Guy just shredded his hamstring...

[nisora33]

2:30pm

I stopped by the gym here to make a couple of phone calls before work tomorrow, and the usual Sunday afternoon "hardcore" crew shows up and heads down to the "pit"/"muscle beach" area of the gym.

One of these fellas, sort of the ringleader--late fourties, juiced to the hilt, and strong and determined as fuck, all-around great dude, too--leads them all upstairs for their Sunday "leg" workout.

You have to see this shit to believe it. I wouldn't call it a leg workout so much as a public torture and execution. Real medieval shit. More sets on the plate-loaded leg press than you would believe. All four prongs of the sled are maxxed with 45 lb. plates, and they've usually got 45's shoved in weird places all over the sled mechanism, plus they may have a guy sit up there and ride the sled if they're feeling frisky...

This is every, single, sunday. Same thing. Don't even know whether there's any method to the madness. During one of their later sets today, the ringleader goes down. I step out of my office to see him being shouldered by another guy and limping, his face red and purple and racked with pain, all twisted up and trying to stifle gasps of pain.

I say, "You done gone and done it, bud?" His buddy murmurs something about "It's his hamstring." Ringleader looks out of the corner of his eyes at me, and he says "Torn hamstring, bad, all the way up to the butt." This is the same guy who ripped his bicep clean away up near the proximal end last year. He's a bodybuilder (believe it or not, he started out as powerlifter some years ago, according to him). It seems like this is a regular occurrence for him.

Moral of the story, fellas: train hard but train smart. And be thankful everyday that you can get in the gym and train uninjured.

-Stacey

[Polynomial]

Ouch! I hope that someone with a knowledge of such injuries can chime in and say what usually causes them. For example, Rip says that there is a strong genetic component to hernias, and I wonder if that's the case here.

Also, I remember some strongman guys doing very slow hammer curls to "help prevent torn biceps," but I'm not sure how much that "helps."

[cjangelo]

One of these fellas, sort of the ringleader--late forties, juiced to the hilt

Ouch! I hope that someone with a knowledge of such injuries can chime in and say what usually causes them.

This might be a good opportunity to educate people on some of the possible side effects of steroid use. (I remember James Smith writing that he's never seen a pec tear occur in someone benching who isn't using. I'll try to find the article.)

Then we can all realize that any exercise that is completely safe is completely useless, and we'll all leave a little wiser.

[elVarouza]

My first guess is an improper warmup. I have no idea what happened in this case, but I understand improper warmup is a big culprit behind tears.

[PMDL]

Juicing also has a habit of making connective tissues weaker and more brittle, which is bad when it gives any random joker the ability to quickly add a ton of weight to his lifts and keep it up for more volume.

With the hardcore "fuck injuries just lift RAAHHHHHHHHHH" mindset, it's no wonder.

[StrongIslander,NY]

gotta respect the weight.... or get humbled real quick!

[Patrick]

I saw a pec tear once very early on in my lifting career and I didn't bench press for quite a while. Very disturbing stuff.

[Dastardly]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEItiGUwpBI&NR=1

I wonder if they try to visualise porking each other when doing this?

[nisora33]

Okay, just to give you an idea of the kind of tonnage these guys are subjecting themselves to, I calculated how much weight is typical of them to pile on.

This is a Nebula brand sled-style lying leg press. The sled itself, according to the manufacturer, ways 120 lbs. Each of the lower prongs can hold about 11 45 lbs. plates and the top two, which are shorter, hold about 5 or six each. They usually shove around six more plates in odd places atop the sled, so I'd calculate in all that they load about 1,920 lbs. on that sucker, and that's me being conservative. But you've got to take into the angle of the sled, so take about 70 % of that weight, and that's what they're actually pressing. That would be around 1,344 lbs.

I've witnessed them doing workouts where they'll pyramid up that weight and back down again. By the time they hit their top set of 1,344 lbs. they'll be doing maybe 10-12 reps, that's not including all the volume that they'll have accrued after pyramiding up and down. That's insane.

And typically, that won't be the only exercise done. Usually some kind of machine hack squat will be thrown in, followed by knee extensions and hamstring curls of various types.

So guys, I don't think it's any one factor that caused this guy's injury. I mean, just the weight of the top set alone is a factor: pressing that much weight, something might just give. Factor in the RETARDED volume, plus the fact that this guy isn't exactly a spring chicken anymore in his mid-forties, plus the fact that he's been on steroids for quite some time (which PMDL noted causes the tendons to become weak), and anything number of things could go wrong.

I wasn't trying to be alarmist. Of course bad shit can happen when you train. But try to keep it in context.

-S.

[khal]

Hypothetical question: steroids weaken tendons, but increased stress thickens it. Does the increased stress counteract the deleterious aspect of 'supplementation' on tendon health?

I think we'd have to consider the time frame over which the user is able to increase his lifts (and thus tendon stress) and the speed at which steroids weaken the tendon (do they actually weaken or simply prevent further thickening with training?)