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Training While Injured

This is from Bill:


"Oh my god I can’t believe how much better it feels, normally it'd take weeks to feel better.
But I exercised every day this time, usually I'd lie up and protect it "

Bill hurt herself doing something mundane.


We all do it.


We love to talk about all our cool injuries.

That time we were setting a PR and.....

It was the closing minutes of the final round when......

I'd never gone so fast in my left when......


But in real life, it's so often something trivial that trips us up.

Reaching for something

Bending to lift something

Sneezing

Setting up or taking down a lift in the gym

Doing a day of unfamiliar work

And that is just life.


Bil had pulled and recurring injury. A simple thing that is never a problem until it occasionally becomes a problem.

But this time round, they treated it differently.


Like most people, when Bill feels this pain the first thing they think of is to rest it.

This is rarely the best idea.


This time though, they exercised every day, gentle exercise, exploring how much movement they can get away with without aggravating the injury.

And this time, the time spent in pain was greatly reduced. It was counted in days rather than weeks.


Read that again.

Days, not weeks.


More often than not, with low level aches and pain, minor stuff, rest is the last thing you need.

And if I'm honest, even with fairly major stuff, as soon as you have medical clearance, you should be getting back moving.


I've lost count of the amount of people who come in to me on crutches for upper body only training, or with their arm in a cast to do leg lower body sessions.


Why do we think this works?

Simply put, blood and lymph flow.


Almost all the healing substrates are delivered by the blood and the lymph.

And guess what ships away the waste? Yup, blood and lymph.


So when we elevate the heart rate, stimulate the central nervous system and get that lovely cascade of hormones that training gives us, that blood pumps around the entire body, including the injured area.


The time after training is the recovery window where "supercompensation" occurs, ie any tissues that were strained/damaged during training are not only repaired but upgraded slightly.

The theory is, if there's a pre-existing injury, tissue damaged before training, then that gets the same upgrades.


The second, and potentially more valuable part of the equation is the psychological side of things.

When we see ourselves as fit, strong, capable human animals, an injury can knock that.

If our routine includes training and exercise, and we stop that because of injury, that's a further knock.

But, if we find a way to continue to train, continue to exercise, even if it's in a compromised manner, adjusted to our injury state, then we are still maintaining that identity of a physical animal, a person who trains, a person who is making forward progress.


Is this proven and true?

I actually can't say.

Anecdotally, it is 100%, assuming care is taken and we don't do anything to make the injury worse.

In research, I have no idea.


In Bill's case, it was certainly true from the comment I received and started this email with.

There is always something you can do.


If you can't figure what and need help, reach out, that's my job, helping people.


And don't forget to reach out with your questions and comments for future newsletters.

I love getting them and love answering them.


Did you see as well, I'm experimenting with following these emails up with a youtube video?

I'm still figuring this out, I'm not really a youtube guy, but it seems that everyone is doing it, so why not join them.

If you prefer to read rather than watch, ignore that.

Regards

Dave Hedges

 
 
 

We're All Similar Different

Following on from last weeks email and the conversations that sprung out from it, we have a follow-up


Today I want to talk about the dangers of black and white thinking, all or nothing mindsets, blinkered thinking or railroading yourself.


The human animal is a complex thing.

There are no real absolutes when it comes to our health and fitness.

If there has been one really clear point of learning to come out of sports science and neuroscience research it is just how complex the body and mind is.

Yet at the same time, it amazes me how well we seem to understand the needs of the human animal intuitively.


Just like all animals have an intuitive sense of themselves and how to look after themselves.

And how much we learn from our parents, peers and mentors.


And then something happened.


Suddenly information became not only incredibly easy to access but also to create.


Once upon a time it took a hell of a lot of effort to become noticed as an expert in any particular field.


Now, it's simply a matter of saying the right thing on the right platform and you can appear to be god's gift to any particular subject.


As information becomes curated by computer programs to feed consumers confirmation biases, we find peoples ideas becoming fixed, railroaded, inflexible.

With the ability to find supporting arguments with a few key strokes with your thumb.

No longer do you have to go to a library and spend time looking up information, or travel to a learn from an expert in whatever field.

Now, we simply do a search and hope the results are actually what they promise to be.


And many times they are not.


I often hear people talk about how they don’t know what to believe as there is so much conflicting information out there.

And yes, that is true. There is so much conflicting information.


No one has all the answers.

No one method or style of training has all the answers.

If it did, we'd all train the same way.


But we don't


How I train is not how I train my clients.

There was a joke in WG-FIT, I think it was the man known as Hardcore who started noticing there were fellow clients on “a la carte” programs and others on the “off the shelf” programs.


In fact, it was the a la carte stuff I became better known for.

Tailoring programs for injury rehab and/or performance training.


But one thing that can't be denied is principles remain fairly constant.

Biomechanics vary person to person, but not by much.

I may mean one person training a hinge pattern with straight bar deadlifts, another with trap bar deadlifts and another with double kettlebell cleans. But they all load the hips and hamstrings.

It may mean one person presses a kettlebell, someone else does it bottoms up, another uses an angled barbell. But they all load the shoulder complex

One person performs phenomenally on 1 or 2 meals per day, another does better with 5 or more meals per day. So long as they both hit their macros, who cares?


Is a dumbbell better than a kettlebell?

Who cares?


