Right. The RDLs should help with the weak hammies part. Glute activation, guess some glute bridges might be in order.

...supine straight leg raises, side lying hip abductions, x band walks, single leg work like lunges (walking spidermans will help right away) & step ups, and after his low back becomes stable, low box squats with a wide stance

1/27

Floor press with 45 lbs of chains
55*15*2, 145*8, 195*2*2, 215*2*2, 235*2*2

chins - neutral grip
7 7 6

Dips
+ 1 chain around neck (completely off the floor the whole set)
6

+2 chains crossed around shoulders (deloading some weight at the bottom)
6 6

Blast strap rows (wearing belt, 25 lb plate on stomach)
6 6 6

Blast strap fallouts
10 10

Tall kneeling PNF D2 flexion
25*10*2

Tall kneeling cable lift
25*10*2

flye EQI
15*30

lat EQI
15*30

Hanging chains over my neck & shoulders for dips was the worst idea I've had in a while. Several muscles in my neck and upper back are locked up in spasm. I got a deep tissue massage last night. She spent about an hour just on the left side of my upper back - mostly using elbows - and could not get my shoulder blade to budge off of my back. She worked over my neck so hard that I think she bruised a nerve. Part of my left hand and thumb went numb. Most of the feeling has come back, but the thumb is still a little prickly today.

Prior to the massage, I did the lacrosse ball under the back around the shoulders while moving my arm a couple times yesterday, as well as the massager, ice, heat and rolling on the pvc pipe. I've taken 12 Advils and drank about a gallon of water since last night. All those things helped a little, but its still bad.

Right now, I'm considering going to an urgent care to get muscle relaxers.

If I do dips with chains again, I need to rig them so they hang from the dip belt, not around my shoulders & neck. This sucks.

Cross posted in the monthly community thread:

Some of you have had issues getting your low back to contract properly. Here's a good article by Rip about fixing that: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_...tion_for_power

Man, sorry to hear about your neck. Good luck with the recovery.

Thanks.

Went to an urgent care doctor yesterday. She asked me, after a brief examination and explanation, if I tolerated muscle relaxers well. I knew that was coming. She said the nerve thing is no big deal. I figured that. Its mostly better today.

I took 12 Advils yesterday, and one muscle relaxer before bed. Between all that stuff and the massage I got a couple days ago, almost everything is loosening, except for the levator scapulae on the left side. That sucker is locked up and hurts like hell.

The massage therapist told me to leave everything alone for a couple days after I saw her because it was all supposed to be sore because of how hard she worked me over. Actually, everything expect for that one muscle seems fine now.

I took 4 more Advils this morning and they havent kicked in yet. I might take a muscle relaxer today and just lay around the house. I'll probably try to massage the stuff out myself as well. I think I might need to see my chiro soon too.

I am optimistic that getting rid of this wont take more than another couple days. I've had this same feeling happen lots of times in the past, but I knew way less about it than I do now, so it usually lingered a long time.

Man, can't believe hanging chains like that would have caused so much trouble ... supremely ****ed you up, that's for sure.

Hope you recover soon and thanks for posting about your experience – it could save someone a lot of pain for themselves sometime in the future (I'm no where near doing anything like that as I haven't done a dip in a million years or so... but thinking about starting sometime soon).

Some of the problem has to do with my injury history and the intensity of when I push myself. This particular muscle has given me lots of problems over the years, and the chains pulled on my neck in a way that made those muscles work too much when I did the dips.

Most, probably all, of the other exercises I do with a lot of intensity - I try to not use the neck muscles. I think I've figured out how to take the levator scapulae muscles out of the work I do.

This time, with the chins pulling on my neck, they were fully activated and pulling hard. After the workout, they started to get overly tight, and later they just froze up and became very painful.

Most of my body was that way about a year and a half ago before I started doing foam rolling & especially ART stuff.

Did that make sense?

er... yes?

LOLZ... yeah, it makes sense – pretty much to me anyway... which makes me wonder, am I missing something?!

Hey, I remember reading in your log something to the effect that you lifted heavy when you were younger. Did you mean lifting weights for workouts or lifting heavy random crap that was job related?

Just curious.

Heavy DLs and bench presses mostly - the heaviest stuff was ~13-15 years ago. Between then & now I had shoulder surgery, and got muscle adhesions everywhere after that, especially around the neck and shoulder areas. Every time I tried lifting any significant weight, I would screw something up and I never really knew what was wrong or what to do about it. Then I figured out what ART is, and muscle adhesions and I got rid of most of them and have been able to lift heavy weights again.

This levator scapulae muscle has probably been the worst one I remember dealing with over the years. I know what it is now, and I know what can be done with it. I hope I can get it to go away soon. Its better today, but I'm probably not able to lift for at least another couple/few days.

Yikes Cha!

I hope it does get sorted out in the next couple of days and doesn't come back to keep biting you.

Sounds like you're doing a great job of taking good care of your body but one thing perhaps that could help prevent this is when you're doing a new lift (probably of almost any sort), before you get into it too intensely you could perhaps mentally checkin with yourself every rep or definitely every set to make sure your neck/shoulders aren't getting too tight to the point where it's going to really spasm and lock up. I know you're not recklessly doing random sh*t around your place but until you're completely done with ART treatment and you feel all your muscle issues are worked out, really easing into new things will help.

Yugo!

Yeah, that bolded part is what I have been doing since I got back into lifting, as far as actively trying to not put stress on that particular muscle. I have a pretty long, painful history with this particular muscle. I didnt feel pain when I was doing the chained dips, but I felt that muscle working. It wasnt until long after I was done lifting that it started getting painful & locked up.

