Time Off?

[donaldmannion]

I am finding out as I get older that I need to occasionally take a break for my joints ( elbows & shoulders). I am thinking about taking a month off as my elbows having been killing me probably because I have not taken a break from the heavy weights in awhile. I am just curious does anyone else have to do this?

God Bless.
Don

[chancey]

I'm curious what some of the more senior lifters feel about this as well. I know recovery on nagging injuries often takes longer than a week to heal. Especailly as we get older. Me personally, if I get to close to a month off I might lose the "fire" and a month may become 6 months.

[3speed]

I have had to give up most of the single joint exercises for tri's (skull crushers, french presses, etc.) because they hurt my elbows now that my body is more 'experienced'. I do more floor presses, rack lockouts and chain work now. I prevent shoulder pain by prehabbing my shoulders before EVERY workout. I also do a lot of heavy rear delt work.

[chancey]

I think your really onto something with the elimination of single joint exercises. I am all about working my muscles now in a manner that is least likely to lead to joint pain.

Please allow me to play rookie; Why would you do shoulder prehab before every workout? Even squatting?

[donaldmannion]

Well so far I have been pretty lucky. Anytime my shoulder or what ever else has come up, which is maybe once a year to every other year, I take about a month off and that seems to work. Which beats rehab or surgery.

[jp]

donaldmannion said:

I am finding out as I get older that I need to occasionally take a break for my joints ( elbows & shoulders). I am thinking about taking a month off as my elbows having been killing me probably because I have not taken a break from the heavy weights in awhile. I am just curious does anyone else have to do this?

God Bless.
Don

Hi Don,

At 45, I find I cannot handle endless amounts of pounding away at the heavy weights. I have found a core group of exercises that I know I can use pain-free. This of course, was through trial and error. I never take more than a few days in a row off and this is usually around the holidays. I've never taken a month off of training except during my military time.

I generally keep the weights in the 80% and above range. I corresponded with Ricky Crain in regards to how older lifters train and he said its not really the program you're on as much as keeping the weights in the 80% range at a minimum. He felt taking time off and keeping the weights much below that range caused the older lifter to play to much "catch up"....I agree. This I do particularly for the powerlifts and things like pressing and curls too.

I also include lots of bodyweight type exercises and what I call "apparatus work" like chins, pull ups, parallel bar dips, handstand pushups and suspended push ups on my Power Rings. That way, you're giving your body a break from the heavy weights but are also using challenging exercises so you don't suffer any muscle loss.

Cheers,

JP

[3speed]

chancey said:

Please allow me to play rookie; Why would you do shoulder prehab before every workout? Even squatting?

I didn't mean to imply that you should do this before every w/o. I was stating what works for me. Every single day in the gym puts stress, in one way or another, on my shoulders.

Squatting puts a lot of stress on my shoulders just from loading the bar and from holding the bar on my back. I have to warm up my shoulders before squatting and I have found no better way to do this than the rotator cuff prehab exercises. I blew out both of my shoulders in the late 80's and have lived with shoulder pain for years. I have been pain free since I started prehabbing before every w/o.

BTW, if you are doing prehab work with anything more than 5 lb plates, you are performing the exercise incorrectly.


JP,
I definitely have to agree about the percentages. Now that I am older, I have to keep the weights higher and the reps lower. If I back off of the percentages for a couple of weeks, I start losing strength quickly and have to start over to make up the ground. I will do this in the off season to work on conditioning and tendon/ligament development.

[donaldmannion]

I might try that instead but I know what you mean about the catching up game.

[jp]

The 80% thing;.....it does a body (an older body) good! LOL!!

Look up Ricky's website....lots of good info there.

Rep work is OK as long as I keep the weights low(er).....for me, I use singles for deadlifting starting at 15 sets of 1 with 65% (my only difference in the training methodology),

a combination of reps - basically a pyramid type routine for the squat, where I start low, work up to 3 heavy singles for the day and back it off for a few sets of higher reps, (the singles are a max for the day, not my overall max)

and for the bench I do the following:

I have three different workouts I rotate as follows:

light day is 4x8-10 reps, then a day with 4x5 reps starting at about 80%, followed by the light day, then a day of 4x4 with about 5 more pounds than the last heavy day, and a light day again. Then a day of 4x3 with five more pounds, then the light day before the cycle comes around to 4x5 again....see that way I've got a combination of reps and I'm not burning out on the heavy weights.

JP

[daddieo]

Hi Don, I have struggled with these same issues of shoulder and elbow pain.I would have go and look at my log books but,about 6 months ago for my elbows were killing me.I tried taking a week off to 10 days .they would flare right back up agian.So I took my pt's advice and used the wrist wraps when I would bench, squat,and do arm curls.I would super set wrist curl with bicep curls this seemed to help with the elbow pain.As far as my shoulder is concern I don't do any military or front presses.This seems to eliminate any serious shoulder pain.I feel I get enough front delt. work from benches. I have no joint pain as of right now thank GOD.Also I think what also helped me lately is that work has been very busy for me so I haven't been able to put in 4 workouts in a week.(two upper and two lower).So when I have the time to workout I get after it and when I don't .I live to fight another day and try not let my overzealous nature make feel guilty.So the whole work and rest thing comes into play.

[jp]

Also, I invested in those Power Rings, similiar to blast straps...I attached them to the top of my power rack and simply used them for pushups and inverted fly movements which healed up my aching shoulders.

I also do a fair amount of pullups, chins, and hand stand pushups which have made atremendous difference in my shoulder strength.

Just a thought. I know we're all into the weights and all but some of the bodyweight exercises work really well for re-hab....least that's my take on it.

[donaldmannion]

You know the funny thing is I have not done curls in a very long time, I wonder if that is why my elbows are starting to bother me?

[jp]

donaldmannion said:

You know the funny thing is I have not done curls in a very long time, I wonder if that is why my elbows are starting to bother me?

Don,

My knees used to hurt from squatting until I made sure I did direct hamstring work, like seated leg curls. Once I did that the knee pain went away. And, my squat got stronger too.

You know, I don't understand why some powerlifters don't do bicep work. I do 5x5 on EZ bar curls at EVERY bench workout...helps guard against a bicep tear from deadlifting.

I don't subscribe to the notion of not working the biceps....I actually feel my biceps working when I do benching from the pins in sets of 10...seems to work for me...I do at least ONE exercise for every muscle group.

JP

[chancey]

That's good advice on the curls. I was thinking I didn't really need to do them but the last time I pulled heavy one of my biceps was sore for 2 weeks. Incidently, it's been a long time since I've worked them. Conclusion: I will be doing some type of curling each week.