Competitive lifting and injuries

[jamesgrahame]

I am doing some shoulder rehab just now and a few people have asked me why I bother to compete when I sometimes end up injured. I try to explain my perspective on it but it is usually met with blank stares.

I came across this in 'Practical Programming for Strenth training' by Rippetoe and Kilgore and I think it is a pretty good synopsis of the competitive mindset towards injury. Thought I would share it.

"All athletes who train hard enough to compete will get injured. This is the sorry truth of the matter, and anyone who is dissuaded from competition by this fact would not have made a good competitor anyway. Progress involves hard training, and hard training eventually involves pushing past previous barriers to new levels of performance. In the sense that this can cause
injury, succesful competitive athletics is dangerous. It is a danger that can and must be managed, but it is important to recognise that athletes get hurt. if they want to continue to be athletes afterwards, it is equally important to understand how to manage and rehabilitate injuries successfully so that they don't end a career."

[Steve Gardener]

Very true (he says with an aching back). While not quite as buggered as David is... yet, I have said the lads that I train with here in Gloucester that if we push our bodies to the nth degree to win and or break records then we are taking it (the body) places it does not want to go. With that we risk injury.

[davidhorne]

Love competing though!

I like testing myself, and have always been a very competitive person on whatever I've done.

[Steve Gardener]

It's in our nature but that is, as above, a risk regarding injury. Just now, having trained this morning already I jumped in with H and Anthony on an informal pinch comp. Having missed 97kg @44mm and seen H get it I had another go and got a solid lift and then won with an easy 101-kilos. But I should have been resting!

[jamesgrahame]

Yes, I think there is an issue of timing involved. The risks (of personal injury) you are prepared to take are linked to the time you feel you have to achieve the goal, and also the importance
you place on the goal.

Personally, I declined the chance to go for a longstanding deadlift target of mine at a comp a couple of years ago. I reasoned that it was the sensible thing to do. However, I subsequently picked up a bulging disk injury (L4/L5) that makes me think that this goal may never be achieved.

It is probably not very helpful to call it 'luck' but I remember a superbike champ once describing how he always managed to get back on the bike after an horrific injury.

He said he imagined that he had a jar of good luck. and every now and then he could open the lid and use some of his (finite) good luck. If he used too much in a race he would crash. If he used it just right the risk/result ratio was in his favour.

Hmmm...it sounds kind of lame as i describe it but seemed a lot more impressive when you saw this bloke with a broken hand get an a 600cc bike and race off in to the distance.

I think it was Troy Bayliss (spelling?) but I can't be sure.