Peaking & Tapering for Raw Powerlifters: Combating the 3 Most Common Mistakes

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As a powerlifter, you want to be as strong as possible on meet day. That's the goal of peaking - structuring your training to try and maximize performance on that specific day. Part of maximizing your performance is backing off training before the meet - that's the taper. But you have to know how to do it right.

When we train, we are increasing our fitness, skill, and strength; however, we also get fatigued. The goal of tapering is to cut back on training in the right amounts and at the right time relative to the upcoming meet to reduce this fatigue while keeping fitness, skill, and strength high, so we can have our best performance possible. We are after that goldilocks sweet spot. If you taper too little or too late, you may still be fatigued, and that means you can’t fully express the strength that you have. And if you taper too much or too early, then sure you’ve gotten rid of fatigue, but you've also detrained (lost a significant amount of strength and skill).

Many powerlifters are unintentionally ruining their meet day performance in the last few weeks of training because they're tapering too much or too early. Often this is because the advice on how to peak and taper that they're following is outdated and/or misapplied. A lot of advice on peaking was originally intended for equipped lifters (single or multi-ply suits), not for raw. Equipped lifters need a longer, more aggressive taper because they are lifting heavier weights (and more than their bodies could without the equipment). However, following similar advice and tapering timelines will cause a raw lifter to seriously detrain by meet day.

Peaking is a balancing act, and the strength and skill component is more important than the fatigue one. Consider this – If you’ve been hitting PRs in the gym during meet prep, then you’re already performing well despite carrying some fatigue. If you taper too much/too soon, you could very well ruin the good thing you’ve already got going for yourself. I would rather go into the meet with a little fatigue left (similar to how I train in the gym the rest of the year) than taper too much, detrain, and end up low on skill and strength but with minimal fatigue. As an extreme example: someone who never worked out in their life would have very little fatigue, but they’d still be a shit lifter on meet day. Don't be so worried about getting rid of fatigue that you also detrain a lot and suck.

There are three common errors that cause people to detrain. Fix these for better meet day performance:

1. Taking your last heavy lifts too far out from the meet

2. Cutting accessories too far out from the meet

3. Not doing anything the week of the meet

Mistake 1: Taking your last heavy lifts too far out from the meet

Taking your last heavy lifts too far out from the meet means that the skill of lifting heavy, and those strength adaptations, are detraining for longer and so have dropped off too much by meet day. I would rather take my last heavy lift a little lighter but closer to the meet than too far out.

When you should take your last heavy lift will be dependent on variables like strength and skill level, age, sex, body size, whether you use PEDs or not, and training history. However, the majority of these can all be boiled down to absolute load – the more weight you lift, the further out from the meet your last heavy lift should probably be. Another way to think about it is to ask how long will it likely take you to fully recover and get back to peak performance. If you’ve ever taken a really heavy deadlift and the next week felt weak and tired when you went to deadlift again, then you know what I’m talking about. In that case, it clearly takes you more than 7 days to recover from something of that level.

Deadlift and squat both tend to take fairly comparable amounts of time to recover from, but maybe slightly more for whichever you’re stronger at. If you deadlift way more than you squat, then your deadlift probably needs a bit longer to recover. However, if your squat is significantly heavier than your deadlift, it may be the opposite.

Bench press tends to take much less time to recover from than deadlift or squat. This is probably because bench is lighter in absolute load, is upper body rather than lower/full, and is often trained with higher frequencies.

One other thing to keep in mind is that you don’t need to completely rearrange your training in order to get the last heavy lift to fall on a certain day relative to the meet. There’s a range in which it would be okay to take it. Also, you can extend that range a bit by going either a smidge lighter (if it is closer to the meet) or a smidge heavier (if it is further out from the meet). This way, you can keep training on your normal days of the week by scaling the intensity up or down as needed based on if it's on the lower or higher end of how far out from the meet you are. For example, if I wanted my last heavy squat to be 14 days out from a Saturday meet, but I normally squat on Wednesday, I could just take it 17 days out instead and bump it up 0.5-1 RPE rather than completely rearrange my program and what days I train.

