn.bike or splitboard.
As far as resistance training I usually don’t change things much. I will lower weights or do less reps. It just kills me to not follow my routine.
@Back pain – I find nothing better than sitting in a “3rd world” squat instead of using furniture. Couple that with doing a few light/medium weight KBell swings after waking up and before going to bed. Not a workout, just activation and circulation. This helps knees and ankles as well.
@Shoulder pain – Both my clavicles are disattached on both(AC&SC joints)ends. Keeping divebombers in my routine keeps my shoulder discomfort at bay. If I neglect them, Hindu pushups chill them out when the flair up.
Zach, welcome to middle age. If you ever bring the kids to see Yellowstone look me up. I’ll take you mtn.biking. We don’t have the rocks and roots of Jersey, but, we have huge mountains, grizzlies, bison, lions and moose. FUN!
Dustin u rock bro, smitty from disel crew said same thing w/the SS bar, I have one and will hit it, i’m not the biggest fan of the box squat although i do use them, i feel much more benefit w/free squats!
thnx bro!
Big Chris u rule bro, I’m gonna test drive the hindu push ups and for sure man, just went on a 1 hr mtn biking trek!
u rule brutha!
thnx bro!
Swim brother!!! It’s all concentric and will really act as a tonic. When my back really sucked, swimming was the only thing I could do at full intensity. Buy a wet-suit and go for it.
ZEE! You are the man, bro! Love this stuff and we are so STOKED you are doing some workouts w/ us… So motivated now!
I am on the safety squat bar bandwagon! When I got injured in college, that was my best friend!
Hail to my underground brothers and sisters,
unfortunately I suffer severe low back pain from time to time (a leftover from my youth jiu jitsu days…) and I have a routine that works magically for me:
1. Hip Mobility / Warm Up. Standing, knee raise to opposite elbow (40 reps each side)
2. Hams / Low back reinforcement. Prone bridges to one shoulder (40 reps / side)
3. Bird dogs (40 reps/side)
4. Transversus Abdomini: One arm planks (3 x 30 seconds)
5. Oblique side raise: 3 x 20 reps /side)
6. Glute / Ham stretch
This is my medicine I hope it can help someone else!
Cheers from Spain!
Vicente
God Bless You, bro
You always motivate me
I like you because you talk the talk,
but mostly you walk THE WALK
Oliver
Thats Awesome your gettin out on the trail bro! I love the iron, but getting out and putting feet(or wheels) on the ground is also my calling! My and my crew do a lot of down hill riding, so we have to ‘earn our turns’…a lot of times I’ll ride half way to the top, then throw my bike on my back and start doing sprints up the hill to the top..HUGE cardio hit, quads, legs, lower back burn…
I can’t speak for gettin old, but I’ve started doing hip/shoulder mob exercises at the end of rounds through a circut, gotta keep the whole body strong AND healthy!
Keep the bar loaded, and the rubber side down!
Last year I had to have my right knee ‘scoped. Torn meniscus and torn medial ligament. Really forced me to rethink my leg training. Previously I had been addicted to squats. Hell I front squated 303 lbs two weeks before my surgery with that damage already in my knee. Since then I’ve learned how to attack my legs with sled drags (in every direction), walking lunges (doing them backwards for 25 yards kicks my ass), and an assortment of other movements that work my legs. Wish I would have been doing these movements years ago.
Well I believe that one thing most of us ignore when it comes to injury prevention is stretching and one more thing a lot of people tend to neglect is proper warmup. Now I’ve learned that warmup shouldn’t be just something to get you warmed up but something that will match the intensity of what you’re about to do. So I always like to warm up with a few sets of explosive movements like box jumps before I’ll do squats, also when it comes to stretching, I learned what my tight muscles or sides of the body are and after the workout I either only stretch the tight muscles or just stretch them more than the other. The pain in our backs or knees or whatever come from unbalanced muscles, the tightness, not because you did something and hurt it right then & there, the injury happened waaay before that because of unbalanced muscles. Imagine someone pulling your spine to the side 24h a day, that’s what tight muscles do and that’s why stretching them is so important.
It’s important that you don’t let fear of pain keep you from trying gentle activity. You should try to be active soon after noticing pain and gradually increase your activity level. Too little activity can lead to loss of flexibility, strength, and endurance, and then to more pain.
Huh. When I broke my finger in right hand, I trained with my left, which was weaker. I did dumbell bicep curls and french presses + some forearm work (crush gripper). Now left hand is the stronger one. Quite strange for me, but feels great.
Zach here are a few videos of one of my wrestlers doing some upper body work with a broken hand. This really helped maintain his upper body strength during his recovery.
Band “Flys”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxVyxBXCbxU
Band “Rows”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idLzsH-irCU
I got this idea from Nick Tumminello and it works pretty good. We did tons of single leg work and we did squats with the safety squat bar and it worked great.
NO Excuses get that training in!
Try these two exercises if you ever get an athlete with a broken hand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxVyxBXCbxU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idLzsH-irCU
This really helped my wrestler maintain his upper body strength during his recovery
I used ab straps attached to bands to do upper body exercises with an injured wrestler. He had a broken hand so I would slip the ab straps on either his shoulders or upper back area( depending upon the exercises) in order to perform various upper body movements(presses, flys, pull downs, rows, etc).
He was able to do quite a few upper body exercises without actually ever having to hold an implement! It worked extremely well and this really helped maintain his upper body strength during his recovery.
I also used the safety squat bar to load any lower body body movements as well( squats, lunge, Bulgarian split squats).
Definitely gives these a try if you ever break your hand!
You can check out videos of the band exercises on my youtube page if you need a visual.