starting strength gym
Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 15

Thread: Question about Bill Starr Rehab for Muscle Pulls

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    50 yr old Female
    Posts
    2,006

    Default Question about Bill Starr Rehab for Muscle Pulls

    • starting strength seminar april 2024
    • starting strength seminar jume 2024
    • starting strength seminar august 2024
    From the wikia wiki.
    Here is the tried-and-true injury rehab method for muscle-belly injuries we got from Starr and that has worked for years better than any other method I've ever used. It also works well on orthopeadic injuries in general, and should be tried before anything more elaborate is used. Wait 3-4 days until the pain starts to "blur",which indicates that the immediate process of healing has stopped the bleeding and has started to repair the tissue. Then use an exercise that directly works the injury, i.e. that makes it hurt, in this case the squat. Use the empty bar and do 3 sets of 25 with perfect form, allowing yourself NO favoring the injured side. If it's ready to rehab you will know by the pain: if the pain increases during the set, it's not ready, if it stays the same or feels a little better toward the end of the set, it is ready to work.

    The NEXT DAY do it again, and add a small amount of weight, like 45 x 25 x 2, 55 x 25. Next day, 45 x 25, 55 x 25, 65 x 25. Continue adding weight every day, increasing as much as you can tolerate each workout. It will hurt, and it's supposed to hurt, but you should be able to tell the difference between rehab pain and re-injury. If you can't, you will figure it out soon enough. This method works by flushing blood through the injury while forcing the tissue to reorganize in its normal pattern of contractile architecture.

    After 10 days of 25s, go up in weight and down in reps to 15s, then to 10s, and finally to fives. During this time do NO OTHER HEAVY WORK, so that your resources can focus on the injury. You should be fixed in about 2 weeks, squatting more than you hurt yourself with.
    My question is about the part in bold. Has anybody tried this? Today I did 25 reps of 45, 25 reps of 55, 25 reps of 65 and was pretty beat. Actually a little sore, not from the injury but from the workout. That was 75 reps of squats. Am I supposed to then do 100 reps with the upper ones at 75, and then 125 reps with the upper ones at 85? I think I might die if I have to do that much. Can anyone who has done anything like this better explain it for me? Does this actually help?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    1,159

    Default

    I imagine you need to scale it to your level of lifting. I am a novice with hip pain, and am trying to adjust my form to fix it. If I was trying this protocol, I would not use these weights, they would smash me for that many reps. I wonder what percentage of working weight this is supposed to represent? Does anyone know?

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    Huntington, New York
    Posts
    683

    Default

    I tore up my shoulder due to stupidity and bad form with a power clean. I could not bench press an empty bar. I tried the Starr rehab by 1) resting for a week and also going to a Doc to verify it was muscle not tendons or joints; 2) doing light dumbbells until I could bench press a empty bar. I then did sets 25 reps on the bar. I would add 5 or 10 pounds each workout while dropping the repetitions. When I reached 100 pound on the bar, I switched to linear programming per the Book. I am almost back to my pre injury weights now.

    Another time I had also torn a quad, don’t know why it just did, which also was fixed doing the Starr rehab. With the squat I did not do as many reps and found the recovery was faster than the shoulder. I think I may be because to the difference in mass, and possibly the severity of the injury.

    That said, I recommend you add the weight similar to linear progression and drop the number of reps by 2 or 3 a workout, until you are down to 3 sets of five. Then do linear progression to get back to your former lift weights. The Starr rehab works great on muscle injuries. Be patient and good luck.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    Brunswick, Maine
    Posts
    75

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by sbhikes View Post
    From the wikia wiki.

    Am I supposed to then do 100 reps with the upper ones at 75, and then 125 reps with the upper ones at 85? I think I might die if I have to do that much. Can anyone who has done anything like this better explain it for me? Does this actually help?
    You add weight, not sets. It is always 3 set of 25, until, as another poster says, you eventually reduce reps as the healing feels well underway and the weight gets to be too much

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Location
    CA
    Posts
    878

    Default

    I thought that the Bill Star protocol was for "muscle-belly injuries" -- i.e. torn musle, lots of bruising, etc. Not for back pain?