An important note, especially for stronger individuals, is that “last heavy lift” can be a misnomer. If you are taking your heaviest lift of prep multiple weeks out from the meet, you may need another moderately heavy lift between then and meet day. Let’s use Eric Lilliebridge squatting 1000 lbs in wraps as an example. He may need to take his heaviest squat 3 weeks out. However, he should still work up to something like his last warmup (around RPE 6, or in this case around 750-800 lbs) the next week (two weeks out from the meet). Then one week out from the meet he may work up to just 500 lbs or so, sticking to something really easy and not very fatiguing but still getting a few reps in to stay sharp. However, if you squat 300 lbs and your last heavy squat is 10 days out, you might only squat once more with like 200 lbs the Monday of meet week and be done, in which case the 300 lb squat really is your "last heavy squat".

Lastly, your heaviest lift of prep doesn’t always need to be an RPE 10, maximal lift. We are trying to peak performance on the platform at the meet, not in the gym, so that often means leaving a little bit in the tank during training. We just want to go heavy enough to help gauge where your strength is at and to prepare you for heavy weight on meet day. Often times that means a single at RPE 9 / 1 RIR.

Here are a few example profiles.

These illustrate three things:

1)      How far out I would probably take the heaviest lift based on individual factors.

2)      How the heaviest lift doesn’t need to be maximal/RPE 10 every time.

3)      How you can scale the intensity up or down to move the heaviest lift further out from or closer to meet day to match your training schedule.

Lifter 1:

110 lb/50 kg bodyweight, 15 year old female with maxes of 138 lb/62.5kg squat, 77 lb/35 kg bench, 155 lb/70 kg deadlift.

Last heavy deadlift: 7-10 days out at RPE 9

Last heavy squat: 7-8 days out at RPE 9 or 5-6 days out at RPE 8

Last heavy bench: 7-8 days out at RPE 10, 5-6 days out at RPE 9, or 4 days out at RPE 8

Lifter 2:

182 lb/82.5 kg bodyweight, 20 year old male with maxes of 400 lb/180 kg squat, 265 lb/120 kg bench, 500 lb/225 kg deadlift.

Last heavy deadlift: 12-14 days out at RPE 9 or 9-11 at RPE 8

Last heavy squat: 10-12 days out at RPE 9 or 7-9 days out at RPE 8

Last heavy bench: 7-9 days out at RPE 9 or 5-6 days out at RPE 8

Lifter 3:

308 lb/140 kg bodyweight, 60 year old man on PEDs, with maxes of 600 lb/272.5 kg squat, 390 lb/177.5 kg bench, and 550 lb/250 kg deadlift

Last heavy deadlift: 12-16 days out at RPE 9 or 9-11 days out at RPE 8

Last heavy squat: 12-16 days out at RPE 9 or 9-11 days out at RPE 8

Last heavy bench: 9-11 days out at RPE 9 or 7-8 days out at RPE 8

Mistake 2: Cutting accessories too far out from the meet

A lot of people stop doing any sort of accessory exercises way too early - sometimes a whole month out from the meet. There are multiple issues with this. It drastically drops your volume and training stress, which often leads to people peaking well before the meet, and then by meet day their fitness and strength have already dropped off a lot.

Also, cutting accessories makes you much more vulnerable to injury. One of the reasons for accessory exercises is movement variability – to train and load some positions other than just the competition lifts to keep mobility and and motor control through a fuller range of motion than the limited bit that we go through in the competition lifts.

Lastly, you’re also stunting your long term growth. If you do 2-3 meets a year and you cut your accessories a month out, that’s 17-25% of the year that you’re missing out on the chance to be using accessories to build muscle and strength.

