I have to start this month’s article with a story that’s near and dear to my heart. Back when I was in the top years of my weightlifting career (late 90s), there was a fellow superheavyweight lifter who competed in most of the same meets as me. This guy was as strong as a stegosaurus, but he also had some severe flexibility problems. Anyway, there was a time at a competition when this dude was in the warm-up room and just starting his first snatches. I think he had fifty kilos on the bar. As he snatched a couple of reps with this weight, it was obvious that he was fighting through some pretty heavy pain. His face looked like somebody had stabbed him in the toe with an ice pick and he was moaning like he was giving birth to Chris Farley. A couple of younger lifters were watching him and snickering about the groans and grimaces coming from the big man. He finished his set of snatches, looked over at the young lifters, and screamed out, “You have NO IDEA how this feels!!” Big laughs, good times… That sentence went on to be a pretty popular catch phrase with the lifters from my time period.

The big guy was hurting, plain and simple. And that’s where I’m going with the topic of this month’s article. Once again, I decided to get some ideas this month by going to the Catalyst Athletics website and looking around on the forums to see what people are talking about. I noticed something here that I hadn’t caught on to before. There are sixteen separate training forums on the Catalyst website. The two forums that get the most activity are, obviously, the Weightlifting and Fitness forums. But after these two, the next most popular forum is the Recovery forum. When I checked out this forum, most of the discussions on there had titles like “My shoulder hates me” or “Training with knee pain” or “Knots under the shoulder blade.” In other words, there are quite a few people out there who are looking for information about how to deal with the physical pain of weightlifting.

This doesn’t surprise me at all. Serious weightlifting training and pain go hand in hand. That’s all there is to it. Any of you who are reading this article and have been training the Olympic lifts for an extended period of time know exactly what I’m talking about. If you are a weightlifter, your ability to make progress and train effectively will largely be determined by how you take care of your body and find ways to heal after various types of pain have set in. Therefore, this article is going to be about pain management and recovering from minor injuries. It’s something we need to talk about. When I use the phrase “minor injuries,” I’m talking about injuries that don’t require surgery. Things like muscle pulls/strains, tendonitis, inflammation, impingements and spasms are what we’ll refer to as “minor injuries.” Now, I totally understand that these things don’t feel minor when you’re going through them. Some of the conditions I just listed can get so severe that they literally bring you to your knees and stop you from being able to train. Still, we’ll call them “minor” because they can be healed and eliminated without going under the knife. By the way, you can hang on to that last sentence for hope. YOU CAN BE HEALED. I can speak from experience, having gone through almost every kind of injury a weightlifter can experience. And with all honesty, I can tell you that you can make it through your own personal injuries if you follow the right steps. Let’s get into some examination of this.

Overall Perspective

First, I want to make a few general comments about weightlifting and pain/injury. After twenty three years in this sport, I refuse to disillusion anybody about this area. I will never tell people that serious weightlifting training is pain-free, risk-free, or injury-proof. It would be dishonest to do this because weightlifting comes with some pain and occasional minor injuries. That’s all there is to it. This is a sport that pushes the body’s limits in a way that almost no other kind of physical activity can do. Things like the strains, inflammation, and spasms I mentioned above are just a part of the game if you want to practice the Olympic lifts. You’ll have to learn to live with it. If you thought your road to maximum clean and jerks was going to be as comfortable as lying in a hammock with a glass of lemonade, I’m sorry to be the one who burst your bubble. It’s worth mentioning, however, that this same sentiment is true for basically any physically demanding sport that you can participate in. Whether you’re a weightlifter, basketball player, thrower, runner, gymnast, or cyclist, you have to be willing to deal with the knowledge that you might get hurt. It’s a place of mental acceptance that all competitors have to reach. The rewards of top athletic performance are accompanied by some risks.

But there’s a very important addition to this fact that is equally true. Weightlifting is an activity where proper instruction, technique, coaching, and program development can drastically reduce the chance of injury. Athletes who learn to perform the lifts efficiently will have far fewer pains and strains than athletes who use shoddy technique. Also, workouts that are designed sensibly with appropriate weight selection will put the lifter in a much better position to train without getting too banged up. In other words, you’ll probably be okay in weightlifting if you approach it with some quality coaching and common sense. You can still get hurt doing this, sure. But you can also get hurt walking your doggie.

