Back after 4-year layoff, what's wrong with me

[ricepounder]

Hey guys and ladies, sorry for the book-length post. Basically I strained something doing presses and want to know why. 33 y/o male, 170 lbs, beginner-intermediate. I’ll post my 5RMs below.

I was doing the beginner SS program seriously for about a year. In that initial year I gained 30 lbs—I was walking 10 miles a day, eating like crazy, etc., went from 138 to 168 lbs, very little fat (not visible anyway). I think a lot of it was bone density, etc. since I was and am a skinny-looking guy.

Then I moved and got a different job and was lifting only intermittently for the following almost 4 years. I did a lot of physical labor at work though, lifting and hiking many miles/day, etc., but still more sedentary than usual. Quit that job recently, and now I’m back on the program again. I weigh about 170, but I think a larger percentage of that is now fat. I have a noticeable “beer gut” now though I don’t drink much.

I re-read Ripptoe’s book and started off again as if from scratch, except I was stronger this time and was able to lift much heavier weights without compromising form. Going from there, I have suffered now two big strains or sprains, one in my lower-mid back/ribs and one in my traps, between my shoulder blades. The first one happened following deadlifts @ 175x5. 4 years ago I was doing 215. Didn’t feel anything in the moment, then was totally immobilized/couldn’t breathe or sleep or move without pain for about 1.5 days afterward. I figured I wasn’t warming up enough, and after skipping one workout and changing warmup routine, I repeated the last workout, then did 180x5 on Wednesday. Felt fine.

The second one just happened today during the Press. I did 80x5x3 on Monday, felt good. Today I tried to go up to 85, but on my first set it felt really hard, so I went back to about 83 and completed the last two sets of 83x5. On my last rep, I pushed to lockout, then squeezed or shrugged upward to sort of “feel the burn” a little more. Then I felt a little “snap” between my shoulder blades, not too painful but enough to tell me something was wrong. Racked the weight and skipped my deadlifts because I don’t want a repeat of last week!

I am pretty sure my form is good. Did a bunch of warm-up sets. Now I feel a dull pain when I turn my head, mostly when I turn it to the right. Feels a lot like the pain when I strained my low-mid back but in a different place.

Assuming form is good, what am I doing wrong? Should I back off more and start again after such a long layoff? Do more warm-ups? (Currently I do about 5 warm-up sets progressing to my x5 weight).

Here’s where I’m at:
Sq: 160x5x3 – feels good except right quad is consistently sore.
Press: 83x5x3 – see above
DL: 180x5 – feels good now
BP: 125x5x3 – think my chest is weak, these are hard for me, but no strains/sprains so far.

Diet is good, 4 meals/day though I’m not really doing the milk this time. Weighed myself today and I had gained .5 lbs since Monday, but according to my scale I went from 18% to 19% fat! WTF?

Feel like I’m starting to get old

[Adam Skillin]

Hey guys and ladies, sorry for the book-length post. Basically I strained something doing presses and want to know why. 33 y/o male, 170 lbs, beginner-intermediate. I’ll post my 5RMs below.

I was doing the beginner SS program seriously for about a year. In that initial year I gained 30 lbs—I was walking 10 miles a day, eating like crazy, etc., went from 138 to 168 lbs, very little fat (not visible anyway). I think a lot of it was bone density, etc. since I was and am a skinny-looking guy.

Then I moved and got a different job and was lifting only intermittently for the following almost 4 years. I did a lot of physical labor at work though, lifting and hiking many miles/day, etc., but still more sedentary than usual. Quit that job recently, and now I’m back on the program again. I weigh about 170, but I think a larger percentage of that is now fat. I have a noticeable “beer gut” now though I don’t drink much.

I re-read Ripptoe’s book and started off again as if from scratch, except I was stronger this time and was able to lift much heavier weights without compromising form. Going from there, I have suffered now two big strains or sprains, one in my lower-mid back/ribs and one in my traps, between my shoulder blades. The first one happened following deadlifts @ 175x5. 4 years ago I was doing 215. Didn’t feel anything in the moment, then was totally immobilized/couldn’t breathe or sleep or move without pain for about 1.5 days afterward. I figured I wasn’t warming up enough, and after skipping one workout and changing warmup routine, I repeated the last workout, then did 180x5 on Wednesday. Felt fine.

The second one just happened today during the Press. I did 80x5x3 on Monday, felt good. Today I tried to go up to 85, but on my first set it felt really hard, so I went back to about 83 and completed the last two sets of 83x5. On my last rep, I pushed to lockout, then squeezed or shrugged upward to sort of “feel the burn” a little more. Then I felt a little “snap” between my shoulder blades, not too painful but enough to tell me something was wrong. Racked the weight and skipped my deadlifts because I don’t want a repeat of last week!