Does this method, with this kit get you the results you want?

Now that something to care about.


Every person is an N=1 experiment.

Every coach should be watching every client like a hawk making mental notes so as to be able adjust training at the drop of a hat if needed.


You are all individuals ( “I'm not” )

No one can, or should know you like you do.

A big part of what I teach is how to get to know yourself, the Force of Nature program being the program created specifically to do that.

When you know yourself, you find yourself unable to be hoodwinked. Unable to be railroaded, brainwashed, blinkered or sold snake oil.

You become your own expert on you.


And that's worth more than any amount of reels, tik toks, YouTube videos or even books and workshops.


Regards

Dave Hedges


 
 
 

Stu McGill says don't deadlift.....

Updated: Jun 17

Deadlifts


There is a new episode of the Drive podcast with Peter Attia featuring Stuart McGill and McGill says in no short order, that if you deadlift heavy you will require hip replacements in later life.


He essentially likens it to an either/or choice.

Set Deadlift PR's or be healthy enough to play with your grandchildren.


Here's the relevant portion of the almost 3 hr episode: https://youtu.be/tM599A6wUAw?si=_mPRvvZsUKdfGkjD


You back?


What do you think?


The internet is getting pretty hot under the collar about this.

I watched the clip (haven't done the whole podcast yet, that's on my to do list), and I had to put it away and ruminate for a while.

It should come as no surprise to hear that the Deadlift is a staple of WG-Fit training, and one of my personal favourite lifts.


Then a colleague over in the US, renowned kettlebell expert Mr Mark Reifkind posted the clip on his facebook page and he and I had wee chat, before his comments section exploded that is.

Here's the link to that:


Then Adam Meakins, the "Sports Physio" gets involved and call the whole thing bullshit.


I hold Rif and Meakins both in high regard. But, as always I will, as i expect you to, make up my own mind based on evidence, knowledge and experience.


So where does my own knowledge and experience go with the original video and the varied responses?


In short, get strong, stay mobile, and become enduring.

That's the message I've been putting out for nearly 2 decades.

I've also often warned about specialisation.


This is where Rif and I went with our thinking. He's been a competitive gymnast, then body builder then powerlifter.

He and I were on pretty much the same page that at some point all lifts reach a point of diminishing returns.


Chasing bigger numbers in the weight room only serves competitive lifters, it doesn't really serve anyone else.

As much as the strength coach in me hates to say it, what we do in the weight room only serves to increase performance potential, there's no guarantee that what we do in the weight room will ever transfer over into your real life.


I like to think that my methods have a good track record for improving people's performance, but a big part of what I do is ensure gradual progress and offer variation when it's needed.


I don't like specialisation for specialisations sake. It is my opinion that as you get more specialised, you have to start cutting out other stuff.

And that is where problems may arise.


Bringing this back to the Deadlift, if I choose to specialise in it and chase serious numbers, what is that going to cost me?

Will it mean I drop many of the other things I do in order to put that time and energy into the dead?

Here lies the issue, I believe.


Is it as black and white as McGill is saying in the video?

Absolutely not.

Lift, build muscle, build strength.

But do not become overly specialised or focussed on the numbers.


Everything we do in training should be cycled.

Currently I am not deadlifting. I am mainly doing double kettlebell long cycle and squats.

When I do long cycle and deads, I find it does a number on my old back injuries.

Which if I ignore, well that could lead to me adding weight to McGill's argument.


But if I stop deadlifting for the winter as I focus on Long Cycle, then return to deadlifting in the warmer months as I add in a lot of outdoor training with the Bulgarian bag, bodyweight movements and kettlebell work tends to go towards Snatch, which is one bell and therefore light.

Then I can keep strong, mobile and enduring, without ever suffering the ravages of specialisation.


If you are in the WG-Fit bootcamp (the program is available on my TrainHeroic as 3x/wk or 4x/wk option on my TrainHeroic page) then you'll deadlift every monday.

But it's cycled over 12 weeks, peaking in week 12. Most of the deadlift session running up to that final week should be somewhat easy. Somewhat.

Plus we balance the hips with plenty of other stuff.


The results of the program speak for themselves, Seb posts them on instagram all the time.


Training that hurts you or breaks you down is not training.

Training should build you up, make you better.

After several weeks of training, you should feel stronger, more mobile, more enduring.

A feeling that amplifies as that training goes from weeks to months, months to years.

As soon as you feel that you're no longer improving, maybe then it's time for change.

Maybe time to look at what movement patterns are missing, maybe time to think about holes in the training plan, evidence of "training scars" beginning to form.


Keep self assessing, which is what I always encourage people to do with their arm ups, and you should stay healthy for as long as feasibly possible.


I'd love to hear your thoughts on this whole debate.

Do think differently to myself?

Would you like to add to the conversation?

Do you have a question that is related to this?

Or an unrelated question that you'd like me to delve into?


Such as why in my most recent social media posts am I wearing my old Red bandana with the black flames and not the sexy new WG-Fit logo design bandana?

That's easy, my eldest stole the bandana for himself, as I expected him to.

So I have to order another for myself.

You should too...


And don't forget, the "Last Set Best Set" T-shirt expires at the end of Feb. Get one before they're gone, who knows when I'll design a new catchphrase T-shirt.....


Regards

Dave Hedges

 
 
 
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