2004 archives (page 5)

The lightest close-grip bench day of the prilepin bench cycle did not come a day too early. Although I was benching with only 73% of my max, the triceps felt a little sluggish and slow. Hopefully, this is not an early sign of overtraining, but a testimony to how well cycled this program is. The heaviest bench session, 3x2 @ 90%, is scheduled for Friday, which should give a good indication of how things are progressing.

150th entry. Time flies.

My lower back was feeling decent today. I even toyed with the idea of doing some zercher squats. Nipping this folly in the bud, I did some bent-legged pull-throughs instead. Of all the lower back/hamstring exercises I know, pull-throughs feel the most back friendly. There is none of that shearing pressure on the lower back, just a smooth balanced motion thanks to the cable.

I worked up to a new record; 10 @ 120 kg/265 lbs. Not too hard as I did not have to do any gruesome max effort exercise before it, such as squats or good mornings. The last set with the stack of the cable crossover pulley activated the pain on the left side, but up till then it was a smooth ride. Aggressively massaged the trigger points, and the pain moved aside allowing me to do some ab work. If this is indeed mostly referred pain due to trigger points, things should return to normal by tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Yesterday I got a back pain companion in Vincent Scelfo, who e-mailed me with the unfortunate news that he too had sustained a soft tissue injury doing good mornings. Vince is an old hand in powerlifting, having back in 1978 set New Jersey state records in the 123 pound/56 kg class, with a 440 lbs/199 kg squat, a 445 lbs/201 kg deadlift and a 1085 lbs/491 kg total. Of course, these lifts were achieved without the dubious benefits of today’s highly developed equipment. After a long layoff, he is now back re-building his strength using Westside methods.

Vince is in quite good hands with his unfortunate injury, i.e. his own, as it turns out he is a practicing chiropractic. He graciously agreed to let me post an excerpt from our correspondence, which I think adds some much needed perspective on my recent entry on trigger points.

I have been a chiropractor for over 22 years. Over the years I continually formulated my own thoughts and opinions, some of which may be totally opposite of what is taught to the general chiriopractor. This is one reason
why I became an upper cervical specialist.

I have read the accounts of your injuries and I would say that you are fairly close to what I believe.

From a philosophical viewpoint, chiropractic talks about the subluxation (misaligned vertebra that produces pressure on a nerve). The result of which can be pain or illness. I do hold to this basic premise of our profession.

Where I have a problem is when things occur like a back injury. You lift something that’s too heavy. You injure the soft tissue (muscles, ligaments, joints, discs). Inflammation occurs in the tissue and you get PAIN!

The chiropractor says, “Here’s your problem, you have a bone out of place.” He adjusts you and you get some relief. The wonders of chiropractic! But now you have to keep going back 20 or 30 times to “fix” it.

The question I began asking myself was, did the bone out of place cause the
problem or was the muscle injury the reason the bone is now out of place?
There is a tremendous difference.

This is where I began changing my thought about the whole mechanism of injury in relation to the chiropractic principle. It only makes sense (at least to me) that if you injure the muscle, when the muscle becomes spastic the bone is going to move and be out of position. Unfortunately, these problems are seen as “bone” problems and not soft tissue injuries which require healing.

This is why I don’t work on low backs. Instead, if you can balance the framework which is controlled by the nerve centers in the upper spinal cord, that will balance the structure. This allows the muscles to come back to normal tone and heal. I don’t have to keep “racking” a bone in place day in and day out. In the injury situation, the bone out of place is the EFFECT, not the cause. It has shifted because of injury to the soft tissue or joint. When the soft tissue heals, the bone will go back to its normal position.

This is where, in my opinion, chiropractors make a grave mistake. They adjust the bone. But it never stays in place. So you keep going back over and over.

Get the system balanced and give it time to heal.
Disc problems require long time to heal. Symptoms can be extremely painful. Joints also. Ligaments are not elastic and when injured may not return to full strength as they heal up with scar tissue. Muscle strains heal up pretty readily.

But the body does heal. Some things quicker than others and depending on how much we aggravate the injury. Some people won’t stop working for 3 or 4 days to let things start healing.

[…]

In 1978, in my 2nd quarter of chiropractic school, I blew a disc while
deadlifting in a competition. It took me 8 weeks to recover. No surgery.
Just chiropractic. I came back just as strong and the following year I set
personal and state records, etc. at 123. So I know first hand about back
injuries. I’ve had my share of them. That’s one of the reasons I stayed out
of it for so long.

