So I have a recurrent back injury that has me unable to do much for lower body for a while. My options are to continue to train what I can for upper body or just take 2-4 weeks completely off.
What would you do? I already know what I am going to do, but wanted to see what others thought, should they be in a similar situation. I was going to make this a poll question, but don’t know how.
Mods…feel free to move to more applicable section if desired.
How serious an injury are we talking? How serious is the upper body training? If you train upper body are you going to jack up your back worse?
Whatever my Dr told me to do.
What is the diagnosis of your back injury?
Without knowing the potential for further injury, we don’t have enough information to recommend one thing or another.
I had a back injury where I could not do squats or deadlifts, but quickly (a few weeks) could incorporate leg presses in my leg routine. This pain persisted for 10+ years. I continued to compete fairly successfully in bodybuilding, but I had to give up powerlifting, except for bench press contests.
This thread is not about me.
It’s about what YOU would do if you had to choose between no lifting for a period of time vs. being a dude who doesn’t train legs.
Personally, I choose the former because psychologically I can’t handle the latter. Now if I had an elbow/shoulder injury that prohibited most upper body movements….I would have zero problem only squatting/deadlifting 24/7.
So when you said “I” you didn’t really mean that it was a problem you were dealing with. It was just a hypothetical situation?
Then, I gave you my answer. I would do all that I thought I could do in the weigh room. I have worked around injuries the entire 54 years I have lifted weights.
I mean, pending how severe the injury, I would
You’re not losing progress over the course of a month, I would just do some arm and shoulder stuff if I really had to - but not at the risk of prolonging my layoff.
I’ve worked around some pretty serious injuries, whether it was upper body only, lower only or otherwise.