I'm starting a log on here for the first time in several years. I've spent the last 3.5 years recovering from a car accident and only started training again this year. I'm 27, about to be 28, and am making a final push to meet some of my life goals before I get much older. I've been doing physical therapy work for the last 3 years and have gone from being in constant pain for most of that duration to minimal pain approaching a full recovery. I have Eric Schoenberg at Momentum PT in Milford, MA to thank for that. My goals are to reestablish my benchmarks in the squat and deadlift and return to my former physicality. My training will consist of a starting strength styled progression of core lifts combined with my PT work and kicking a heavy bag. Intermediate goals are to return to martial arts and achieve a degree of body-recomposition. I'll be posting some videos of my training and logging my progress here. Gogogo

11/5

neutral grip chin bw+15kg 1x5
RDL 60kgx12
squat 60kg 2x5

This is my first squat in years. My upper back was pinching under any load since the car accident, up until now. Pulling for that to hold up

11/6 rest

11/7 PT work
neutral grip chin bw+15kg 2x5
deadlift 80kgx5

PT work consists of:

plank
bear climbers planks
pushup plank w/hand rows
glute bridges
marching glute bridges
neutral grip pushups
camel (breathing)
wall angels
arm raise/touch behind back
reverse lunge
1 leg rdl
heel taps
neck crunch
goblet squat

in gym (not often yet):
Standing cable row
Pall off press
1 arm db row
1 arm cable row
1 arm weighted carries (db on opposite arm)

I also have a few OT exercises for my right wrist where I lost a tendon to an armbar

welcome back

+1

You were a bit before my time, but glad to hear you're on the road to recovery

11/8

deadlift 90kgx5
NG Chins 8+3+2+2, 2+1
Light pt work

11/11

Rdl 60kgx20, 80kgx10
SLDL 90kgx5

Session 2: NG Chins bw+15kg 3 (form failure), 4, 2
Light pt work

Core has been very sore the past few days, a great sign. Back is tightening minimally immediately following deadlifts. No lower back soreness in following days.

Have neglected my PT work. Will start doing it again in the evenings while tving as well as a warmup for compound lifting.

Diets been semi restrictive to induce some fat loss. I could get back down to 180 pretty quickly. Lifting is early on enough that a calorie deficit won't matter for a while.

11/12

NG chins 8, 8
Squat 70kg 2x5
L-holds 5x10 seconds
Chin holds 3x10-15 seconds

The chin holds are a new ab exercise I am incorporating where I hold the very top of the pull-up and raise my legs straight up in a partial L, then hold the position while my core spasms. This plus L holds should allow me to progress the chin holds to hanging L holds, and then full L pull-ups.

I'm feeling really good about my recovery at this point, volume increase should be non problematic. I picked up some CBD bud today and I'm curious to see how it impacts my chronic pain as well as any exercise induced soreness

I've decided to add in grease the groove chins and squats to increase my rep totals. I'm reducing weight on squats temporarily and maximizing volume. I'm also spending the rest of my nights on the mat in front of my tv, instead of the couch. There's always stretching or PT work to be done.

I'm determined to get back to a lifestyle of training. I remember back in 2012 right around my accident, I walked in and put a head kick on the heavy bag during bjj at one of the best muay thai gyms in Boston. I'll never forget the swears and the stares. "Holy ****". I'd done nothing but train that kick and lift the previous 5 years. I got kicked from the class. One of the pros walked up to me after and said he wanted to fight me. High honors. A student in the class asked me what the kick felt like and then told me, that it was the hardest he had ever seen anyone kick the bag. I said that can't be true. I watched the pros kick the bag the next day and I felt I was floating because I realized he was right. It was one of few sublime moments in my life. Poker didn't come close to matching it. It's a claim outrageous enough that it can't be substantiated, which is imo the best kind one can know to be true. I think I'm almost ready to get back to the bag pain-free, and then to get back to the gym and fight. I want to be great again.

Grease the groove chins is the wave. If doable, try and hit all the grips because it's easy to develop tendinitis otherwise in my (weighted) daily chin-ups

Why does tendinitis develop from one grip? I lost a tendon in my right wrist to an armbar and have been hesitant to mix it up

^each grip stresses a slightly different part of the tendon so the damage is overall spread out and tendinitis tends to happen at "thresholds" so to speak. I still have stretch marks on my lats from doing gtg chins and eventually working from bwx7x6 to bwx12x10 every day over the course of a year and a half.

Kick story is cool! I am a narcissist to and unapologetically it feels good to do something or look impressive to people and have everyone visibly notice.

