A knowledgeable friend of the sport of weightlifting offers this article for publication in the IWFMASTERS web site. It should not be construed as professional medical advice or a substitute for a professional medical opinion.

Typically, injured athletes should not return to training until they can perform painless full range of motion of the injured part, and be off anti-inflammatories and painkillers. That means that you should be able to move the joint through its entire range of flexion and extension, without any weight at all, before you start using a training weight as heavy as the empty bar. Then you start back into training very cautiously. For example, after an injury that involves knee tendons (tendonitis), when returning to back squats, do back squats with no more than the bar and only for slow singles, doubles, or triples. Use just the bar as above, until you can go three workouts in a row without any increase in discomfort.

Your body will tell you when it is ready to train again. It will also tell you when it is too early to return to training. When you can go through painless range of motion, without medications and without any training weight, you can start lifting the bar, as above. Remember that starting back into training one workout too soon can set you back the entire amount of time you did not train. It can set you all the way back to “Day One”.

So, if you are going to make an error on when to return to your training, you are infinitely better to start back one week too late than one day too soon.

Do not start back with any other lifts until you can go through full painless range of movement of those lifts (using a stick or no weight at all) for several days or a week if necessary. Then, do nothing more than doubles with the bar until you can go through a full week without any recurrence of pain. When you pass that hurdle, you can slowly add more training.

If the injury pain comes back during the recovery training, you have to quit and start all over again.

The injury you prevent will be your own.

How many kilos will you lose from your total if you delay your return to training for 10 days longer than is absolutely necessary? How many kilos will you lose from your total if you start back one day too soon?

In general, if you stop your Olympic training for six weeks to fully recover from an injury, you will be back very close to where you were before the injury in about six more weeks of wise training. The difference is that when you recover and come back healthy, your potential for improvement over the subsequent 6 months is much better than if you keep plodding along trying to "keep up" with some degree of continuous training with the injury.

We are consumed by the misconception that more training produces more results.

The physiologic truth is that every element of training requires a certain amount of recovery time to be maximally beneficial.

If you train again before the recovery process is completed, you will hinder your progress.

If you train again long after the recovery process is completed, you hinder your progress.

Maximal performance athletes either learn to or are instructed to rest a certain amount between training sessions that tax the same body parts.

It is during this recovery time that the benefits of training occur.

If you train without good recovery time, you will fail to improve. That is just as bad, or worse, for your maximal competition performance than training with too much recovery time.

There are a number of factors that govern how much recovery time is necessary for any given workout. (We will not cover those factors in this article).

You or your coach varies the recovery time according to those factors.

Left to our own devices, we tend to mentally think that we can train much more than our body can recover.

The common term for this is "overtraining". It is a pervasive phenomenon.

The best coaches and athletes avoid this state like the plague.

Why do one more rep, if that rep will hinder your progress? So you do just the right amount of training, not one set more or one kilo less.

Your brain can override your body's signals that you have not recovered enough to do another set or another rep or train another day or do another kilo.

When this happens, you greatly increase your propensity to get injured.

Overtraining increases the likelihood of you doing a lift in a technically incorrect movement pattern and causing an injury.

Overtraining increases the likelihood of you turning a micro-injury from your last rep/set/session into a more extensive injury.

That is a pretty bad one-two punch against the overtraining athlete.

Add to that the fact that the over-trained athlete does not improve at maximal rate, and you have plenty of reasons to avoid overtraining.

One general guideline is that at the end of each set and each session, you should feel as though you could do one more rep or one more set or one more kilo. But then you don't do that one more set/rep/kilo.

Another general guideline is that when you show up for your next training session you should feel refreshed (not still tired/fatigued from the last session).

When athletes fall victim to the overtraining demon and get injured, oftentimes they mistakenly believe that they can continue to over-train by "training around the injury".

In other words, if someone develops a strain injury of one part of the body that feels particularly painful when they do a certain lift, they modify the way they do that exercise so that it hurts less or does not hurt at all.

That sounds like a good idea.

It might fool your brain, but it does not fool your body.

It takes time to recover from injuries. During that time you can do things to accelerate the time to recovery and you can do things to retard the time to recovery.

Just because it doesn't hurt doesn't mean it doesn't do harm.

There are ways to continue to train despite an injury. It takes an especially skilled expert to design a program that does more good than harm.

In general, an athlete with a strain injury will gain more from spending their time and energy on doing specific rehabilitation techniques than on continuing to try to "train around the injury". (Quite often, 45 minutes of good rehab are more beneficial than 45 minutes of training around an injury.) It takes a very disciplined athlete to accept this.

"Less, oftentimes, is more."

It is very difficult to diagnose your own ailments. In the event that your diagnosis is wrong, the body you hurt will be your own.

It is very difficult for a doctor to diagnose someone's condition without actually seeing and examining them. Internet or telephone diagnosis is a set-up for making mistakes. (Making a specific diagnosis for someone based on a third person's account of what that person complains of is another treacherous endeavor.)

Athletic injuries can be separated into intrinsic and extrinsic injuries.

An extrinsic injury would be one that was not directly caused by the athlete (for example: a football player "blowing out" a knee when the knee gets hit from the side by another player, or a weightlifter being hurt because the bar was loaded incorrectly).

An intrinsic injury would be one that the athlete causes himself to suffer (for example, tearing the medial meniscus of the knee by forcing the knees together while recovering from rep #5 in a heavy set of squats, or tearing the rotator cuff by gripping the bar unevenly doing the snatch).

