| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| woodyb |
Posted - 08/03/2008 : 13:08:55
Any weightlifters, who use pretty heavy weight? Wouldn't mind hearing some stories, of battling through the pain and continuing lifting...
Woodyb |
| 11 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| richedie |
Posted - 08/29/2008 : 14:58:51
I was a bodybuilder for about 20 years, had a shoulder injury from snowboaboarding two years ago and after surgery, fought my way back.
Then, this past fall my life was shattered when the tingling, pain, numbness started and never went away. It even got to the point where
my hands would be noticably mottled, blotchy and even purple! My wife pointed out that my toes were dark blue the other morning.
I have been in top shape my whole life, people came to me for advice, now they look at me and think I am very sick with cancer or something.
The pain can be so bad in my feet, I can't do any power movements with my feet and the pain in my left wrist is unreal to where I went from benching
heavy weights to not being able to do a pushup, unless I alter my technique and do a few on my knuckles to take the pressure off my wrist.
If I trie to bench press now, I would probably scream! No lie. Grip strength is not as good, I dropped about 25 lbs of muscle, etc.
I am destroyed over this. |
| richedie |
Posted - 08/29/2008 : 14:56:24
I was a bodybuilder for about 20 years, had a shoulder injury from snowboaboarding two years ago and after surgery, fought my way back.
Then, this past fall my life was shattered when the tingling, pain, numbness started and never went away. It even got to the point where
my hands would be noticably mottled, blotchy and even purple! My wife pointed out that my toes were dark blue the other morning.
I have been in top shape my whole life, people came to me for advice, now they look at me and think I am very sick with cancer or something.
The pain can be so bad in my feet, I can't do any power movements with my feet and the pain in my left wrist is unreal to where I went from benching
heavy weights to not being able to do a pushup, unless I alter my technique and do a few on my knuckles to take the pressure off my wrist.
If I trie to bench press now, I would probably scream! No lie. Grip strength is not as good, I dropped about 25 lbs of muscle, etc.
I am destroyed over this. |
| TNDeadlifter |
Posted - 08/27/2008 : 16:22:39
I have been competing in weightlifting and powerlifting on and off since I was 18 (I am now 32). I had what I believe was a legitimate lower back strain when I was 24, which developed into a long term battle with TMS. I did not compete for 4 years and had severe relapses whenever I tried to train heavy. Mostly by reading Dr. Sarno's books, I got over my fear and started competing again in my late 20's. I recently did an official 628 pound deadlift in a competition at 198 pounds body weight, which is more than I did before my battle with TMS. So, for the most part, I have overcome the fear associated with TMS, but I still have (milder) relapses and I still have doubts from time to time. For athletes, I believe the fear component is a lot more debilitating than the pain. |
| Jim D. |
Posted - 08/07/2008 : 11:17:28
There have been a lot of posts on this topic, some of them from me, especially dealing with elbow pain when lifting. Back injuries are also common with TMS people training. As I have written before, lifting weights is a dream situation for TMS to strike: You are doing something that means a great deal to you and affects your self-esteem and your confidence, and at the same time it is something that can easily cause injury. It is a perfect time for the brain to link injury to exercise. I had terrible, long-lasting tennis elbow which stopped almost all exercise for some time. Giving up training led to depression, that feeling of "I'll never be able to do that again." I overcame the pain very slowly and with great determination, using the Sarno techniques and watching his videos. I no longer have elbow pain when lifting (knock on wood). At times other minor injuries have occurred, and with weight lifting it is really difficult to determine whether it is real or TMS. The most recent episode involved pain in one upper arm/shoulder when doing pullups. I could do all sorts of other movements, but that particular one was a killer. I approached it as TMS, and have gradually (mostly) gotten over it.
I think the brain is very good at finding just the activity that means the most to us and using that against us. What could be more clever than to attack a TMS-prone person in an activity that ordinarily results in feeling better about yourself?
Hang in there. You can overcome this.
Jim |
| Baseball65 |
Posted - 08/07/2008 : 06:17:27
I also thought that I'd mention that waaaaay back in the day...when I was like 25 (I'm 43 now..wait...42? I'm losing track..anyways..I'm Older)
The very first time I felt sciatica was after particularly gnarly days in the gym. I didn't even know what it was. This sort of confirms Sarno's statement that pain usually goes after something in vogue and that you'll believe in, because I am certain that IF I had gone to a doctor they would have diagnosed something to do with my spine/disc,etc.... the body 'chose' something without my knowledge.
