Our neck stuff is similar, though I exacerbate mine with a head forward position from working at a desk. I had "whiplash" at least twice... falling down icy stairs once, getting my car smashed into by a van from behind while sitting at a red light the other time. Not great. I'm going to need some procedure someday, I'm guessing. Sometimes I'm in a good deal of pain, but similar to you, I tend to work it out and then just do whatever I want, and repeat that circle. Hope your prp goes well, I'll be interested to see how it works for you.

Wishing you a speedy recovery in any case!

Thanks!

I will post here how it goes eventually. I am expecting to be in pain for a few days afterwards, so I dont know if I will be posting for a little while or not.

I sit at a desk a lot too, but I try to get up frequently and have learned to try to avoid the forward head posture as much as possible.

9/14

Was in Vegas for a few days with gf. She found us a good little powerlifting gym to DL at. They dont have a monolift, but they have basically everything else I would ever want, including DL bars, a competition bench, several racks, a GHR, a reverse hyper, a Mastodon squat bar and some specialty bars.

DL
225x5x2
315x3
405x2

suit
495x1
585 (85%) x2x2 - fast and good form

briefs only
495x3

Upper traps felt a little tight, so I stopped.

9/17

bench

45x15
95x10
135x10
185x5
225x3
275x2
315x1

two board press
size 54 Rage X
455x2 - fast
495x1 - fast

size 52 Rage X
545x1 - a bit slow, but I got it locked out without much trouble. My setup was not great. I felt a little upper trap pump during this (no pain) so I shut it down.

My knee and neck procedure is Friday. I may or may not do any more benching or DLing on Tuesday or Wednesday this week.

9/22, I had the procedure done on my neck and knee. It was a little painful. The knee was the most painful - more than the neck or low back. The neck got about 90% of the attention. He also shot my low back in a couple places. My gf watched the procedure and said that the doc was pretty aggressive sticking the needle in. After the procedure, the day of, I could not move my head at all and walking was tricky.

The next day, 50% of my neck mobility was back. I have been gradually been able to straighten my left leg more every day.

I saw my chiro yesterday. He said my neck felt slightly tighter than normal. It feels pretty good to me.

Today, I can get the knee all the way straight and squeeze the quads, which is better than its been since the procedure.

I saw the doc today and had some kind of laser treatment done on my neck, low back and knee. It felt warm and pretty good. Apparently this accelerates the healing process. I get another laser treatment Thursday and again on Friday this week.

The doc gave me the green light to lift about 50% of normal, being very careful with form and putting no stress on the neck, starting today. My plan as of right now is to ssb squat in briefs up to about 2 plates and a quarter, probably keeping pretty high for now. Doc says listen to my body and kept saying to use perfect form.

I am supposed to see a physical therapist soon too.

9/26

ssb squats in briefs
145x3
235x3
275x3
I hit depth on a lot of these reps with no knee pain. Everything moved well. It felt a little tight after the last set, so I stopped.

rdl
255x5x3

Glad to hear the procedure went okay. Wishing you a speedy and strong recovery.

Thanks!

I probably have not yet expressed how much better than "ok" this is going. Lets put it in perspective:

November 2016 - Left knee pain was so bad sitting in an area during a concert just from being bent, unable to straighten, that I had to get up and walk around during the show. I had pain come and go in the knee after that. I was able to squat to parallel "normally" (for me) during this time period up until ~March 2017. SMR & ART & mobility work seemed to be all I needed.

March 2017: Something happened that caused pain every time I got down near parallel on a squat. I could still squat with either wraps or a voodoo band above the knee. I could not train my squat as much as I wanted to. SMR & mobility work and ART all seemed to improve it temporarily, but the issue never went away all the way.

May 2017: My neck is acting up. I get an MRI that reveals a bulging disc. I get a cortisone injection. It relieves symptoms for a while.