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    50 yr old Female
    Posts
    2,006

    Default

    Yeah, I've read that. I honestly don't know what I did. It's like my whole butt felt sprained in addition to my back.

    Anyway, I guess I've basically just been making an ass of myself with various 25-rep squats plus trying to figure out what I can and can't do, but not really much of an organized plan. It does seem to be slowly improving. These 25-rep squats are going to make me a lot stronger for squats, that's for sure. It's almost like somehow I've managed to crawl upwards in the weights by some kind of miracle of willpower but maybe when I finally return to linear progression I will have actual real strength to help me out.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    5,416

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by sbhikes View Post
    From the wikia wiki.


    My question is about the part in bold. Has anybody tried this? Today I did 25 reps of 45, 25 reps of 55, 25 reps of 65 and was pretty beat. Actually a little sore, not from the injury but from the workout. That was 75 reps of squats. Am I supposed to then do 100 reps with the upper ones at 75, and then 125 reps with the upper ones at 85? I think I might die if I have to do that much. Can anyone who has done anything like this better explain it for me? Does this actually help?
    I have done it three times successfully for groin pulls. It is hard and a bit painful, because you are stretching the injured muscle and getting blood into the muscle belly, so that healing can occur.

    You should reread the instructions very carefully; otherwise you progress them way too fast. Here is what I did, day by day, adding only 5 lbs in the following pattern:

    Day 1--45x3x25
    Day 2--45x2x25, 50x25
    Day 3--45x25, 50x2x25
    Day 4--50x3x25
    Day 5--50x2x25, 55x25
    Day 6--50x25, 55x2x25
    Day 7--55x3x25
    Day 8--55x2x25, 60x25
    Day 9--55x25, 60x2x25
    Day 10--60x3x25
    Day 11--60x2x25, 65x25
    And so on....

    Each time, I ran this for quiet a while, until I hit, say, 95x3x25, and then I'd go to sets of 15, then to sets of 10, and finally back to 3x5s. By then, I was pretty strong, fairly healed up, and mentally pretty tough for all the high reps. Each time, I broke through my past sticking point (where I hurt myself). This rehab protocol worked for me very well. The key is that it's for muscle injuries and NOT for injuries to joints. You need to be pretty positive it's a muscle injury.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    50 yr old Female
    Posts
    2,006

    Default

    Oh wow, your progression looks a lot more sane. I don't know what my injury is. I can't do any barbell squats for a while anyway so I guess I'll be taking a rest. I kind of like these high rep squats. I think they're helping me get a better physique and yeah, they do make you sort of mentally tough. Squats til you die.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
    Location
    Sheboygan, WI
    Posts
    365

    Default

    I pulled my left bicep good doing some pulls and maybe made it worse with a deadlift a few days later (only did 1 rep and knew it was a bad idea) and now I have some nasty purple and yellow bruising. I was going to lay off it for a while but saw this post and read the Wiki article. Question I have is, in my rehab should I use the deadlift, or would barbell curls or something be a better excercise since it focuses/isolates on the bicep?

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    SF, CA
    Posts
    4,994

    Default

    starting strength coach development program
    Definitely the curls. And i'd probably start way lighter than a barbell to test it out, though i guess that depends on how bad it is and how strong you are. (Remember the weights mentioned in the example were for squats...) First thing is to just re-establish a full range of motion. And don't forget that you ARE supposed to lay off of it for a couple of days in the beginning.

    And just to make sure: you just have some bruising, right? Not a totally blown out bicep w/ an indentation in it (for which you'd go to the doctor and possibly schedule the surgery).

    (also, note that i'm not a doctor or even a coach. Just some dude on the web.)
    Last edited by veryhrm; 04-01-2013 at 02:19 PM.

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •