Vegan Weight Training Blog

My back and my knee are at about 95% now. They were hurting for days and days with no improvement, then they both got better practically overnight–right after my previous BodyBlog entry. I think it was due to the amount of rest I got during this break. I took long naps, ate a lot of good food, and tried not to worry too much about being out of the gym and losing ground on my lifts.

I believe the reason I injured my back during the overhead press was twofold: I wasn’t tightening my abs sufficiently during the lift, and I didn’t have enough flexibility in my shoulders. By failing to really flex my abs, I was not stabilizing my back. I was pushing my lower spine to the limit of its flexibility and relying on that limit to keep me upright, which is obviously very dangerous. The reason I was doing it that way was because my shoulders weren’t flexible enough. This caused my arms to tilt forward when fully extended over my head. I had to lean back to compensate. But you’re only supposed to lean back at the beginning of the motion, not the end. It was near the end–the lockout portion of the lift–that I was leaning back and stressing my spine. You’re actually supposed to be leaning forward a bit during that part of the lift. In order to lean forward and hold the weight directly over my ears where it should be, I’m going to have to get some flexibility in my shoulders. And I think this stretch posted by Doggcrapp is the way to do it:

"With a large towel or broomstick I want you to hold it with straight arms for the entire time of what i describe in the following movement–a large "rolled up like a rope" beach towel works good but honestly a longer broomstick (without the bristles) works best in my opinion. Start out with it with a really wide grip (with straight arms) in front of you (on your quads) and with straight arms bring it up and overhead and then down and back to the middle of your back–STRAIGHT ARMS ALL THE WAY–this is going to be very difficult and hard the first couple times out and then will be "old hat" with time—-and its going to be painful in a stretching pump kind of way—i want 50 reps each time you do this–one repetition is from in front of your face (all with straight arms) to up overhead and back, and then down all the way to the middle of your back and then back up overhead to in front of your face again (again all with straight arms)–the important part of the movement is the area overhead that is really tight–do all of this carefully/slowly—dont just whip it over and back—if your hand is slipping off the broomstick even with the widest grip, or you cant bring your arms over straight and the start bending on you, you have some serious shoulder inflexibility and need to work this hard and get up to speed (or you could just need a longer broomstick too)–again do all of these revolutions controlled and carefully–push into the stretch as you go along toward the 50 revolutions, your chest will be pushing outward and your shoulders rolling back–your shoulders are going to blow up with so much blood its going to be incredibly painfull pumpwise–Do this once a day at nite as many times a week as you can—sometimes I have people do it every single day—but every time you do it try to move your grip inward (thats the key)—-its going to be very hard to do but try your best to move your grip inward for the next 2-4 weeks and your range of motion with shoulders will increase dramatically and any impingement and the majority of other problems should be gone in 2 weeks–also try to move your grip in as you are doing the 50 revolutions–start off with a stretching but relatively easy 10 to warm up some, then try to move your grip in even by a centimeter if you can for the next 20 revolutions and then at 30 try to move the grip in another centimeter–really try to push what you can do stretchwise once your warmed up here–trust me this sounds easy but your going to be muttering "**** you dante" after you get to your 25th revolution–Ive cured too many shoulder problems with this simple movement now its pretty ridiculous, and this and a menthol rub applied liberally daily and before sleep has cured alot of shoulder/bicepital tendonitis in trainees"

I’m going to stretch like that every night for a month or so. I’m also going to switch to the seated overhead dumbbell press until I’ve increased my shoulder flexibility to the point that I can do the Olympic style overhead barbell press safely and correctly.

The other thing that compounded the pain in my back was simple impatience and arrogance on the deadlift. I tweaked my back on my first set a couple weeks ago even though it was a relatively light weight. This happened because I didn’t settle in, get my body aligned, and get my mind centered before I lifted. I just walked up, grabbed the bar, and did the lift. The part of my back that I hurt felt like it was still "cold" when I did that. It just wasn’t ready to be used yet, but I used it anyway. I almost never lift like that. I certainly won’t be lifting like in the future. From now on I’m going to respect the weight no matter how light it seems in relation to my max.

A few weeks ago I overextended my back doing the standing press. Last Wednesday I felt a tweak in the same area while deadlifting. Thursday I went out for a run, and somehow ended up with a lingering pain in my knee. Now I can’t squat or deadlift until I’m healed. It’s extremely aggravating. My back is getting better, but my knee still hurts just about the same. The last thing I need is a bum knee.

I take coconut oil every day to get saturated fat in my diet, and I’ve been on MSM/Glucosamine for a while although my bottle just ran out. Both of those are good for joints. I know L-Proline is supposed to be good, too. I’ll have to get some more MSM/Glucosamine and L-Proline, and whatever else I possibly can to fix these problems. I’ve added some new stretches to my regimen to target my back, but I don’t know what I can do for my knee. This exercise looks good, although it hurts.