Episode 26: Quitters never win, winners never quit

Injuries

Not long after my young client Jared had hurt his shoulder, my own shoulders (yes, both of them) became a source of agony. While his injury could be pinpointed to a specific incident on a football field, the path to my own wrecked shoulders went back many years, long before that kid was even a gleam in his father’s eye – reflected from the 5-carat flawless diamond on his wife’s finger.  

My twenties in particular had been chock full of what I now look back at as ‘stunt lifting.’ How much weight could I possibly lift? Who was watching? And how much could I inflate my starving ego if I pulled off a successful stunt?

I would step into a squat rack and get under a bar loaded up to 725 pounds, proceeding to do reps that were never in danger of going to parallel – and always with a put-upon spotter hugging me and helping to pull me up before I crashed to the ground and was crushed like a cockroach. I would do deadlifts from the knees up only, because that way I was able to pile six or seven plates on a side. In retrospect I was probably lucky that I inevitably hurt my lower back after a few weeks of doing either of those, or else I might have done even more damage. As for my shoulders, they had taken far more abuse over a much longer span of time – during just about every chest or shoulder workout for over ten years. 

To be blunt, I consistently used more weight than I either needed or could handle in decent form. Most of the time, at least a couple of my heaviest sets were so heavy that I could only manage three or four reps – with help from a spotter. I now realize that guys used to conveniently make themselves scarce once they saw me warming up on any type of press for chest or shoulders, because spotting me was always hard work. “Crap, he just rolled a pair of 140’s over to the bench – time to duck into the locker room and hide in a stall while he finds some other poor sap to harass!” No chest or shoulder workout was complete unless I had handled the heaviest pairs of dumbbells we had. The rack was in sections, and I sneered at anything to the left of the rack that held the pairs from 100 to 150 as ‘wussy weights.’ Big Ron didn’t waste his time over there! Luckily we didn’t have dumbbells up to 250 like they do at MetroFlex in Texas where Ronnie Coleman and Branch Warren train or I might have really done a number on my poor old joints. 

I have had issues with shoulder pain off and on for years, but for some reason things got worse over the last few months. By last fall, there were days when it would be excruciatingly painful to do everyday things like turn the wheel of my car (even with power steering), take a jar of Hi Protein Powder^™ down from a shelf in my kitchen cabinet, or scrub a dirty frying pan. My wife thought I was faking it to get out of washing dishes, but no such luck. When your shoulder hurts just trying to reach back and wash your butt in the shower, it’s time to seek medical attention. 

For the first time in my life, I visited an orthopedic specialist. First I went in for X-rays, where you get to wear a fashionable lead apron that protects your vital organs from unwanted blasts of radiation. With X-rays in hand, I sauntered over to the ortho dude’s office. Dr. Cool-Bones, as I will call him, had signed pictures of various players for the New England Patriots, Boston Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins on his walls. Apparently I was in good company, although the distinction needs to be made that these guys wrecked their joints for multi-million dollar salaries and lucrative endorsement contracts with companies like Nike and Pepsi. I had ruined mine in pursuit of cheap trophies and pictures in bodybuilding magazines I would be able to reminisce over in my old age. Assuming my arthritis wasn’t so severe by then that I couldn’t even hold a magazine in my gnarled hands.

Did I say arthritis? When Dr. Cool-Bones, wearing a silk dress shirt unbuttoned enough to expose a thick gold chain (was he headed to a disco after our appointment?) tacked up the X-rays to the wall of light, it took him about three seconds flat to diagnose osteo arthritis in both shoulders. “Lovely,” I said. “Anything else?” He pointed to a dark shape that looked like a blunt horn protruding from the underside of my left shoulder.

“Actually, yes – that right there is a bone spur.” Awesome! 

The spur wasn’t quite bad enough to require shaving it down – yet – and I went in a week later for a cortisone shot in the left shoulder. Within a few days the pain in it was almost gone, but in a show of true independence, my right shoulder became twice as painful. I began eight weeks of physical therapy and upped my daily dose of Parrillo Joint Formula^™. In the meantime I had no choice but to take it very easy on just about everything for the upper body, but especially chest and shoulders. 

So, like I had done with Jared, I found ways to make less weight feel like more. I slowed down the rep speed, focused more on the contractions, and would also do multiple sets in a row with very little rest between. Many people in my shoes would have simply said, to hell with the gym! I’m going to sit home and watch my 500 channels of digital cable until my shoulders feel okay again. I could no sooner do that than to suddenly give up eating meat and subsist on sprouts and tofu – as if! Yes, training with an injury is a challenge. It’s tough when you are forced to do work sets with a weight that was always a warm-up before. It’s not easy having the patience to gradually work your way back and avoiding the temptation to jump the gun so your injury can heal properly. But I truly believe in the old cliché:  

“Quitters never win, and winners never quit.” 

For proof directly from our own world of pro bodybuilding, look no further than the top three at the recent Arnold Classic. Winner Kai Greene required hernia repair surgery and missed the fall shows of 2008, including the Mr. Olympia. Victor Martinez injured his knee at the beginning of the year, severely enough to need surgery also, and had to sit out the entire season. And Branch Warren tore a triceps over the summer and was knocked out of the Olympia. This was nothing new to Branch, who had previously torn the other triceps and a biceps (and he still has 22-inch arms). Right now Lee Priest, owner of perhaps the best arms the world has ever seen, has one arm in a sling as he heals from surgery to repair a torn right biceps. What’s he doing every day over there in Australia? No, he’s not kissing cuddly koala bears and chasing kangaroos around – he’s in the gym doing every exercise you possibly can with just one arm until he is able to use both again!

Across the nation and all over the world, you will find not thousands but millions of men and women who quit training after suffering similar injuries, or in many cases far less serious injuries. My attitude is, if you train heavy for long enough, you’re probably going to get hurt. It’s how you react to an injury that makes all the difference. Do you let it defeat you? Many people do just that. If I had a dollar for every guy that has come up to me to let me know he used to be built just like me, or better, until he hurt this or that – I’d have enough cash to buy a few houses in Phoenix (at least until the real estate market comes back). That’s how a quitter deals with injury. Winners have it treated; take the time to heal and rehabilitate the area properly, and often come back better than ever.   

Now, as spring is finally breaking through the dark, cold New England winter, my shoulder is feeling almost 100% again. I managed to prevent losing any muscle mass throughout the past few months training around the injury, and now I am looking forward to building some new lean tissue before the weather really warms up. Some people never would have made it this far, and that’s really too bad. Life will occasionally throw you a curve ball that beans you right on the skull and knocks you flat on your ass. The question you must always ask yourself is: do I stay down and cry about it, or do I get back up again?