I am pretty sure my form is good. Did a bunch of warm-up sets. Now I feel a dull pain when I turn my head, mostly when I turn it to the right. Feels a lot like the pain when I strained my low-mid back but in a different place.

Assuming form is good, what am I doing wrong? Should I back off more and start again after such a long layoff? Do more warm-ups? (Currently I do about 5 warm-up sets progressing to my x5 weight).

Here’s where I’m at:
Sq: 160x5x3 – feels good except right quad is consistently sore.
Press: 83x5x3 – see above
DL: 180x5 – feels good now
BP: 125x5x3 – think my chest is weak, these are hard for me, but no strains/sprains so far.

Diet is good, 4 meals/day though I’m not really doing the milk this time. Weighed myself today and I had gained .5 lbs since Monday, but according to my scale I went from 18% to 19% fat! WTF?

Feel like I’m starting to get old

You ran the novice program for a year and achieved a deadlift of 215 pounds as a late-20's male? Something's not correct here. What am I missing?

[ricepounder]

You ran the novice program for a year and achieved a deadlift of 215 pounds as a late-20's male? Something's not correct here. What am I missing?

Hmm...you're right that sounds off. It may not have been a year--unfortunately I didn't keep all my records, only the last page to see where I left off. I know I got stuck a couple of times and had to back off, then work back up again.

[Philbert]

Your symptoms sound like bursitis somewhere around your scapula. I get this sometimes when I am not training consistently. Bursitis improves with movement and worsens with rest. Poor posture at work can be a contributing factor.
As with all neck problems, if you develop numbness or weakness in your arm, or lose vision in one eye, or lose control of your external anal sphincter, you should seek medical attention promptly. If you think you might actually have a medical problem you should see an actual doctor in person, and not take the advice of a purported doctor on the internet. If you have no contraindication to performing the lifts safely you should post for checks in the appropriate sub-forum, like Skillin said something seems off.

[ricepounder]

Your symptoms sound like bursitis somewhere around your scapula. I get this sometimes when I am not training consistently. Bursitis improves with movement and worsens with rest. Poor posture at work can be a contributing factor.
As with all neck problems, if you develop numbness or weakness in your arm, or lose vision in one eye, or lose control of your external anal sphincter, you should seek medical attention promptly. If you think you might actually have a medical problem you should see an actual doctor in person, and not take the advice of a purported doctor on the internet. If you have no contraindication to performing the lifts safely you should post for checks in the appropriate sub-forum, like Skillin said something seems off.

Thanks for that info Skillin and Philbert--after doing some reading on scapulothoracic bursitis, it seems that might be what's going on (although that "snapping" feeling that usually accompanies it only happened once at the moment of injury).

If it doesn't go away in a day or so I will seek help. If it does, I will try to post a form check. My suspicion though is that I just tried to do too much too soon after a long layoff, and maybe I just need to make smaller jumps of 1.5 to 3 lbs. between workouts. I posted for form for the press before and everyone said it was good.

I believe one reason for my slow progress is that before I did SS the first time, I was SUPER skinny and weak. It was a combo of genetics, and a period of malnutrition as a kid, and again in my early 20s when I was living abroad. Came home weighing less than 120 lbs at 5'11"! I think the SS novice program might have actually slowed my metabolism a little, because before that I literally had to eat every 4 hours and burned off everything, could not gain weight for the life of me (one reason I started lifting, and why I appreciated the program so much). In terms of overall health it very well might have saved my life--or at least saved me from lots of injuries from lack of bone density/lack of strength, etc.

[neilc1]

You ran the novice program for a year and achieved a deadlift of 215 pounds as a late-20's male? Something's not correct here. What am I missing?

5 - 11 and 170 ??

[Adam Skillin]

5 - 11 and 170 ??

Good point, Neil. An additional 30 pounds of bodyweight would most certainly help.

[ricepounder]

Good point, Neil. An additional 30 pounds of bodyweight would most certainly help.

Well, like I said I am already at 19% body fat, and I have been eating to the point of discomfort pretty much daily. Here's an example of my daily diet:

Breakfast: 1 cup(dry) rolled oats + a handful of raisins, walnuts, 1 banana, 1/2 an apple, 2 heaping Tbs of full-fat yogurt
Snack: 2 pc WW toast+PB before workout
Lunch (after workout): 3 whole eggs + spinach, or whole chicken breast + spinach, hummus, tomato in a large tortilla
Snack: varies, but often granola w almond milk, or a hardboiled egg, or ~11 tortilla chips and hummus
Dinner: usually either chicken, beef, pork loin, or rice+beans, and some kind of starch like brown rice or potatoes. Plus veggies.
Before bed: I recently added this meal--so far it's been either WW toast, muesli, or whatever is in the fridge.