Additionally, I don’t have to tell most of you that weightlifting gets tougher as you get older. Remember when you were young, and all those old coaches told you how much more painful everything gets as the years pass by? That stuff was all true. They weren’t lying to you. But let’s make sure that we are absolutely, positively clear about the fact that you can continue to be a weightlifter into your older years. Hell, I can even prove it to you. Get on the internet sometime and check out the results of the national and world championships for masters weightlifting. Some of the most populated age groups at these meets are the 55-59, 60-64, and even up to the 70-74 divisions. At last year’s masters world championships in Poland, there were 49 lifters in the 65-69 age division. That’s more competitors than the 35-39 age group at the same meet. It’s plain and simple: you can continue to do this sport safely and productively at an old age if you really want to.

The Usual Suspects…

What are some of the most common minor injuries that weightlifters have to deal with? We’ll check out a few of them in this section, and let me make it clear that this isn’t going to be an in-depth physiological analysis of the cellular, glandular or neurological situations that cause these injuries. It’s not a medical research essay. This is just basic nuts-and-bolts.

Inflammation- The vast majority of the time, that pain you’re feeling in your joints when you lift is simple inflammation. Inflammation is a physical process that involves things like pathogens, leukocytes, and a bunch of other terms I won’t get into because I want you to keep reading this article. In a basic way, inflammation occurs when the cells in your muscles and connective tissues get temporarily damaged from intense training. Soreness and swelling are the main symptoms of it, and it can get pretty damn nasty if the inflammation isn’t treated properly.

If I was a doctor, I would give you a lengthy biological explanation for how to treat inflammation. But I’m a weightlifter, so I’ll just tell you that rest, ice, and post-workout stretching will do the trick. Inflammation is something that will probably be a constant part of your life if you’re a weightlifter, but you can definitely control the level it gets to by using those three tools. With smart programming and disciplined icing, you can keep inflammation under control to the point where you’ll usually just have some stiffness at the beginning of your workouts, and getting a good stretch/warm-up will get your body feeling good and ready to go.

Will the inflammation get worse if you’re training hard five or six days a week? Yes. That’s why it’s important to plan out your weights and percentages carefully and make deloading weeks a regular part of your training. I know this is a problem because most of you are highly motivated, hard-charging commandos who don’t want to rest or give in to pain. You’re a regular John Rambo, I get it. And don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. You can’t just quit training and run to the couch every time you feel some soreness. Part of being a successful lifter is learning to train through pain. But you can’t train through injury. You can train AROUND an injury, but not through it. If you don’t back off, ice, and let your body recover when you’re injured, you’ll lose the war. That’s something I can promise you. What will happen is that the inflammation will progress to something called tendonitis. This is where the tendons become inflamed and stiff, the pain is more severe, and it will likely require a longer recovery period that will need to include some kind of physical therapy in addition to the ice and rest. I once developed tendonitis in my quadriceps tendon (right above the knee, a common one for weightlifters) that got so bad I wasn’t able to squat for a month. I eventually got full recovery and it never came back, but it was a major son of a buck while I was dealing with it.

Strains/Pulls- Muscle strains and pulls are basically the same thing, and they happen when muscle fibers tear from overstretching. Strains and pulls have different levels of severity. I’ve had strains that I was able to fully recover from by taking three days off, icing, and then easing back into training with light weights. Ten days of inconvenience and I was right back in action. Some strains, however, can be so intense that they result in discoloration of the skin and immobility. These might demand a longer time away from the barbell. One of the big things to remember about strains and pulls is that they can become repetitive if they don’t recover properly after the first time. I once battled multiple groin pulls for almost two years because I simply wouldn’t take any time off and let my body heal. The RICE (rest, ice, compress, elevate) method is the best way to heal a strain or pull. How much time should you take off after it happens? You should ice only (no stretching) for at least the first 48 hours, and then start alternating icing with light stretching until you’ve got pain-free range of motion. I also can’t stress enough that proper hydration and nutrition will dramatically increase your recovery time from an injury. Taking in lots of water and protein gives those little cells the juice they need to rebuild themselves, so you need to pay very close attention to this area. Don’t sit on the couch and ice while you pound back nachos and Dr. Pepper. All you’re doing is dragging the whole thing out longer than it needs to be.

Muscle spasms- A muscle spasm is simply a situation where a muscle maintains tension and contraction when it’s supposed to be resting. The muscle has been worked strenuously and a breakdown occurs in the nerve feedback between the muscle and the brain. In other words, the muscle tightens up and it won’t release. Spasms can occur suddenly and they feel like something has popped or snapped. Sometimes, these can go away in a matter of a few minutes or at least subside enough to continue lifting. I’ve had a few lower back spasms that occurred while I was actually warming up at a competition. It’s a scary feeling because you immediately think that you won’t be able to continue. But in the cases where it happened to me, I was able to do some emergency stretching that gave me enough relief to get out on the platform and compete. The following days are usually pretty rough following a spasm like this, because they can take their sweet time in releasing. While the spasm is still present, the pain can be nasty. Massage therapy is a great tool in fighting these off, along with very light ballistic stretching and, as always, RICE.

