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That doesn't feel good for my old knees.
by feverzsj 3y ago
That doesn't feel good for my old knees.
- woleium 3y agowith the right technique and shoes, and a slow progression to more strenuous exercise, you will be surprised what old knees can do
- candiddevmike 3y agoDid you run when you were younger?
- stavros 3y agoWhich way does this go, "ah, you didn't run enough to get strong knees", or "ah, you ran too much and damaged your knees"?
- Swizec 3y agoSerious competitive athletes break their bodies in youth and never fully recover. For the rest of us we probably didn’t do enough when younger. There is a wiiiiiide space of healthy activity levels between couch potato and 100 mile per week future Olympian hopeful.
- stavros 3y agoDefinitely, but I did manage to seriously injure my back doing some deadlifts for light strength training, so the space probably isn't as wide as you might think.
- Swizec 3y agoDeadlifts are also famous for having a high injury rate. I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone who doesn’t have a base core strength and a coach of some sort to teach proper technique. For things like walking and running the safety margins are much bigger. Then again maybe not, I had my sister who trained track in high school teach me technique before I started running more seriously.
- stavros 3y agoYeah, unfortunately the book Starting Strength made it sound like it was extremely safe to do on your own. The "no true Scotsman" of "if you got injured, you were doing it wrong by definition" didn't help.
- Swizec 3y agoIf it helps you feel better, I know people who were lifting heavy for years, even competing in bodybuilding and threw out their back moving an empty bar because they didn’t think of it as a deadlift and used poor form
- thefaux 3y agoIt seems to me that it is important to communicate that you can injure yourself easily if you do deadlifts wrong. With any weightlifting exercise it is important to start with an easy weight and make sure that you are confident that you have good form before adding weight. Deadlifting can be done safely which is evinced by the many people who have done it without injuring themselves. I feel for you that you got bad advice. I do agree however that with good form, it should be difficult to injure yourself seriously deadlifting. The rub is that not everyone has the ability to self-assess and some coaches are also bad. If you are not very confident you will not hurt yourself, you absolutely should not deadlift heavy weights.
- stavros 3y agoBut that's like saying "you can play Russian roulette safely if you do it properly". Sometimes you get injured no matter how good your form is, and sometimes you get lucky and are fine even if your form is poor.
- sn9 3y agoBut in terms of the actual empirical risk, they're extremely safe when programmed intelligently with appropriate load selection and consistent technique.
- nineteen999 3y agoAre you me? Did the same in Jan last year, and by September I needed a microdiscectomy to remove a pea-sized piece of disc that had broken off and was poking my S1 nerve, giving me painful sciatica all down my right leg. That said, I'm still 22kg down from Feb 2022 when I started, from 107kg then to under 84kg today. There is a lot of positive benefits to becoming a completely stubborn asshole with yourself when it comes to diet, regular cardio, and strength training. But I won't go near heavy deadlifts again.
- stavros 3y agoYeah, same here. I tell everyone I know to do some other exercise, instead of deadlifts.
- toasterlovin 3y agoPeople say this and it’s always a head scratcher for me because deadlifts are the easiest compound lift to get the form right on and if you have good form, warm up, and only add 5-10lbs per workout it’s basically impossible to hurt yourself with deadlifts. So I actually recommend them as the lift to do if you only do a single compound lift. They take the least amount of time (you only need a single work set 2x/week) and you get the most everyday benefit out of them. Plus everyone has room for a barbell and plates in their home, even if they don’t have room for a squat rack.
- stavros 3y ago> it’s basically impossible to hurt yourself with deadlifts. Well, I've got some MRI images that disagree, sadly.
- Swizec 3y ago> and if you have good form, warm up, and only add 5-10lbs per workout Most beginners I’ve seen do not take the 5min it takes to learn proper form. And even if they do, they lack the proprioception to know when they’re doing it right. You really need a mirror or someone to keep you honest, preferably both, for the first few sessions. Someone needs to tell you what correct looks like on your body. It’s very hard to get right on your own if you don’t have a history of working with a coach who developed your proprioception. I’m what you would call a grinding amateur. After 10+ years of daily workouts it takes me only a few hundred tries to do what a coach tells me. My sister has been a competitive athlete since 4 years old. It takes her 2or3 reps to perform exactly the movement a coach gives her (even in a new sport). Just because her body control is so much more developed than mine.
- nojs 3y agoCould you share more about what happened? How much were you lifting (was it close to your max) and do you feel like your form was correct?
- stavros 3y agoIt's 15 years ago now, but I was increasing my weight by 2.5 kg every session. It was close to my 5-rep max, but presumably not my one-reply max. My form was correct, as far as I know, I was looking forward, legs spread apart, back straight, etc. I lifted, and I felt a pop, and my back hurt for a week. Afterwards, once a year or so, I'd make some small movement, like trying to lift a bag, or just misstep when walking, and my back cramped again and I couldn't move for days. Nowadays it's just permanent.
- nojs 3y agoDid you get an MRI or a diagnosis at the time?
- stavros 3y agoNo, not at the time. I have a small hernia now, though.
- nojs 3y agoThank you for sharing and I wish you good health. Rippetoe and Starting Strength can be brutal about injuries.
- stavros 3y agoThank you! I'm thinking about starting strength training again, it was really good when I did it, but I'll definitely do less weight and be much more careful about injuries, as I'm past forty. It sounds like it's pretty essential for maintaining good muscle density as I age, though.
- akkad33 3y agoMy money is on option a
- sn9 3y agoUse it or lose it is basically a basic principle of physiology. Injury risk comes down to doing things your body isn't prepared for through inappropriate load and fatigue management.