Dangerous sport

I was just re-reading Bas' post regarding back injuries.
Yeah, we tend to forget that weight training is a dangerous sport.
Most of us have been injured from time to time and have gone through a painful recovery. Some never recover--I've spotted guys who are obviously former body builders, and I ask, "How much did you bench?" and have had the reply, usually with a grin, "Enough to blow my shoulder... How 'bout you?"

The other day I added ten pounds to my bench, working back toward what I benched when Ronald Regan was president of the U.S.. In my ears I could hear my doctor saying, "These days your tendons are stronger than your muscles," and "How did you like those Compression Fractures...?"

Never the less... it's a good sport and I'll keep it up until a guy in a dark suit pats me on the face with a shovel.

I blew out my back while on vacation last week. Had a shoulder press machine at the hotel gym. The machine though had a separate weight stack for the left and right arm, with a separate pin for each. And the pins weren't in such good shape and the one holding the stack on the right popped out in the middle of a rep. So suddenly there was only weight on the left. It was a light weight but I herniated a disc 5 years ago. Doesn't take much to hurt my back now. I last had messed it up after spending an hour carrying boxes full of books. So I spent my vacation loaded up on painkillers, otherwise the pain was intolerable. But thank thank thank god, I've tweaked my back like this 4 or 5 times now and so far after about 5 days things fix themselves up.

..unfortunately I seem to find a way to do this at least once a year and sooner or later.......

Interesting last three times it's been different. This time dull burning sensation down the back of my legs, calves and at times into my feet. Previous time I was incapable of standing erect for a few days. Time before that any movement at all caused painful muscle spasms, had to take very light breaths and just lay flat for a few days.

To be honest very seriously NOT a fan of squats or deadlifts. I did them for years. Squatted 400 and deadlifted 465. Didn't really mean anything to me to have done so. I'd rather be able to run fast or far. Although I think a good squat helps with sprinting.

Ouch! This sounds like classic sciatica, where a spinal disk herniates and impinges the sciatic nerve roots. Squats and Deadlifts are generally safe, but your weight-stack failure was a killer. Our vertebrae are okay in compression situations, but a sudden twisting motion can bring on sciatica—and it really, really, really hurts like bloody hell!

Last time I did this I ended up in a hospital. They tried to view the area with an MRI scan but the image was too distorted because of the proximity of three steel bolts in my femur resulting from a previous accident.
The doctor said dryly, “You really should try to be more careful…”

Interestingly I’ve found that when I exercise and stay in generally good shape I have fewer back problems.
This morning I had to wrestle out the air conditioner in the gym, repair it, and horse it back in again... so far no back problems, but I'm holding my breath.

Noticed today that my arm is scratched up and bruised resulting from nearly dropping the air conditioner, then catching it.
That was kinda dumb, I should have built a simple scaffold to get the A/C back where it belonged.
We live and learn.

Yes it's sciatica, no doubt. It does seem though that the last three times I've "tweaked" it, the results have been less negative. This last time I was still able to walk with minimal pain. And generally speaking my back has slowly gotten better over the years since the original injury. Used to be unable to sleep on my stomach because of back pain, and I notice just in the last few months I can now do that without waking up in pain an hour later. I think a bit of jogging etc, has really helped me.

So perhaps the situation isn't so dire as I sometimes worry.

Part of my background is that I'm a nurse working on a floor where they do back surgeries by the way. I had a lady the other night for example who's had chronic pain since 1978. Constantly seeing people like that worries me.

Hopefully with staying active and being careful I'll not end up a patient there someday.

Jay wrote:

"...Part of my background is that I'm a nurse working on a floor where they do back surgeries by the way. I had a lady the other night for example who's had chronic pain since 1978. Constantly seeing people like that worries me.

Hopefully with staying active and being careful I'll not end up a patient there someday."

Good for you, Jay...!
There are more guys needed in nursing--one of my neighbors who was a topnotch bodybuilder and boxer was a nurse, he mentioned that he could find work anywhere he pleased, when ever he pleased, because of the shortage of qualified guys in the field.

My wife was an RN in a hospital that treated quadriplegic cases. I am amazed when I hear her stories about how those guys trained to overcome their injuries.