December 23, 2021

I did powerlifting for almost 4 years (except for bench press, which is arguably the most (only?) dangerous powerlifting/bodybuilding exercise). More specifically, I have been doing deadlifts, low bar squats, push-ups, barbell rows and shoulder presses, and very little beyond these five exercises. My objective was to be able to squat my own weight, which I achieved (and even a little bit more). I was training for strength, doing 3 sets of 5 reps for each exercise. Some good things happen to me, and also some not-so-good things.

Let’s go through the good things first.

I got stronger, obviously!

I used to have a lot of lower back pain, and that essentially disappeared. So that’s a really good side-effects of lifting heavy!

I used to have a scoliosis. Now, it has almost completely disappeared as well. I asked a physiotherapist to check my spine, and he said that he can barely notice the scoliosis, and that if I didn’t tell him he probably wouldn’t have noticed.

Now let’s go through the problems.

The biggest problem by far is that I got a muscle tear in one of the rotator cuff muscles of my left shoulder, accompanied by a frozen shoulder. That was a really severe case which required surgery. It’s been almost two years since this problem started and I am thankful it’s almost resolved. During those two years, I have pretty much been unable to exercise, I was just able to exercise my lower body a little bit. It’s only now, after two years, that I have been able to restart exercising in earnest. Still my shoulder is sometimes painful. A frozen shoulder might take a couple of years to fully heal, and sometimes there is still some residual pain that never goes away…

In retrospect, I am quite sure this was due to the low bar squat. The position of the bar really stretches the shoulders, and I think after a few years this irritated one of the rotator cuff tendons. The ultrasound scans did seem to show that the wound had been there for a while. Prior to the shoulder starting to freeze, there had been a few months where my shoulder was quite painful, and the pain was not going away.

So there are two lessons for me.

Firstly, listen to your body. If your feel pain that is not going away after 24h, there is probably something wrong. You should be able to differentiate between pain and soreness. If the muscles are sore after a workout, that soreness usually dissipate within 24h. I personally believe that if the muscles are sore for more that 24h, you probably pushed your workout too far and should probably tune it down a notch. You should be able to increase the intensity over time, but do it slowly.

Secondly, stop doing exercises that don’t feel 100% right. I always felt the low-bar squat to be an awkward exercise, and the stretches in my shoulders was unpleasant. In hindsight, I should have understood that the low-bar squat is not an exercise for me. And it’s OK, there are other exercises I could do.

The second annoying problem is that I developed adventitious bursas in some of my finger joints, and those were quite painful. As soon as something touched them, I was in pain for a few hours. I initially though I was developing arthritis, and ultrasound scans showed that my bones were in very good conditions, but adventitious bursas have developed. The doctor told me that those develop when a lot of pressure is applied to the joints on a regular basis. So I think the deadlifts are the culprit there… That’s a shame because I love deadlifts. After discussing with the doctor, we concluded that I could lift lighter for more reps, and use gloves to distribute the weight better across my hand and fingers.

Finally, a very minor annoyance was a pain in one of my sacroiliac joint. It came so progressively I didn’t suspect my exercise regimen could be the cause of it. It’s only when I had to stop exercising completely that I realised it was, because the pain went away in a couple of months.

So the conclusion for me is that I should take it easier and stress myself less about becoming stronger. At the end of the day, the important is to be in good health. So now I exercise with lighter weights and higher reps. Also, I regularly take some time off (or deload, as is said in the industry). There is a lot of variation on what people do for deload and how often they do it. Personally, I go full deload and do no workout at all one week per month. Also, I listen to my body and if I feel tired or unwell, or if I have some lingering pains from a previous workout, I just don’t do any exercise that day. It’s super hard for me not to exercise, I really have to go against my instincts, but I know it’s better for me. Maybe I will be a bit less strong that what I wanted, but I will be in good health.

Finally, I exercise what I think is the most important muscle of all: the heart. I don’t like jogging (and I believe humans have not evolved to run long distances), so I do other things. Typically, I do animal movements. I love those, and it’s a good whole body workout, not just the legs.

I am not a fitness instructor, please do not use anything I wrote in this post to make decisions about your workouts or your health. I just shared my experience in the hope that it will be useful.