Realistically, you probably don’t need to dial your accessories back much at all until about one week out, or at most 1.5-2 weeks out. Most people just dial them back way earlier because they’re lazy. They don’t want to work hard on accessories after also having just done heavy main lifts. The fix to this is to push your main lifts harder during the offseason, so you’re used to doing hard work on both main lifts and accessories at once. However, during the offseason we don’t want to be just hammering away with heavy competition lifts year round, so use load limiting variation (like tempo, close grip, SSB) and higher reps, but keep the relative intensity high (like RPEs 7-10). This kind of offseason will prepare you well for the stress of meet prep.

I generally don’t change anything with the accessories till one week out, and then I cut almost all of them. I may keep just a few accessories for muscle groups that aren’t otherwise being trained (like one or two upper back movements towards the start of the week, for 1-2 sets at RPE 5 ish), but I cut all the work for things that are still being trained (like pressing, quads, hamstrings, etc.).

Mistake 3: Not doing anything on meet week

The last big mistake I see people make is doing literally nothing the week of the meet. Sure we want to dial back a good bit and not generate fatigue, but picture this – think back to the last time you were on vacation or sick and didn’t go to the gym for 5-7 days. Did you feel great the first day back, or did you feel kind of stiff and maybe a bit achy and/or uncoordinated?

You can still do a little bit of stuff the week of the meet to keep your technique sharp and your body moving and primed for the day without generating a ton of fatigue.

I like to have athletes take a few last squats and deadlifts on Monday, and some bench on Tuesday (like 3-4 sets of 1-3 reps with around 50-60% 1RM), with just a little accessory work as described in the previous section (such as one of the upper back movements they've been using recently in prep for 1-2 sets at RPE 5 ish, and maybe a little core and arms at a similar low volume and intensity).

These light workouts are also a good chance to try and prepare yourself for meet day by listening to some crowd noise audios from YouTube. On the platform you can’t wear your headphones like you’re probably used to doing in the gym. You won’t have control over what music you’re hearing and you won’t have the headphones to block out any surrounding noise. People will probably yell random cues at you – with supportive intentions, but rarely are those cues actually helpful. So you want to be prepared for this and able to just tune everything out. Switching from your music to a crowd noise audio right before doing your sets of squat, bench, or deadlift is one way to prepare for this. If you have a lot of athletic experience, this may be totally unnecessary; however, I’ve found it helpful for people who don’t have much of a sporting background and aren’t used to performing in front of a loud audience.

Similarly, if this is your first meet, consider wearing your singlet for one or both of these sessions. Try and get comfortable with the weird outfit, so on the platform isn't the first time you've ever had it on.

As for the rest of the meet week - on Wednesday, I'd suggest that you rest. On Thursday, do just some super light movements. Run through all your usual upper and lower body warmups, plus do 2 sets of goblet squats, dumbbell bench press or pushups, and dumbbell RDLs (all very easy, like 10 RIR/ 0 RPE at like 10% 1RM). This way you're not generating any real fatigue but you will feel good on meet day. On Friday, rest.

All of these days are assuming the meet is on a Saturday, like most are. If it isn't, simply adjust your timeline accordingly so they are the same spacing to your competition day.

Conclusion

If you’re hitting PRs in the gym, you’re currently being successful in spite of the fatigue from training, so you don’t need to make too drastic changes during your taper in order to do well on meet day. Don’t get so caught up in trying to reduce fatigue that you cut your training too much/early and end up also reducing your fitness, skill, and strength in the process and ruin your meet. Remember to take your last heavy lifts a little closer to the meet, wait longer to cut your accessories, and keep moving during meet week.

Hopefully you found this article helpful, and best of luck at your upcoming meet! If there’s any way I can help, please reach out. You can also contact me with any questions. If you’d like help planning your meet prep, I offer coaching services.

