Beyond-Brawn-2nd-Edition

BEYOND BRAWN
did not start to go away until I got into lower-back trigger point therapy
nearly eighteen months later. All that getting detrained in the name of resting
the injury, supposedly to permit recovery. It was not only a waste of time,
but unnecessary to begin with, and even detrimental. Oh for trigger point
therapy in 1992. en I could have forged on in my training, building on the
400 × 20 deadlift instead of crumbling after it.
18.57 e appropriate treatment at the right time can mean the difference between
needing a week off training, or years off. When you sustain an injury, seek
expert non-invasive therapy immediately, and you may hugely hasten recovery
time.
18.58 e May 1994 injury demonstrated that trigger point therapy had not corrected
the root of the problem. Something was still seriously amiss—exercise
technique. I injured my back again because my squatting form was not
good enough. I was squatting too deeply for me (below parallel). is caused
my lower back to round slightly. When I tipped forward excessively at the
end of the set, the increased stress on my lower back caused the new injury.
18.59 e most devastating aspect of the 1992 injuries was that they forced me to
stop serious weight training for a long period. As a result I lost a great deal of
strength. I became very detrained, which in some ways made the problems
worse. Rebuilding strength in a body that has more limitation than it had
when the strength was originally built, is very difficult. But had I known in
1992 what I know now, I would never have lost any strength to begin with. It is
critical to lose as little strength as possible while recovering from or managing
an injury. Once the strength is lost you may never be able to gain it back.
Of course in some acute injuries (broken bones, for example) you must have
a period of immobilization. But with chiropractic and trigger point therapy,
many injuries can be treated without an extended period away from intensive
training, and thus without any significant loss of strength.
18.60 In May 1994 I started using the stepper that had given my knees such misery
back in July 1993. While pushing through the balls of my feet made my knees
feel gritty, pushing through my heels caused no bad reaction.
18.61 I had taken another step back to normality. e ability to do aerobic work
had become but a fantasy for nearly two years. I could have been walking
on flat terrain as soon as my right toe had been fixed in November 1993, but
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