Injuring My Back

Sometime around April of 2012 I had a sudden and devastating injury take place. I was doing my super set routine that I use for my shoulder exercises. I don't use max weight but I do five exercises in a row to complete one set and do a total of 4 sets. On this particular day I was on my fourth and last set and the second from the last exercise I felt a little bit of discomfort and ignored it. I thought to myself "Ehh, I just have one last set then I will be done", and proceeded with my last shoulder exercise. Almost at the end of the set is when it happened I got a sharp pain in what felt like the muscle between my shoulder blade and spine. At first I thought I might have partially torn the muscle the pain was so bad, I came to find out later that it was a pinched a nerve in between some vertebrae in my spine.

This injury was severe enough that I couldn't do anything for the next two weeks because any movement would cause me a great deal of  irritation and pain. After two weeks I finally was well enough that I did cardio for a couple weeks until I finished recuperating enough to go back to doing light weights. Grand total it was 4 weeks before I was able to get back to weight lifting with light amounts and 6 weeks before I was able to  go back to lifting as heavy as I was before the injury. And this all occurred because I ignored my body's signals saying something wasn't quite right.

In retrospect this really was a minor injury in comparison to what other dangerous things could potentially happen and it also turned out to be a valuable learning experience. Now if anything at all is feeling weird or I don't feel 100%  I skip the exercise or even stop my workout completely and wait for the next workout. It is important to make sure and continue to push yourself and try for new personal bests all the time by upping your weights, however not so important to warrant injuring yourself. Injuries are never fun and if you do wind up injuring yourself you will only be setting yourself back from all the progress you have made. So don't be like me and ignore the signals your body gives you, listen to them and take it easy or even stop your workout so you don't injure yourself.

After injuring myself and having to deal with the recovery and setting myself back in my progress I became interested in ways to help myself avoid injuring myself again. At this point I took a good look into how I lift weights to make sure I was using correct form. Having correct form in weight lifting is very important. Good form is important for two reason. The first is that it will help you avoid injury and the second is that with correct form you better exercise the target muscle you are trying to build.

There are many good ways to learn correct form for lifting weights. In particular I went to YouTube and started watching numerous short videos about correct form when doing different weight lifting exercises. Another good way is to get a personal trainer for a couple sessions to help show you the exercises and the correct ways to do them. If you can't afford a trainer you can also ask some of the people at your gym for advice. I know I picked up a few pointers from some of the guys that went to my gym that turned out to be very useful. Once you have learned correct form for weight lifting that also serves as a good indication if the weight you are trying to lift is too much or not. If you can't do the exercise with correct form you are using too much weight for that particular muscle group and you will be increasing your risk of injury. If this is the case make sure to lower your weight until you can do these exercises with correct form. Remember guys pushing yourself to new limits and continuously progressing is important but not at the expense of injuring yourself. So if you are hesitant about your condition for that exercise or workout take it easy or stop for the day.

If you do wind up with the unfortunate injury and it seems fairly serious don't try to tough it out for a long time before you get help. Get yourself in to see a Dr., chiropractor, physical therapist or some other form of a medical professional to get it checked out(depending on the injury). More often than not they can give you some easy to follow directions on how to help yourself heal faster and more completely from an injury, however let's hope that you don't ever get injured in the first place.