Best,

Michael Elrod-Erickson

Founder and Head Coach, Premier Power & Performance

5 Key Concepts for Young Powerlifters

With so much information about powerlifting available, it can be hard to know what to focus on, especially if you're newer to the sport. My goal with this article is to cut through all the noise and distill down the key concepts that will help you take off and thrive while your counterparts struggle to make much progress.

Obviously you will need to follow a good training plan, be consistent for a long time, and develop good technique in order to be successful in powerlifting - everyone knows that. However, these five concepts will help accelerate that process for you, and learning them early on in your career will help you achieve more in this sport than you could otherwise.

Number 1: Intent

The first thing you need to understand when you are training for powerlifting is that lifting is no longer just a means to an end.

Most people are lifting weights to build muscle, be healthier, and look better. However, as a powerlifter, it's no longer about just these things. Lifting is now a skill that you are trying to master, and skills require practice.

To improve upon the skills of squat, bench press, and deadlift, the first step is to make your technique repeatable. Imagine you are a basketball player and want to get better at shooting free throws. You'd do the same routine every time - something like two dribbles, line the ball up in your hand, then shoot. We want that same approach to lifting. You should approach the bar, set up, and execute your lift the same way every time.

Where many people go wrong with this is they don't focus or actually try unless the weight is heavy. On their warmups or lighter days, they just get under the bar and pick it up - they're not focused on using this as an opportunity to improve and engrain that skill.

I have been told that I lift very robotically. On all of my sets, I take the same steps for my walkout. I breath the same way. I move with a fairly consistent level of speed and control. It looks the exact same every time, regardless of the weight. I've also had people make jokes about how I'm turning red and having veins popping out even though it is just 135 pounds, my first warmup weight. The thing is, though, how much tension you create and how much force you put into the bar is independent of what weight is loaded on it. You can still get TIGHT and push with 500 pounds of force even when there's only 135 pounds on the bar. Don't wait till it's heavy to start trying - you should focus and try hard every time you get under the bar. Give every weight the same level of respect; that is how you should be warming up and training.

Additionally, since these are skills we're trying to master, realize that you can't train your squat, bench, and deadlift heavy all the time. At max loads and during really hard sets, technique starts to break down. Therefore, if you are training very heavy too often, it will be hard for you to practice and engrain performing the lifts well. That's why submaximal work is very important, and why the majority of your main lifts should be done at more moderate intensities.

Number 2: Learn to Gauge Intensity

Many people don't know how hard they should be pushing or what weights to be using.

It's not that people are soft and don't want to push hard. Instead, they just don't have a well calibrated scale of what they're capable of, and that tends to result in the main lifts being too heavy/hard and the accessories being too easy/underloaded. For example, on their main lift, which was supposed to be a moderate single at RPE 8 (2 reps in reserve), they end up failing. Meanwhile on their accessory exercise, a set of leg extensions to failure, they end up stopping when it gets uncomfortable, even though they could've squeezed out 8 more reps if they just kept going and tried really hard.

So how do we fix this?

The single most important thing for improving this is reflection. After each set, take a second to think about how many more reps you think you could've done. This is your opportunity to check how accurate your weight choice was for hitting your planned difficulty and to learn for next time.

Another tool is filming your sets and watching them back afterwards. This can be helpful in that sometimes lifts feel heavy but when you watch them back you realize it was moving really well and you probably could've done more than you thought. Or, sometimes it's the opposite. Maybe you were really hyped up for the set and after you finished it you thought to yourself that you could've kept going for another rep or two. Then you watch the video and realize the last rep was really slow and ugly so you definitely wouldn't have gotten another. Sometimes videos can help ground you and combat any emotional influence on your assessment of the intensity.

From a programming standpoint, one thing that can help lifters learn to gauge intensity better is to do some sets to failure, AMRAPs (as many reps as possible), or lower RIR sets. Seeing and feeling what you're capable of can be helpful in learning how close to that point of failure you are on the submaximal work.