7/29/2017, the last time I squatted before last Tuesday: I squatted 650 in a meet to below parallel and it was hard and it hurt. I was unable to use my legs benching without wrapping my knee. I might be the only person in history to wrap a knee so I could bench press. I squatted ~150 lbs less and benched ~90 lbs less than what my goals prior to March were.

Early August: I see an orthopedic doc who xrays and examines my knee. He says he can see arthritis and bone spurs, which lead him to think that there is some cartilage damage. He says there is nothing he can do, to take a month off lifting and then continue what I was doing.

I think for a while and start asking smart people and doctors about alternatives. I focus on PRP, prolotherapy and stem cell injections. No one had strong opinions about any of this, but my chiropractor did a little research for me and found one of the best in the world for me.

I meet with my prp/stem cel doc and discuss the knee issue, among several other things. I get opinions from some other docs about getting this done. Its expensive. The neurosurgeon said he would advise me to try it if it was cheaper, but he didnt know enough about it to recommend it at what it costs. My chiro said I have exhausted every other avenue, and if he were in my shoes, he would do it.

During the time I spent deciding about taking this leap, my neck starts acting up again. Its likely the cortisone is wearing off and the disc is not healed. I talk to prp doc about this and learn that he specializes in spinal work. I decide to get both my neck and my knee done.

9/22/2017: I get about a bazillion injections in my neck, some more in my low back, and actually six in my knee. I come out of the office all drugged up and unable to move my head at all, and my knee is very sore, swollen and I cannot straighten it.

9/23: about half of my neck mobility returns. Knee improves.

9/24: most of the rest of my neck mobility returns. Knee improves.

9/25: I see chiro. He says my neck muscles are slightly tighter than normal, but that is to be expected. I feel pretty good.

9/26: I get laser treatment from prp doc's nurse. I feel good. Doc tells me to go and and lift, but only up to 50% of max and be slow and use perfect form. I squat 285x3 below parallel with nothing wrapped around knee and no knee pain. This is amazing, but even this is not as amazing as how much better every day things like getting out of bed, off the toilet, out of a chair, going up and down stairs, etc. has improved. I never realized how bad I was before until I felt how good the left knee feels right now. This procedure was incredible. HOOOOOLD!!!

9/28: more laser

DL
235x3
235x5
325x3
325x3
He said to move it slow. LOL. I cannot move weights this light slowly. Form was fine. Knee felt nothing.

9/29: prp doc himself did laser and massage treatment on everything. I cant remember my neck ever feeling this good before as an adult. I talked about a lot of stuff with him. He says the way the knee improved tells him there was a chemical issue that was causing the pain, and the stem cell stuff he put in there is extremely powerful. Usually, this type of improvement doesnt happen so fast, and the full effects of the treatment wont be felt for about six months.

He went into a lot of detail about how he consults with about a half dozen other high level docs around the country who do various things including prp & stem cells. Apparently no one else does all the other stuff that he does related to diet, hormones and this treatment. He has been on the cutting edge of this treatment for the past 10 years and continuously experiments to improve it. When he cooks and spins the blood and stem cells, he spends an hour and a half working on it in person, trying to get the precise chemical reaction that he wants for each particular patient. Most of the other docs who do this basically throw the stuff in the oven and hope it comes out the same every time. After hearing him explain this, I liken my guy to a high level chef like Emeril Lagasse, while these other people are like Taco Bell cooks.

He says the stuff he put in my knee is a fairly new formulation of stem cells that he came up with recently and has been consulting with one other doc who is also trying it recently. This stuff is pretty aggressive and causes a lot of initial pain, but it leads to quicker and better healing as well.

Life is good

10/2

pushups
20x3

1 arm standing cable rows
3 sets, increasing weight, decreasing reps. I forgot the exact numbers.

Neck is fine. Its tighter than it was right after the laser treatment last Friday, but its good. I'm going to squat tomorrow. The knee remains very good.

Voodoo confirmed successful! Sounds like things are improving fast, good luck getting back to 100% quickly, maybe 110% in your case.

At least for the time being it is! Thanks!

My HRT doc tried convincing me to stop eating grains and sugars completely for a while. I basically quit eating sugar a long time ago and didnt eat tons of bread, but I ate some. My PRP doc went into greater detail about why I need to stop eating sugar and grains completely, and how they damage joints over time. The more I think about my knee and how it went from total **** to ok in a few days, what this doc is saying makes some sense. He says it has nothing to do with gluten, and that people who are not gluten insensitive dont need to worry about that part of it, but there are other things in grains that build up in your system and wreak havoc in your joints. I am going to do this. I can give up bread without much difficulty.

i would hope so, bread tastes like shiet. its only purpose is to hold real food when you eat.

idk about shiet, but it doesnt do much for me, beyond holding a sandwich or burger together, either.

I'm ok with voodoo witchdoctoring, and may sign up myself someday, but I cannot abide someone taking my breads! Anyway, glgl keep up the healing, hope it continues to go well, etc.

Lol, thanks!

10/6

squat w/briefs, no wraps
245x3
335x3
385x2

Knee felt fine. I buried the last set to good depth. Left upper trap tightened up a little, so I stopped. I need to baby my neck for a while. I had brought wraps with, but I didnt get anywhere near the point of feeling like they would be necessary. This is still light weight, but it is 100 lbs more than last week and it moved fast. I'm pretty sure my legs would allow me to go pretty heavy pretty soon, but I do not want to screw up all the work the doc did on my neck, so I am going to take it easy for a while.

Knee feels good today. Neck isnt any worse than before lifting yesterday, so I probably stopped at the right time.

10/6

DL
225x5
315x3
405x2
455x1
455x1

Everything moved good and felt good until the last one. I probably cooled off too long before doing the last one - I got a muscle cramp around the left rear delt, possibly in some rotator cuff muscle or something, so I stopped after that. Neck felt fine. Knee is not an issue at all.

Doc told me last week that I should do all my DLs double overhand, so that's what all these are^. idk what I will do once the weight starts getting heavy. I should probably learn to hook grip.

10/8

push ups
20x3

face pulls - lots

Challenging year for sure. Glad you're doing much better now!

thanks!

Next time I see you - could you show me how to do reverse hypers properly?

I'd be happy to. I plan to be back at Los this Friday & Sunday & a week from today (Tuesday). My gf (she lifts with me - I want to introduce you to her) & I have been splitting Sun, Tu & Wed between Los & Southside lately, so we'll be down here at Southside today & tomorrow.

Cheers - I snapped my **** up last week DLing, of course. Would love to meet her - I'm pretty sure I've seen you both lifting together.

I want to get back into the classic lifts more and I think I'm going to put conventional DLing on the shelf for a bit. I'm going to give sumo a shot for a while and focus on keeping my ass down. I want more Ham/Erector work so I'll be throwing in more GHD/Reverse hypers etc.etc. LMK if you think this is the right direction.

We will need to talk more to clarify, but basically sumos are better than conventionals if:

a) you can pull more weight sumo and your goal is to pull more weight (like if you want to compete in PLing or strongman), or

b) you cant pull conventional without back pain and can do so with sumos.

Either way, sumos will beat up your hips a lot more than convetionals and convetionals will hit a lot more muscles than sumos do. Also, if you lack the hip mobility to keep your knees in line with your toes when you pull sumo, that is a knee injury waiting to happen. fwiw, I pull conventional primarily because I can pull more weight that way.

10/10

safety bar squats
235x3
325x3
415x3

Knee felt tight, so I stopped. It was not the same feeling I had before the procedure, but it didnt feel good. I have been having some soft tissue tightness above and below the knee, so hopefully this is a temporary setback.

Might as well DL since squatting is out.
315x3
405x2
455x1, 1
All double overhand. I thought about trying hook grip the last set, but it didnt feel right. I'll play around with that with lighter weights another time.