Haha I still have nasty stretch marks dead center in my midback from a Russian deadlift program, it's like you can see exactly where I was arching

Well I'll cycle in some overhand grips in that case. I'll keep the weighted ones with neutral grip for now per advice of my PT (Momentum PT in Milford guys, highest praise). I'm not going to risk going underhand yet because I'm still a bit dysfunctional making a wrist curl type motion even with very light weight.

What was your progression to go from sets of 6 to 10? I've done this before when I was stronger and started with 5's and worked up to 5-6 sets of 8 most days. However I do feel that my progress was driven by weighted chins. I was actually thinking of trying GtG sets of 2-3 rep weighted chins when my body weight rep total gets higher. Do you think your progress was driven primarily by the volume you sustained? I want that volume but my primary goal is max strength over 2-6 reps

What part(s) of your body were injured in the accident and what has taken the longest time to recover from?

Listen to your body while doing GTG and back off if you start to feel stressed in any tendons or joints.

Post DL vids. I can be a lot of help with those.

Good luck!!

I got whiplashed badly and had soft tissue injury in my neck and my back and abdomen. The right oblique tying into the rib cage area, and right lower back around the same area, as well as the neck, have taken the longest to heal. They were really bad for over a year and a half and I had major sleep problems and mobility issues. I'm past the 90% mark now and can sit for 2-3 hours with minor discomfort

I'll get a video up of my sunday deadlifts

That sounds awful. Are any of your discs herniated?

I did the GSLP style progression. In retrospect I shouldn't have because I was also benching heavy once a week and both of these combined kicked the **** out of my pec tendon.


I did 6x6 every day week 1, then added an extra set to make it bwx6x7 the next week, then add an extra rep to each set to make it bwx7x7, then add another set etc etc. I stopped at 10 sets and worked up to sets of 12 reps.


I would limit it to 4-5 days and time yourself. Rather than going up by week, set some time based goal of completing all sets with an average time of 2-3 minutes per set.


IF/when I do it again, I probably would just do 3-5 sets to failure 2-3 minutes rest between sets by feel 4-5 days a week . I have no first hand experience on what you might want to do if the goal is 2-6rm strength instead of hypertrophy+cardio. I couldn't do weighted at all b/c pec tendon. I would guess working up to a 2-6 rm and then doing a backoff set or 2 might be a good strategy.

No, it appears all the damage was soft tissue. My prognosis is a full recovery. Yeah the first 2 years were a nightmare. I had to completely change my lifestyle to heal up. I was in constant pain in most of my body and couldn't continue school or even play poker because I couldn't sit in a chair without making things worse. I also had my scapula sticking to my right rib cage for over 2 years, and it only unstuck this year. That was a glorious moment. I didn't think I was going to get better for a while and considered filing disability. Ultimately 3 runs of PT, a lot of rest, and walking regularly got me through it. I'm so used to being in pain now that it doesn't bother me, it's almost like my baseline experience just included being in pain after a while, and it stopped impacting my happiness. I'm really happy to be back to strength training.

Taught my grandfather to squat. He needed to start an exercise program to go with walking and I figured that's the best place to start. 77 years old, took 2 minutes:

^^^ angle is not telling but his weight is directly on the heels and the squat is perfectly symmetrical, I was really impressed

11/16

Had a few off days

NG Chin 5x5
Squat 60kgx6 70kgx2x3

Holding off on gtg squats while I linear progress to heavier weights

11/17

NG Chin bw (200)+15kg 5,5,5
Squat 70kg 2x5
SLDL 100kgx5

gonna hit it again tomorrow for another 5 sets or so, will be more consistent with volume

I ****ing love the feeling at the bottom of a SLDL when I force the reversal

Deads


not sure how to make viewable here

Squats are still sloppy. Forgot to wear my adistars

Also forgot to set my midback in the SLDL. Will repeat this weight and add reps if I have some left. Will also add grip holds to prepare for 110+

Conventional Deadlifts 100kgx3



These were obv a lot easier than the same weight for SLDL. I just did these for the hell of it

Those videos dont work. Just put them on youtube and post the whole link here.

on your grandfather

11/18

Deadlift 100kg 1x3
NG Chins 5x5

11/19,20,21,22 slacked around bday.

11/23

Deadlift 100kgx3, 110x5, 120x1 hold 30 sec

Rounded a little on reps 4,5, of 110 and also on 120. Will repeat


Gonna hit the PT harder, introducing some push-ups, and get back on squatting