Today my traps are still a little off but definite improvement. I did a "low intensity" day--backed off to about 60% of my theoretical 1RM (based on my 5RM from last workout + 5-10 lbs, and using the formulas in Practical Programming). Felt OK, though it was a BP day, not a Press day.

I will post a question elsewhere about the intensity stuff as I know it doesn't really apply to the novice level.

My hope is that if I keep upping the weight each workout even by smaller intervals I will gain muscle weight and my body fat % will stay the same or get lower. Is that silly?

[timelinex]

Why did you do a light day? You are far from ever needing a light day for anything.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way. You are not unique and this happens to ALOT of people. Honestly it just sounds like you have never done anything athletically hard in your life and your looking for any excuse to not train hard.

Training hard means you will have random ache's, pains, pops, etc... Nothing wrong with these. As you get older, these things will happen just from sneezing wrong! You didn't "get back to doing stuff too fast". You just don't know what it means to work hard physically yet. Ask any higher level 'athlete' and they have aches and pains. Weeks where their neck is stiff and it is uncomfortable to sleep. As a lifter, you are now an athlete. So this doesn't mean you go lighter when you get an ache. It means you have gotten up from the couch and shit happens. Train thru it and it will get better.

Note that training hard does not mean ego lifting and it does not mean injuring yourself. Small aches happen because you are challenging your body. They heal and whatever was aching goes back to being just as strong or stronger (interestingly, even if it keeps aching). When 2 weeks later the ache has only gotten worse, then you can talk about needing to possibly change something. Take a look at Austins article on pain.

If you can't do this, thats ok. But you just have to accept that garbage in = garbage out. You can definitely progress by doing a million resets and doing everything ultra carefully to not pull or hurt anything. But it will just mean that you will be at the same strength in 5 years of what normal people can do in 6-12 months. Ironically you will likely still get almost as many aches and pains anyways because thats just what happens. But atleast you can react and 'feel' better about them by doing light days and resets. You alright with that? Yes? Keep doing what your doing. No? Train harder and stop thinking you will break in half over every ache.

[ricepounder]

Why did you do a light day? You are far from ever needing a light day for anything.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way. You are not unique and this happens to ALOT of people. Honestly it just sounds like you have never done anything athletically hard in your life and your looking for any excuse to not train hard.

Training hard means you will have random ache's, pains, pops, etc... Nothing wrong with these. As you get older, these things will happen just from sneezing wrong! You didn't "get back to doing stuff too fast". You just don't know what it means to work hard physically yet. Ask any higher level 'athlete' and they have aches and pains. Weeks where their neck is stiff and it is uncomfortable to sleep. As a lifter, you are now an athlete. So this doesn't mean you go lighter when you get an ache. It means you have gotten up from the couch and shit happens. Train thru it and it will get better.

Note that training hard does not mean ego lifting and it does not mean injuring yourself. Small aches happen because you are challenging your body. They heal and whatever was aching goes back to being just as strong or stronger (interestingly, even if it keeps aching). When 2 weeks later the ache has only gotten worse, then you can talk about needing to possibly change something. Take a look at Austins article on pain.

If you can't do this, thats ok. But you just have to accept that garbage in = garbage out. You can definitely progress by doing a million resets and doing everything ultra carefully to not pull or hurt anything. But it will just mean that you will be at the same strength in 5 years of what normal people can do in 6-12 months. Ironically you will likely still get almost as many aches and pains anyways because thats just what happens. But atleast you can react and 'feel' better about them by doing light days and resets. You alright with that? Yes? Keep doing what your doing. No? Train harder and stop thinking you will break in half over every ache.

Hey, I appreciate the motivational speech, but I think you've got me figured wrong. Believe it or not I have trained very hard in my life -- I was a long distance runner for many years (probably contributed to my thin physique). What I haven't done that much of is a targeted strength training program such as this. Which is why I'm here asking questions. You are saying, basically, I'm being a wimp. Well I don't mind being called a wimp by someone who conflates a conservative approach to injuries with "garbage," but in this case it's not that helpful.

Maybe I didn't explain it well, but I do know what feels like normal pain and soreness vs what feels like an injury, and while my sensitivity to that fine line may not be as sophisticated as yours, I've seen other guys get laid up for weeks or months when they kept pushing it with what was originally a minor injury. Heck, it's why I gave up running. After training through "minor" foot and knee problems for years, I caused irreparable damage to my feet and knees. Which brings me back to strength training. Yes my knees hurt after doing squats, but again, I know the difference between minor aches and potential injuries.

What I am looking for is a way to keep training as hard as possible while not missing workouts from repeated injuries.