A Pain in the Backside
Aches and pains come and go all the time, which is a big part of strength training. An injury, however, interrupts training. You can’t go as heavy as you want, which means progress is delayed or maybe even reversed, and getting over it takes some time, either in terms of outright healing or figuring out what error is causing the problem to begin with.
I am battling what is quite literally a pain in my rear end, where at the top of my squat and deadlift motions I get quite the angry twinge when handling a heavy weight. The culprit would seem to be the pirifomis, a belt-wide little guy who runs sideways from the lower spine to the upper surface of my femur. He’s there to aid in turning the leg and foot outward. He’s very deep, in against the bones beneath my glute, so that seems to match what it feels like. The twinges have been coming on for a month, but they’ve gotten worse in the last week, costing me a deadlift set in one workout. The hope is that I can recall enough from previous experiences to limit any further training loss.
When muscles become painful and tight, they’re injured on some level, whether they’re just depleted from a workout or torn or bruised from some kind of trauma. Every muscle ‘pull’ is a tear of some number of fibers. On the minor end of the misery spectrum, usually mobilization can solve the problem. Most often, this is rolling the affected muscle on a softball or lacrosse ball on the floor, with bodyweight and the ball combining to provide a penetrating force, an approach made famous back in the Golden Age of CrossFit by coach and Doctor of Physical Therapy Kelly Starrett.
That deep push through the muscle fibers is very effective, either releasing chemical wastes that have been trapped between muscle fibers, so they can be carried off by the circulatory system, or by stretching overly taut fibers and compelling them to relax and lengthen. General stretching goes in this category of loosening things that are tight, though athletes have learned that this direct pressure is far more immediate and effective.
When fibers and cells have been seriously torn or bruised, only bolder steps will help them heal. Excess rest is a danger; damaged muscles can create scar tissue in only days. Adjacent muscles will seize up like the injured one as a means of protecting the area. The athlete is hobbled. To prevent all this, the injured muscle has to be put to use, reminded neurologically to keep doing its work, and getting some blood to run through it will take out the garbage and bring in the groceries to aid in cellular repair.
The approach has been codified into the ‘Starr Protocol,’ named for legendary weightlifter and writer Bill Starr. His explanation was that the weight should be light and the reps high; the athlete will probably have to begin the process with only the empty bar. The slow build in weight - with 25 rep sets - can last as long as 10 days. Reps then drop to 15 and 10 in the next few workouts - as the weight rises slowly - and eventually back to 5’s with full weight, all within two or three weeks. Creating a cycle of adaptation at the level an injured muscle can handle is the fastest way to restore it.
I’m not sure which approach this left side of my rear end is going to require. Googling my symptoms quickly brings up the pirfiormis as a suspect, as well as TONS of articles and videos on how to handle it - so many so that it sounds like the problem is pretty easily solved. When I do that classic stretch, bringing my left calf across my right leg, above the knee, that turn in my hip does stretch somebody tight and unhappy. I did squat up to 400 pounds the other day, with some twinges of pain. Deadlifts come later this week, and that exercise is the one that might be reduced to therapeutic levels for high repetitions.
The larger question is, Why is this happening? What error in movement is hosing up the leverage in that hip?
About a month ago, as I wrote in the old blog, “The floor press, a lift . . . which is mostly associated with the goateed, shaven headed giants of the Westside Barbell world who have far bigger Upper Body fish to fry than the rest of us, actually has a fantastic lesson to impart. It’s a cue that can change people’s understanding of the bench press.
The idea, as you’re lying on the ground, is to let the bar down slowly and allow the backs of your arms to get fully pushed against the floor. You relax and commit the weight to the ground, as if this were ‘a box squat for the upper body,’ as the giants would say.
At this point, you get a freebie - a ‘do-over.’ As the bar rests on your vertical forearms, pull your torso up and reset your shoulder blades so that they’re pinched and shrugged back once more. You also re-arch your back, as though you’re putting the shoulder blades in your back pockets.
“Yes, you already did that. You might be following all the rules, setting your shoulders and arching your back for a set of benches, but as you’re lowering the weight, you’re losing that position. Think about it: obviously, if there’s something to reset on the floor, you’re losing it - even if you had no idea. It’s been happening more than you realize, which is why that sore shoulder or pec muscle has snuck up on you.
Then, locked and loaded, you drive the weight up - - with zero pain.
“That’s the revelation: the pec pain you’ve had is NOT from your grip width and NOT from your elbow angle or all those other stupid things you’ve been trying to fix. IT’S YOUR BACK. You’re hurting your front because you’re losing your back.”
I went on to quote a few articles from sports and scientific journals, and when I mentioned this to my old high school weightlifting coach, he said that was old news - probably so old that it’s been forgotten. ‘[The great] Pat Casey wrote about that in STRENGTH AND HEALTH 55 years ago.’
I’ve been off to the races ever since, bench pressing without pain. I shouldn’t admit how long I tried to defy it. Now, the same principle applies. There’s no sense in hoping one treatment or another can help after the fact. I have to get to the real issue, the cause.
Meanwhile, I’m not completely sure the pain is in my piriformis. It’s not a hamstring; they tie in below that, on the rings of bone at the bottom of my butt. Maybe it’s a glute. Experts warn against rolling the piriformis too hard, since the sciatic nerve runs through it, and irritating that can create pain and numbness down the leg.
The problem has to be either the arch in my lower back or some possible sideways hitch as I’m coming up with the weight. This calls for a little cell phone video analysis. Once I figure it out, I hope the transformation will be as magical as with my bench press.
That’s the idea: look for a miracle discovery, because one probably exists. I got into trouble for a reason.
(STRONG Gym Advanced template - PPST3)
Week of: 5/3/21 Week 6
MONDAY
1. Squat: 94% 1 rep; 88% - 3 reps; 84% 3 sets of 3; Tom 417.5, 390, 370
2. back extensions 4x10
3. 4 sets of shrugs 400
4. reverse hypers (3x10)
5. abs; banded pulldowns
TUESDAY
1. Bench press: 94% - 1 rep; 88% - 2 sets of 3; 83% - 2 sets of 3; Tom: 257.5, 242.5, 230
2. Incline bench: 3x3 212.5
3. 5 sets of 10 Hanging rows
4. Barbell curls: 4 sets of 8
Conditioning (second session)
sled pull 2 miles; 20, 0 (and six 50-yard runs)
THURSDAY
1. Deadlift: 94% - 1 rep; 88% - 3 reps; 84% - 3 reps; 82% - 3 reps Tom: 495, 465, 442.5, 432.5
2. Front squats: 3x3 215
3. Reverse Hypers (3x10)
4. abs: hollow rockers
FRIDAY
1. Press: 94% - 1 rep; 88% - 4 sets of 3 reps; Tom: 187.5, 175
2. Floor press 247.5; 3x3
3. Pull ups (5x10)
4. Barbell curls: 4 sets of 5-8
5. 3 sets kettlebell sit ups
SATURDAY - Conditioning
swim 1 mile or row 6000 meters