Number 3: Muscle Mass

Some old school powerlifters like Greg Panora and Louie Simmons would say stuff like "If you want to get strong, the first step is to actually look like you lift" or "You should look like a god of war in your singlet on meet day," and there's a lot of validity to that.

This isn't just bro science either - it's physiology. Muscular strength has two components: how big your muscle is, and how well your nervous system can recruit and utilize it all at once.

So sure, you can get stronger without building more muscle by improving the neurological component and getting more efficient. However, your maximum strength potential - the ceiling - only goes up by getting bigger muscles.

When it comes to building muscle, you need well chosen accessory exercises that are pushed hard. Unlike the main lifts, we are just using these as a means to an end - a way to get jacked - so they should be treated differently. We want movements that require less skill, that are more stable, that have a big range of motion, and where the target muscle is the limiting factor. For example, a hack squat machine will let you work the quads way better than a barbell back squat will, because it is stable and lower skill. The hack squat isn't going to be limited by your bracing or back strength, like the squat likely would be. Also, being in the perfect position isn't as challenging or necessary, so you can push the hack squat harder.

Exercises that train muscles in the lengthened position are also good because they typically cause more growth. For example, Maeo et al. (2021) found that the seated hamstring curl resulted in +14% hamstring growth compared to +9% from the lying hamstring curl. So for biarticular muscles (those that cross multiple joints), this should be a factor in choosing the best accessory exercises.

If you are interested in learning more about accessory exercises, I presented a live seminar on the topic a few months ago, and there is a recording available here. It includes an hour and a half video presentation on how to choose the best exercises for your needs, as well as a list of recommended exercises. The list has a few suggested movements for all the major muscle groups, plus a short description of what makes each exercise effective and/or tips for how to perform it. Check it out!

In addition to accessory exercises, the other key thing for building muscle is eating enough. You will struggle to put on size if you aren't eating a sufficient quantity of calories to fuel growth!

Number 4: Learn to Create Tension

The three competition lifts are just as much about keeping the rest of the body static as they are about moving the weight with the working body parts. A great analogy I got from Seth Albersworth is, "Would you rather hit something with a baseball bat or a pool noodle?" We need to make sure that our body is the baseball bat - that is, stiff and transfers all that force from the swing well - rather than getting loose and floppy like the pool noodle.

Creating tension is the key to keeping tight and transferring force effectively into the bar. However, many newer lifters struggle to create this tension, ESPECIALLY when they don't have heavy weights on the bar that force them to get tight. Ultimately we want to get to a point where you can create lots of tension independently of what weight is on the bar.

There are a few commonalities in how/where we need to create tension in the competition lifts:

1) Bracing

You want to expand your abdomen outwards into your belt as you breath in, while limiting any upward shrugging of the shoulders or ribcage. Then, further lock this in by actively pressing out into the belt in all directions.

What's described above is the action you should be trying for when you brace, but realize that the position you're in is also important. Your best brace will happen when your ribcage is directly stacked over your pelvis (like a neutral spine position, or even in a little bit of flexion). If you are arched or excessively rounded, you will not be able brace well. This is because muscles are strongest in more moderate lengths, so in either extreme, then one side (abdominals vs low back) is too short and the other is too long to be strong.

Realize that breathing and bracing may look slightly different on the bench press than the squat and deadlift. That's because the weight is never being transferred through the spine - it just goes straight down from the bar to hands to shoulders to bench. So, bracing can be different for this lift. On the bench press, I would focus more on using your breathing to expand the ribcage as big as you can, so you can have a higher touch point and the bar doesn't have to travel as far.

2) Scapular Retraction and Depression

The scapula are your shoulder blades. Retraction is pinching them together/backwards, and depression is pulling them downwards, towards your butt.

In the squat, regardless of if it's high bar or low bar, you want to do both of these things as hard as you can to create a tight upper back. Then lock that in by pulling the bar down into your back. Similarly, on bench press, we need both of these two actions to set the shoulders in place, get a big arch, and be in a strong position to press from.

The deadlift is different though - we only want depression and not any retraction. Pinching the shoulders back would make the arms shorter and increase the range of motion the bar has to travel. Also, you probably aren't strong enough to maintain that retraction at maximal loads. So instead, the goal is just to pull the shoulders straight down towards your hips. This gets the lats tight, which will help stabilize the spine and keep you from getting rounded over, as well as keeping the bar from drifting away from your body.

3) Head Packing

This is probably the most overlooked of the three. Head packing is pulling your head backwards, like making a double chin. This helps create more stiffness and tension through the upper back. Plus, your head is heavy - if it is hanging out way out in front of your body, it can shift you forwards in a way we don't want. I like to cue "head back" or "double chin" on both squat and deadlift.

On bench press it looks a little different, but still applies. If you're watching the bar with your eyes and you lift your head up, you will flatten out and lose some of your arch. Head pressure back into the bench not only helps prevent this, but also helps to keep the shoulders pulled down and together. You don't need to press your head back into the bench as hard as you can, just enough that it is staying down and tight.

The other big thing to understand is that these elements of creating tension are not just skills; there's also a strength component to these motions. If you are getting rounded over and losing your brace during heavy deadlifts, it's not that you just aren't good at the skill of bracing - you're probably also too weak to hold the position. If you are losing your upper back tension on squat and getting rounded over, you likely aren't strong enough to maintain that position under heavy loads. So, the fix to these issues isn't just drills, like some light banded movement in your warmup. The fix is to train these motions. Exercises like chest supported rows will improve your retraction. Lat pulldowns will strengthen your depression. Copenhagen side planks and sit-ups will build your bracing strength.

Choose exercises over drills. Worry less about some sexy warmup drill from Instagram and more about building strength in these motions.

In addition to creating tension at the body parts we want to remain static, another important thing for newer lifters is to get better at staying tight throughout the lift and controlling the bar. Variations of the main lift that emphasize this can be really helpful! Examples include:

Squat: tempo squat, pause squat, and front squat

Bench: tempo bench, Spoto press, and long pause bench

Deadlift: pause deadlift (just off the floor) and controlled eccentric/soft touch deadlifts

Number 5: Understand Pain

You will inevitably experience pain. However, how you respond to this can either derail your training and leave you making no progress or can make it a fairly insignificant bump in the road.

Pain does not always mean there is an injury or damage. That is a misunderstanding of what the cause of pain is. Learning more about pain will help you be able to better analyze it when it occurs and handle the situation more appropriately.

I wrote an article on this topic, so I will link that here rather than rehashing all the points.

Understanding Pain for Strength Athletes

Conclusion

If you train with intent, learn to gauge intensity, build muscle mass, create lots of tension, and develop a greater understanding of pain, you'll be able to go further in this sport and achieve great things.

Please reach out if I can ever help you on your powerlifting journey!

If you're looking for a training plan, I just released my Powerlifting Fundamentals Program. It has all the key elements we discussed in this article built into it to help you become a better lifter. Or if you want something tailored to you, to best suit your goals and needs, I also offer online coaching and custom training plans.

Best,

Michael Elrod-Erickson

Founder and Head Coach, Premier Power & Performance

Understanding Pain for Strength Athletes

The old school idea of "no pain, no gain" is outdated and stupid. However, the pendulum has swung too far back in the opposite direction - a lot of people now are overreacting to pain. It is unrealistic to expect to not experience any pain when lifting.

If you want to make it very far in powerlifting, or any other strength sport, you need to have a greater understanding of what pain is. This article will cover that, as well as tips on how to identify if it's a real issue/injury or just insignificant pain, and how you should think about and respond to pain as a lifter.

Section 1: What is Pain?

