For competing bodybuilder, advanced bbers: How often do you get hurt?

[theslime]

I compete at the national level in Canada and am 31 yo. Ive been competing for about 6 years and for the past two years I always seem to get injured. On top of not chronic pain like knee tendonitis or it band syndrome, i get small muscle tears every two or three months like pec tears, quad or hamstring tears, etc. Not necessarily anything surgery worthy but enough to have to lower poundages or stop training the affected area for a few weeks. Am I just getting old or is it part of the game at that level of competition? do you guys just stop training heavy?

 

[yatyas314]

getting old , getting too confident , going too hard , false sense of security because of drug use ..Have all hurt me at one time or another ..just learn and move on

 

[Perfecto]

Enjoy your 30s while you can. Wait till you get into your 40s like me. Everything aches and hurts. I just have the normal injuries I guess, lower back always messed up. I get tendonitis occasionally, pinched nerves every now and then. Comes with the sport..

 

[HBMax]

Not sure if I would be considered advanced or not, but I've been training hard since I was in my teens. I'm 32 now. Honestly, I'm finding it very difficult to remember the last time I trained without some sort of nagging pain/injury, regardless of severity. Its almost like once you break through a certain threshold, meaning that you go past what most would consider physical limits related to strength and/or size, the injuries just start to pile up and overlap each other. Big or small, it just seems like there is always something for which you are compensating during a workout. Maybe this is normal for us, maybe not. But if it isn't one thing, its another.

And we still do what we do anyway because we love it. Maybe that's another factor that separates the genetically elite from the rest of us. I wonder if any of the pros train for a measurable period of time relatively pain free. That in itself would be pretty amazing given the physical toll bodybuilding takes.

 

[golden_age_bb]

Brother, the best way to avoid this is through proper exercise selection and sequence. Know which exercises don't work for you and injure you and which ones you can do safely. There's no one exercise that is absolutely necessary so if something doesnt work for you then drop it or place it somewhere in the workout where you know you wont get hurt. A good example for this is bench pressing. A lot of people get pec strains with this, but this cab be avoided by going only halfway down, slowing down your reps, or placing the exercise somewhere in your workout where your pecs are warmed up and fatigued so you dont have to use as much weight.

 

[chinaboy]

I am about your age and have 17 years of training under my belt. A good workout to me is one in which I do not get hurt. I ice after most every workout. But I do get minor i juries frequently and at least one good setback a year. I feel champions work around injuries and address them. Fools ignore them and then are forced to quit.

 

[jm425]

Almost all, if not all, older bbers have nagging injuries we deal with it. As an older bber, you should be smart enough to know when to back off, work around injuries and give yourself ample rest/time away from the gym.

 

[1234trew]

Yeah, seems the trick these days is training around the injuries effectively.

 

[Jmoney1234]

I am 32 and it seems something is always hurting. It mainly seems to be my elbows or shoulder. I have slowly but surely found the exercises that cause the pain and have stopped doing them. Now I focus more on the squeeze and not on the weight. I saw a video where Rich Piana said he only does cables now for triceps cuz the pain in his elbows, and he still grows. His triceps are massive. I focus on training smarter not heavier.

 

[psychor]

Warm up...lighten up...let up..work around. LISTEN to your body while it's still whispering, or you may hear it yell!:lightbulb:

 

[AshopRep]

I only get hurt when I do something stupid.