As I mentioned before, I need to avoid putting the chains over my shoulders & neck in the future while dipping or anything like that (pushups with chains are fine). I need to pay close attention to when that muscle gets active doing anything from now on. Power shrugs (as Rip does them) is an exercise I have been considering adding, but I'm thinking that might cause me some problems, so I'll have to be careful if I do try those.

I've DL'ed several times when this muscle was slightly jacked up, but not as bad as it is now. By keeping my shoulder blades tucked down when I DL, I have actually felt better in that levator scapulae area during & after the DLs. It must balance out the other muscles or something like that.

Its definitely better today, but still not 100%. I'm going to lay off the muscle relaxers until right before I go to sleep tonight, but I'll continue with Advil for now. I should see the chiro for some ART and a neck adjustment, but I'm pretty busy, so I'm putting that off for at least one more day.

2/1

chiro - He says I strained a capsule and the nerve is causing that muscle to give me trouble. He examined me much more thoroughly and asked a lot more questions that the doctor from the other day. No surprise there. He really worked me over with ART and adjusted my spine in some additional ways today. While he was working on me, I asked if he thought I'd be able to lift right away or if I should wait. He said it would depend how my spine moved. It moved well, so he gave me the green light to lift, but told me to keep my shoulders pulled down & back when I lift. Yeah, that was the problem - holding those chains up on the shoulders put them in a bad position, which caused all this crap to happen.

With all that ART today, the soft tissue stuff went really quick. I didnt time anything, but I'd guess soft tissue took maybe 10-15 minutes.

DL
145*10, 235*5*2, 325*3, 375*3, 415*1, 465*1, 475*2 pr - this felt very good. I used straps for the last two sets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZWM2k-7y_g <--- notice the shirt for the pr

The program I've been following called for one more set of 475*2, and a lot of accessory stuff, but I figured I'd be safe since I'm still dinged up a bit.

skipped the trap bar DLs, KB swings, DB rows & good mornings.

palms forward pull ups
5 - this didnt feel right, so I stopped

face pulls
85*10 - this wasnt good either

no money with small band - 10, pull aparts - next bigger size band - 10 - these didnt do much of anything

pnf d2 flexion
25*10*2
these felt ok

EQIs did not feel good at all, so I only did ~10 seconds each then quit.

If I had this workout to do over again, I would have done the trap bar DLs after the DLs, then maybe some shoulder I T & Ys and called it a day.

I'm going back to the chiro on Friday.

Here's a link to a lot of good stuff from Mike Robertson. Some of it is new to me, but most of it is stuff he had me doing already. The EQI vid in this link is the best one I've seen. http://articles.elitefts.com/article...dysfunctional/

PRs and not even 100%.. very nice, looking forward to 500. good to hear you can resume lifting.

I'm thinking about doing a program with DLs only right now..... half kidding, but really, thats about the only thing I'm comfortable with doing anywhere near a max effort. I sure as hell cant back squat or bench heavy right now.

You strong.

And I swear to actually follow Mike's advice in that article.

Nice form for max effort dl's Cha

Thanks for the comments!

2/3

The shoulder capsule is feeling almost 100% now, yay!

Bench press
55*15*2, 145*10, 195*5, 235*3, 245*3, 255*3
Shoulder blade area felt fine the whole time. I had either one more rep in me or one additional set left in the tank.

Chins - neutral grip
5 5
Right after the last rep, the left shoulder blade area got a little tightness, but I think its fine. I stopped these just to be safe. Also worth noting - the neutral grip was quite a bit easier on the shoulder blade area that the palms forward grip I tried the other day. I think this is a significant discovery for me. I probably want to avoid the palms forward grip for these for a while.

Squats
55*10, 145*8, 195*5, 235*5, 285*3, 325*2/ left knee tightened up again, so I stopped. These were going quite easy up until that happened. After I unloaded the bar and set it up for RDLs, I sat down to change my shoes (RDLs in DoWins are bad, Chucks are perfect for RDLs imo). As I sat down in a chair, I got a really bad sharp pain in the left knee. It was way more painful than the mild tightness I felt during the squats. I'm thinking (hoping) this isnt ligament trouble and is just some muscles tightening up with knots. I massaged the muscle area near where the pain was and the pain went away. I'll have my chiro look at this tomorrow.

RDLs
145*10, 235*5, 285*5, 325*5*2
ez - these make my whole back feel really good.

flye EQI
8 lbs * 60 seconds

lat EQI
8 * 60

Since the EQIs bothered my shoulder blade area a couple days ago, I figured I'd go much lighter to see how it felt. It was pretty easy, and I dont know if it did much good. I didnt think trying heavier sets would be a good idea yet.

Nice DL's other day.

I finally snagged a lacrosse ball today...got any gin videos on that? I did the lay on top with it in my shoulder blade, and rolling chest/lats/tris on wall. Got that pinched nerve feeling coming back today, any other lax ball tricks for neck?

I could try making a vid one of these days.

I usually use my hands to work on my neck muscles. My chiro does a better job on that than I can.

I'm looking for critique on some RDLs. I figured out how to use the Youtube video editor, so here are three sets and the whole video is only a minute long:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zy4xRbPyj8

I'd be interested in a vid for sure if you'd like to put the time into it.

If you dont see one here in the next week or so, remind me.

That's a very short ROM on the RDL. Are you unable to go lower and keep your back in extension?

See e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnBREGM7pE0&feature=fvwk