Most people think of pain as being synonymous with an injury, or that it inherently means something is wrong, but that is not the case. You can have pain without physical damage to tissues (an injury). To understand why that can happen, we need to discuss what pain is and why it happens.

Pain is a sensation created by the nervous system as a response to inputs, like pressure, temperature, etc. It’s intent is to be a warning - to steer you away from anything that may be dangerous and keep you safe. Therefore, the cause of pain is the perception of threat, not necessarily injury.

Sure, when you're injured you experience pain because your body perceives threat, both during the incident and afterwards while that area is compromised and your body wants you to be cautious so as to not make things worse. However, pain and injury are not synonymous. Your body can have the perception of threat without having an injury or tissue damage. For example, if you are doing a new exercise and you’re in a new position that you don’t often train, or you’re loading a movement way more than you’re used to, it is easy to see why your body may perceive these as somewhat threatening. That could then result in you experiencing pain, but that doesn't necessarily mean you did anything wrong or that you hurt yourself.

This is where "insignificant pain" (the idea that you can have pain without injury or anything being wrong) comes in.

Section 2: Identifying Pain vs. Injury

So how can you tell if there’s actually an injury or if it’s just some insignificant pain?

This is not intended to be medical advice, simply educational. But the reality is we all experience pain, and sometimes it can be hard to tell if it is significant or not, so this is just a list of things to consider when making that evaluation for yourself. That decision isn't intended to be made based on any single factor either, but rather a combination of them leaning in the direction of significant or not. When in doubt, you should check with your doctor as soon as possible.

Considerations

• How serious is the pain on a scale of 1-10?

  1-3 is a lower likelihood of significance, but a 4 or higher is more likely significant.

  
  

• How quickly does the pain clear up?

  If it stops within 1-2 hours of the activity, there's a lower likelihood of significance. If it lasts for 24-48 hours afterwards, there's a more moderate likelihood. If it lasts more than 48 hours/2 days afterward, then there is a higher likelihood. *Please note that this is not referring to normal delayed onset muscle soreness, which is expected to peak around 24-48 hours after training.

  
  

• Did the pain start from doing a new movement or one that was possibly progressed too quickly recently?

  If yes, there's a lower likelihood of significance.

  
  

• Does the pain keep recurring every time you do the exercise?

  If still yes after more than about three weeks of regularly doing the movement, then that is less likely just insignificant pain from a new stimulus. There is a higher likelihood that it is significant, that you are performing the movement poorly, and/or that the exercise isn't a good fit for you.

  
  

Red Flags

These are factors that are a much stronger sign that something significant has happened, you may be injured, and it is worth getting it checked out by a professional.

• Do you have a generalized feeling of doom/something is wrong? 

  If yes, high likelihood of significance.

  
  

• Does the area not look or function normally?

  If so, definitely significant.

  
  

• Was it accompanied by a loud (audible by others) popping sound or an internal squelching sound, along with sudden abnormal sensations?

  If yes, high likelihood of significance. Tissues can make these noises when they are seriously injured, like a torn muscle or tendon. *Please note that occasionally your joints can pop or crack without it being concerning - such as cracking your knuckles. This is called joint cavitation, but this isn't what we are referring to.

  
  

• Is the pain radiating to other body parts or shooting down the legs?

  If yes, high likelihood of significance.

• Did you lose bladder or bowel control, or feeling/ability to move in a body part?

  If yes, definitely significant.

Again, when in doubt please contact your doctor. In the event of an emergency, call 911.

Section 3: How You Think About Pain

The previous sections are important because they lay the foundation for you to experience pain and not worry about it. If you understand that pain isn’t always an injury or problem, then you can simply acknowledge that you feel it, logically decide if it likely is or isn't an issue, and then carry on with your life.

This is especially powerful because how you think matters for how you feel. If you think that the pain is a big deal, worry about how it will impact your training, fret over how long it will take to get better… all of these are just making it hurt worse. Anxiety, fear, and other negative emotions are strongly connected to pain. Pain isn’t just a physical thing, so your emotional state can amplify the sensation.