When it’s time for Dr. Feelgood…

Painkillers. Let’s just go ahead and talk about them. Most of you probably know what NSAIDs are (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs). These are legal drugs that reduce inflammation and pain. Ibuprofen is probably the most common NSAID for athletes and the general population because it works and it can be bought anywhere. Stronger NSAIDs, such as Diclofenac and Nabumetone, usually have to be obtained from a hospital with a prescription. These bad boys work pretty well, but there are some health risks if they are used excessively. Gastrointestinal problems are fairly common, and some research has determined that there can be potential problems with the liver and kidneys. However, the dosages would usually have to be pretty high and long-term for these problems to arise. There are also the “high octane” painkillers, such as morphine and other opioids. You’re on your own if you want to start rolling the dice with these. There are going to be drug-testing problems with them if you compete, and the list of adverse effects is pretty long and scary.

Here’s my personal experience and basic philosophy on painkillers. When I was in the biggest years of my competitive career, I relied pretty heavily on NSAIDs such as Voltaren and Cataflam (these are trade names of Diclofenac). These are all legal substances in weightlifting, so I wasn’t breaking any rules by taking them. The weightlifting team I trained with had one of the toughest programs in the United States, and the workload was just plain brutal. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I doubt if there were many people in this country who were training as hard as we were. Looking back now, I don’t know if I could have kept up with the training demands without the NSAIDs. I didn’t care much about health risks because my mentality was, “You do whatever you have to do (legally) to get bigger lifts.” Now, I’m thirty-eight years old and my training workload is greatly reduced from what it used to be. With the type of programming I use now, I hit the ibuprofen for two or three weeks when I’m in the toughest phase of a training cycle (usually the weeks leading up to a meet). That’s about it. By the way, I’ve never had any health problems from the NSAID use.

I would never recommend that anyone develop a dependence on any type of drug, including NSAIDs. The potential health risks from long-term use have been documented. But I also can’t preach to anyone about complete abstinence from painkillers because I believe that the life of a serious weightlifter can sometimes demand it. The athlete and the coach have to have a very clear set of goals, and they also have to have a very clear definition of what they’re willing to do to achieve those goals. Do painkillers work? Yes. Are there health risks associated with them? Yes. Can they get you through the most difficult times of your training life? Yes. Can they have negative effects? Yes. That’s all I have to say about it, brothers and sisters. You’re all adults and you can make your own decisions.

Time, The Healer

For a final thought about this, let’s make it clear that just about every possible injury or pain can be recovered from if you’re willing to put enough time and effort into it. Remember this thought; no matter what your injury, pain, or illness is, somebody has come back from it and lifted successfully. Strains, spasms, bulging discs, torn rotator cuffs, broken wrists, heart attacks, priapism, whatever. Somebody out there in Liftingland has already had it and found a way to conquer it. Now, there may be times when the recovery from an injury is a very, very long road. I don’t mind telling you that I’m approaching one of these myself. I have a torn anterior cruciate ligament in my right knee. I’m getting surgery in less than a month and then I’ll have a 9-12 month recovery process to go through. And I will promise all of you, the loyal Performance Menu following, that I will walk it like I talk it and get back on the competitive platform after it’s all done.

It’s gonna hurt. I already know that, because this sport has some pain involved in it. But I love weightlifting more than just about anything else in the universe, so the pain is worth it. Love is stronger than pain. Besides, I’ll be able to keep the pain at a manageable level by using the ideas we covered in this article. You’ll be able to do the same, and I’m confident that your weightlifting road still has a lot of miles ahead even if your back hurts so bad right now that you can barely sit on a toilet. And that’s why I’m going to end this article by doing something I almost never do. I’m going to dedicate this article to a good friend and weightlifter named Lauriel Luther. Lauriel is a phenomenal Crossfit athlete who I’ve trained with in the Olympic lifts for several months now, and she’s currently recovering from having a brain tumor removed. Her positive attitude as she fights back against this thing is an inspiration to a lot of people, including me. People show their true colors when they’re confronted by the worst circumstances, and Lauriel is showing hers every day. I wish her the best of luck, along with all the rest of you.