Rehab for the Healthy Lifter?

[Joel Chapman]

Rip,

On Friday I pulled my hamstring. I read your rehab sticky, the rehab section in The Strongest Shall Survive, and started the rehab myself. It is going so well, I got to thinking: could/should this be used in a healthy lifter? If injured lifters can rehab an injury and in 2-3 weeks be handling loads that are heavier than pre-injury, shouldn't this work without an injury? Maybe it could be used as a form of a reset, or a deload/reload from a plateau.

What are your thoughts and/or experiences with this?

[Mark Rippetoe]

It requires that you lay off of everything else, and it ends in a couple of weeks. I think you mean that it might work for repeated cycles, and I think not because it would mean that a substantial portion of your work would always be done with very high reps, and this does not produce the type of adaptation you want for strength training.

[deadlift425]

Rip, I have read his rehab method in his book and the only concern with it I have that it seems to be real aggressive with the percentages he uses to start with those high reps(start off with 50% on first set, 60% on second, and 70% on third of current 5 rep max).

I tried it today with bb reverse lunges(targets my left adductor magnus more) on each leg and did weights of 70, 80, and 90(my max reverse lunge is 135 for 6 reps roughly) and it was super intense on the third set. Is it supposed to be like this or should I just use the back squat instead(which is what I hurt it on)?

Thanks,


Aaron

[Mark Rippetoe]

I'd never use lunges to rehab anything. Too much potential instability for the injury. Use squats instead.

[Joel Chapman]

Rip,

I was actually thinking it would not be a continual process, just a one time 2-week cycle to try to break out of a plateau on a lift that you have been struggling to progress on.

[Vuvur]

by the way, Eric Cressey stresses the use of one-leg work for powerlifters in his book "Maximum Strength". He is a biomechanics/mobility/prehab-guy...
So does DeFranco in his WS4SB.
But what is really strange for me, Boyd Epley also added one-legged work to his Husker program..

Maybe it's time to try..hm..

[Mark Rippetoe]

Experimentation is always good. But just because the genetic freaks at Nebraska did a thing does not mean that this thing will work for you, as we have discussed before. It doesn't even really mean it worked for them; it just means that Epley (Cressey, DeFranco, etc.) had them do it. It all depends on where you are in your training advancement.