Not overreacting or freaking out is always a good first step when you are experiencing pain, and will help in the decision making process of evaluating its significance.

Section 4: What to Do About Pain

Most people’s response to pain is to stop moving that area until it eventually stops hurting on its own. While this "just rest it and let it heal" approach may be appropriate in some situations where there’s a serious injury, like a broken bone that needs to repair, that same approach should not be applied to insignificant pain. If there is no obvious injury, then generally the best course of action is looking for how you can keep moving the area in ways that make it feel better and better. This is the idea of desensitizing pain.

Since pain is largely a perception of threat, part of how you can clear it up and get back to feeling good/training normally is to desensitize the motions that hurt. For example, if bending your knee into deep ranges of motion under load is causing pain, then you can start out at a more moderate range of motion and/or more moderate load, to where it only hurts like a 3/10 pain or less. Then, do reps so it gradually starts feeling better.

In the early stages of desensitizing this pain, that may look like doing very easy isometric muscular contractions multiple times per day. You can do them frequently because these are not hard, stressful activities that require much to recover from. Plus more frequent exposure to them will further help in desensitizing the pain. As it improves, the rehab starts to look more and more like regular training till nothing makes it hurt anymore.

I would also recommend modifying your training only as much as is needed in response to pain. For example, if you were planning a set of three reps on squat at RPE 8, I wouldn’t just remove the squat and replace it with something totally different like a leg extension. I would stick as closely to the original plan as you’re able. I would first try just modifying one or two variables. For example, if you experience pain in the bottom of the squat, you could reduce the range of motion by squatting to a high box, then work to gradually lower it each session till you were back to full depth. Alternatively, if you had pain at heavy weights, you could add a tempo (4 count lowering and 2 count pause) to your squat, so you can reduce the weight but still push hard like the RPE 8 that was planned. Tempo, range of motion, and how the exercise is loaded (e.g. front squat instead of low bar back squat) are all variables that you can alter rather than just removing the exercise.

Section 5: Injury Risk

On the topic of lifting and injury, I think it is important to remind people that despite what most common folk think, lifting is extremely safe. It is one of the only sports where you are in control of the amount of stress on your body and there's not a changing/dynamic environment to respond to. It is the same thing over and over, and you choose both the quantity and the loads.

Lifting being very safe is supported by meta-analyses of injury rates in sports. “The injury incidence in weightlifting was 2.4–3.3 injuries/1000 hours of training and 1.0–4.4 injuries/1000 hours of training in powerlifting” (Aasa et al., 2016). Let's compare that to other sports. Prieto-González et al. (2021) reported soccer had 7.21 injuries/1000 hours and basketball 4.31 injuries/1000 hours.

So while pain is not uncommon with lifting, injuries are fairly rare. Don't be scared away from strength sports.

Conclusion

As a lifter, it's important for you to understand that not all pain is significant, and that pain doesn't necessarily mean you're injured or did anything wrong. Not overreacting to every little pain or niggle will be necessary for you in the process of achieving your best performance. Also, remember these tips on how to identify if the pain is significant or not, and how best to respond to pain, or else save this page as a reference to come back to when you need it.

If you have an injury or pain that you want help with, then I would highly recommend working with Dr. J’aime Goguen-Locke! She is a clinician that works almost exclusively with strength athletes, so she is familiar with the types of issues we have, the stressful tasks we are trying to return to after rehab, and how to best get you back under the barbell as quick as possible. She works with Kodiak Barbell, and does online consultations so she is able to help anyone in the world.

P.S. I am not affiliated with Dr. J'aime or financially benefiting from this recommendation in any way. She is just really good at what she does, and I want more lifters to end up in good hands for their rehab needs!

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Best,

Michael Elrod-Erickson

Founder and Head Coach, Premier Power & Performance