This only happened AFTER I was married and my first son was born. Prior to that I could have lifted a mountain with no ill effects. I used to unload tractor trailers full of Christmas trees alone in a couple of hours. How could a few sets of squats all of a sudden trigger pain?
I've learned a lot from Dr. Sarno an Co.
Keep lifting and have a good time doing it. Laugh often.
-bb65 |
| j_vance |
Posted - 08/06/2008 : 08:16:33
BBall, yea, I too have had to fight through some pain during workouts. Sometimes I DID have to make the distinction between what I thought was truly my TMS symptoms and a potentially real physical pain. I think if you're new to TMS (like me) it can be difficult sometimes not to categorize EVERY pain as being mental when that may not always been appropriate.
Any hand pain I'd just push through, as long as it didn't debilitate me. And guess what? It'd be gone by the end of the workout and wouldn't affect my lifts (some near maximal lifting, no single reps or anything, but sets of low reps, all out intensity). However, while being somewhat ambitious with squats (10 sets of 10 for front squats) I began to have a debilitating aching tightness in my hip flexors. This permeated everything throughout the day, but really really screwed up my groove on squats. So I took more of a physical approach, took 3 or 4 weeks off squats and replaced all quadricep movements with posterior chain movements like pull throughs or racks pulls or deadlift etc. I seem to be good as new now.
315 |
| Baseball65 |
Posted - 08/06/2008 : 06:03:09
Yes and No..
I lift weights a lot, though because I am already sort of 'big' for my size, I only do lots of reps with light weights e.g. curling 50 pounds in sets of 15 as opposed to 80 in a set of 4 (when I think of weightlifting I think of guys pushing their max)
regardless, last year when I had my 'shoulder' incident, I had to fight through the pain. It would move from my shoulder to my bicep when I curled or reverse curled, and it felt like my muscle had been severed from my arm....pretty scary. In fact, in my laundry list of what might have 'injured' it (fear) I half wondered if I hadn't 'tore' it during a particularly angry workout I had one day.
I think the anger was a lot more relevant than the workout.
-bb65 |
| j_vance |
Posted - 08/05/2008 : 08:23:53
Yessir.
I've been doing ball-busting strength training for the past couple of months with a training partner. No incredible numbers or anything, but heavy pulls from the floor, a rack pull at 315 for 2, bench, heavy curls, overhead presses, squats, etc. My symptoms of TMS left me with an absurd sense of fragility in my hands, thinking I had everything from structural abnormality to arthritis. Needless to say, I never thought I'd hold 315 pounds in my hands.
I began this training while I still had many remnant symptoms of the bulk of my TMS. I.e. computer sitting pains and aches which at times would spread to other activities. To manipulate 65 pound dumbbells in each hand.. and experience no 'bad pain' and then have aches while holding your arms above a keyboard... wow.
I will say this though: training with someone who is a very strong, stable trainee helped me very much. I think it was a combination of 1. No open worrying about TMS bull**** vague phantom pains 2. Confidence/change of environment/adrenaline 3. Literal increase in rest periods between sets due to higher intensity and swapping off with a partner. When I was by myself, my mind state was different, and my rest periods were always much much shorter due to impatience. I'd occasionally get, at most, some achey joints in my hands. Insert new training partner... bam. Pains were gone.
I hope you can get back to it. Train smart, of course. Seeing how strong your body can be moving the iron can really go a long way to convince you that your body is healthy, just maybe your mind and nervous system are a bit out of whack.
-jamie
315 |
| woodyb |
Posted - 08/05/2008 : 03:19:29
You guys remember when you did lift heavy, and there was no pain at all... Just that good pain, like you totally destroyed yourself in the gym... Its so weird to think that you can actually believe all the sudden you're so prone to injury...
Woodyb |
| HellNY |
Posted - 08/04/2008 : 10:01:23
I used to lift very heavy weights too but have not gone back to that yet. Although Im much better than I used to be, I am not yet ready for that. |
| myles |
Posted - 08/04/2008 : 09:28:17
I used to lift quite heavy weights for my size, and might get back to that one day, but if you do or don't have a genuine injury you need to improve your range of motion first then strengthen throughout that whole range of motion before considering any major strength tests.
I'm 3-weeks post-sarno and just did track last week after two years off due to my 'glass-spine'. I'm going to introduce plyometrics this week and also start b-boying a bit spinning on my head etc.
Rugby season starts next month but I don't see any need to do too much weights at the level I'll be playing it at. Looking forward to the big impacts though  |
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