Vince’s mail is a good foundation for reflection on the inherent injury risk in powerlifting. There is no denying that powerlifting is a high-risk activity and injuries do happen. Some would go as far as saying that they are part and parcel of the sport, with some critics readily proclaiming that “powerlifting will only destroy your body for life”. After spending nearly a year reading various powerlifting message boards and articles, my impression is that people come back from the overwhelming majority of injuries and become stronger than ever provided they take their rehabilitation seriously. As Vince indicates, the body knows how to heal itself as long as you give it what it needs. At the extreme end, even the most dreaded disc problems, as evidenced by Stuart McGill’s must-have work in the field Low Back Disorders, can be totally healed if treated correctly (this usually does not imply surgery). Luckily, most powerlifting injuries tend to be much more benign than this, often the result of not giving enough attention to the wear and tear that comes with heavy lifting.

The challenge of powerlifting is to learn to deal with the injury risk and accept it without fearing it. The fact of the matter is that you are not very likely to cripple yourself powerlifting, but you can reasonably expect to at least get some joint ache and possibly strain a muscle or two. It does not have to get much worse than this if you become a total technique freak (videotaping helps), listen to your body (don’t do the next set if you have a gut feeling you shouldn’t) and give your minor aches time to heal before they turn chronic. Making a point of doing heavy lifts in the safety of a power rack is also not a bad idea. Turning the issue upside down, powerlifting is liable to teach you a lot about your own body and its limitations if you can stay humble and retain some semblance of a beginner’s mind. In the final analysis, I think this is actually the real challenge of powerlifting. It is too easy to be impatient, it is too easy to go too heavy too soon lured by the prospect of a new personal record, it is too easy to blindly follow the advice of others without thinking about how it suits oneself, it is too easy to… I know, I tend to do it too, but I do try to inject the occasional dose of sense and sensibility into my training. Quoting Vince, injuries due help make the point, but it’s really not the route I’d like to go to make my points.

This was it. The heaviest regular bench session of the Prilepin bench program. Considering that it was only one percent heavier than week I, a whopping 1 kg/2.2 lbs difference, the reps were a little stiff. As usual, I got my act together by the third set, which was the best of them all (Video 1.5M). After that, it didn’t take more than a single rep of JM presses to reveal that my triceps were still fairly sore around the elbow from Monday’s close-grip bench session.

As Monday’s bench session was very light (6x3 @ 73%), the soreness can probably be blamed on the Tate presses. The Prilepin bench program recommends that assistance work is not done balls to the walls, especially the tricep exercises, to help avoid local overtraining on the weekly schedule. As I have infused some extra rest into this program by basing it on the Three-day rotating Westside split, I have generally gone to failure on all assistance exercises. If it turns out that I am getting overtrained, at least I know why. No major worries yet though.

In three weeks Sanna and I are heading for Tuscany to sample the local wine in the Italian spring. This means that I won’t quite be able to complete this cycle. Either I will just need to drop the last workout or then drop the whole last week and go for a new max before leaving. We will see how I feel. The trip is going to function as a much needed training break. After that I will probably go back to Westside benching again focusing on full range movements. Today I looked back at the power rack in a sudden flash of nostalgia: floor presses… hmmm…

Before heading home, I bought my second bottle of Eiselt’s Omega-3 capsules (29.90 euro for 300 capsule of 1000 mg - cheap for being in Finland). I have been popping 4000 mg split up into 2 servings daily for some time now. I can highly recommend this brand; the fish oil tastes so fresh and smooth that I like to explode them in my mouth before swallowing… yummy!

This was a good one. Skipped all fancy footwork and simply pyramided up on reverse-hypers, ball crunches and seated calf raises. Haven’t done reverse-hypers in a while, probably because I was pushing the limit on how much weight my dress belt could handle. Found a short piece of wire at the gym, which I used together with two ankle belts to wrap plates around my ankles. The only problem with this was that I twice managed to wrap them so thoroughly that it took me several minutes to unknot… Worked up to 30 kg/66 lbs doing them off a normal hyperextension/back raise, of course mounting it the “wrong” way (hands grabbing the feet support). Next week I might take a clip of these.

A really nice and back-friendly workout. Currently, reverse-hypers (even if not done on the real thing that allows the disks to open up at the bottom) and pull-throughs are my best recommendations for exercises to do when the back is not quite up to par. What they have in common is that both are heaviest at the top of the movement (legs in line with upper body). Compare this to good mornings, where the heaviest part is at the bottom (bent forward at the waist) where the lower back is at its most vulnerable. Both type of exercises have their place (force curves should be varied for optimal strength and stability), but when it comes to rehab I think it is wise to concentrate on those which are heaviest at the top, not the bottom. Just my 2 cents.

Horrible groove today, but zig-zagging these weights up was not too terribly difficult. Trained fairly fast today… or should I say, at least a little faster than the usual turtle’s pace. Had a nice dinner to catch at 5pm with Sanna at Kabuki, hands down the best Japanese restaurant in Helsinki. We had a few reasons to overstuff ourselves with sushi and tonkatsu as Sanna today became a published cartoonist in a Swedish-language magazine, Astra Nova, and I secured a full-time teaching job for the next school year.

Two weeks have elapsed since I had my spine mobilized by the osteopath. Although it did not remove the pain altogether, my back has started feeling quite good during the last few days. Sitting on the metro for my second appointment, I was, ironically enough, hoping that this visit would not destroy the status quo by upsetting my temperamental spine hound too much.

After again stripping down to my bare essentials, he had me bend left and then right. Left I could go really far, but I had considerably less mobility bending to the right. No pain, I was just feeling stiff in that direction. After stating the obvious, the therapist had me lay down on my sides and cracked my lower back in the same fashion as last time. This time it went easy and the pops were not as major. The upper back was another story. Lying on the back with his fists between me and the bench, I could both feel and hear a major part of my upper spine jumping into place over several vertebrae. All I could say was something akin to “holy camolie!!”. Six on the Richter scale.

Lying on my back with hands clasped behind my neck, he then cracked my upper back/neck by turning my upper body sideways. Nothing major, but quite enjoyable nonetheless. Massaging my gluteus, he concluded that my left one was considerably less tight than last time, but the right one was still somewhat stiff. My hamstrings were really tight, part of which is probably due to the reverse-hypers I did three days ago.

He approved of the tennis ball massage I have been doing several times daily, and said that I could do it for the hamstrings too. “Put two balls in a sock, and you will get a very effective massage tool”. Concluding the treatment, he said that things were starting to look quite good. Although my upper back had jumped out of alignment between treatments, the natural curvature of the upper spine had returned making it much less flat. The lower back was also in much better shape, and the gluteus trigger points much weaker. “I don’t think you need to come back, but if you feel you need it, you know where to find me. Close the door when you’re done dressing”.

Easter came and went. Ate some eggs and painted a few innocent ones with gangsta rabbits and acid chickens, while Sanna kept her artistic integrity keeping to witches and… wine labels. With a plane booked for Florence next week’s Wednesday, I decided that this would be the last workout of the Prilepin bench program (still three workouts short). I will take a full week off benching, and then go for a new max before resting on my laurels in rural Italy for ten days. After that it is back to Westside benching for the time being. The voices in my head thus told me that it would be ok to round today’s 5x3 @ 78 kg/172 lbs (80%) up to 80 kg/177 lbs. Also went a little heavier on the JMs. Was a good one considering my food and sleep overloaded state of being.

Almost forgot. Passed on the previous squat/dead workout to let my lower back adjust in peace after the mobilization. My back feels a lot better now, and I have to keep reminding myself that this is no time to start slacking on the trigger point massage. Free eggs for everyone!

Thought I would finally take a clip of my makeshift reverse hyper setup, but ran out of batteries. Reached for my spares, only to discover that I had needed them for my MiniDisc recorder. The last sparks could only provide me with a quick picture of how I attach the weights to my ankles. Next time perhaps.

Today was something of a public relations day as no less than three people were curious about the reverse hypers. I also met one of the few powerlifters who frequent this gym in the metro and we had an interesting albeit short talk on our respective progress. But best of all, the King of Squats himself, Brent Mikesell, agreed to help me with my squatting technique! This interchange will take place as soon as I feel ready to squat again (hopefully in May) and will be based on clips of my squatting sessions. I am both deeply honored and flattered by his enthusiastic willingness to help this squat novice for a very modest sum. Brent’s heart must be even bigger than his enormous world record squat of 1074.8 lbs/487.5 kg!

The workout itself was a slightly heavier re-run of the previous one. My lower back felt so great after it, that I decided to stick to it for now. Squats again soon…

Finnish law now prohibits talking in mobile phones without the use of hands free devices while driving. Hopefully hands will still be allowed while squatting, cause this clip of Marko Patteri squatting 200 kg/442 lbs hands free is plain insane. Imagine a skinny lifter trying this…