The point here is that when an athlete gets an intrinsic injury (one they cause themselves), it is a warning sign that they are doing something wrong.

Now if it is a once in a lifetime injury, you cannot necessarily draw any specific conclusion.

But when an athlete develops several intrinsic injuries in several different body parts, this is sign that the athlete is doing several things wrong.

First, it suggests some combination of (a) overtraining and (b) failing to warm up and stretch adequately and (c) inadequate recovery from a prior injury.

Second, it suggests errors in technique.

Third, it suggests the athlete is extending his efforts beyond his realistic ability.

Fourth, it suggests there may be a medical condition or an anatomical anomaly that limits the athlete's performance.

Fifth, it suggests the athlete is doing something to blind himself to the warning signs of potential injury (mental suppression of the risks or use of drugs to perform beyond one's capability).

So, multiple intrinsic injuries suggest a lot of possible things that could be affecting the athlete.

Depending on the severity of the injury, it can take weeks to months to recover. Intervening stresses to the tissue will prolong that recovery time. Give your body a break and let it heal using the rehab program prescribed for you.

During that time you should expend your efforts on stretching out the injured tissue multiple times per day, massaging the swollen tissue, and intellectually figuring out what you have to do to prevent this type of injury from occurring again.

Anti-inflammatories and Tylenol and appropriate heat/ice are generally good and may make you feel better during the recovery phase, but these are not substitutes to doing the rehab recovery program.

These medications should not be used to blind you from the fact that you are injured and cannot continue to train anything at all like you think you should.

Less is more.

Doing no training at all and recovering as fast as possible before resuming training will be better for you when it comes time for your next competition than just partially recovering and trying to train to keep up your "strength". If you train injured, you are very likely to turn a temporary injury into a more permanent injury.

You are at a disadvantage if you do not have a skilled coach who knows you well and who you trust to guide you in recovery. Sometimes there are exercises that you can do safely during recovery. It takes an impartial expert to figure that out for you.

Another very important thing you should do during that recovery and rehab time, is to figure out a much more efficient training program for when you start back in training. If you can do that, you will be a much better athlete this time next year than you were this time last year.

So what training program should you follow when you start training again? It depends on your technique, the type and severity of your injuries, your anatomic anomalies, your mental attitude and discipline about training/performance. That all takes some time and study. You will have plenty of that time during your rehab program.

Here are some basic tenants that could guide you to a more efficient (less injury prone) training program:

1. The aging process does affect our ability to train and to recover.

2. The best older athletes are the ones who figure out how to accommodate to those changes and, therefore, perform at the top year after year.

3. The best older athletes of the world did not get there by accident. Many factors come into play to keep these athletes coming back for more and more, year after year. One of those factors is adjusting their training to their capabilities at any given time. They minimize risk and maximize total, long-term performance. They do not foray into the unknown (like using training programs designed for young athletes).

4. The best older athletes follow the training guideline that: “Sometimes, doing less is better than doing more”.

5. Before each training session warm up (raise your body core temperature) by doing some simple repetitive exercise, such as sit-ups, until you start to break a little “sweat”. (A set of twenty sit-ups might be all you need to get a little bit warm, without draining any of your energy.) Then flex and extend the different joints that you are going to use in training that day. That will raise the temperature of the joints slightly and will start the joint fluids lubricating the joints you are going to stretch out in the next phase before starting your lifting.

6. After, and only after, the general body warm up and joint warm up, start stretching out the joints you will be using that day. All of these stretches should be slow and controlled at first. Only after you have stretched these tissues into their full range of movement, should you do any ballistic or bouncing movements. Get so that you can sink down into a full squat (without any weight) before doing any lifting.

A “warm up stick” to simulate the exercise movements of the snatch, clean, and jerk is a good tool to use every session (even if you aren’t going to be doing each of those movements during that session.). I like to use those stretches every session because those are the movements that you trained last session or will train this session or the next session. You have to make sure you are stretched out and recovered from you last session before starting your current session.

Remember, there are good studies with Olympic lifters that show than stretching joints and movements that you do not use in Olympic lifting, will hinder your performance in the lifts that day. So, routinely doing splits on the floor or side bending or trunk twisting movements will hinder your performance. Stretch out the joints that you will be using, not ones that you will not use (Unless you are stretching out a previous injury to make sure that it has not returned).

7. The above warm up and stretch may take you ten to twenty minutes. After you have done the same general warm up and stretch for a few months, you will be able to go through it “automatically” and quickly. It is during the stretching phase that your body tells you if you have recovered satisfactorily from your last work out. If you are particularly tight, you have to do a little more stretching that day. If you feel pain, you have an injury from a prior training session (which has to be stretched out to the pain free state before you can start training that day). If you come in and do your usual 10-20 minute warm up and stretch and feel fine, you are probably not “over trained”. If you come in and you have a little stiffness or some soreness that goes away easily during your stretching, you are probably not over trained.

8. Once you are warm and the appropriate joints are flexible throughout their range of movement, you can start your training program for the day. Most everyone knows to start with light weights and increase to heavier weights during each set until you get up to the training weights to be used for that exercise that day. What many people do not understand is that you also start with low speed in the movement and increase the speed of the movement from set to set as you “warm up” in the exercise.

You might start at 50% full speed and get up to 100% full speed as you get up to 90% of your maximum weight for that exercise that day. In other words, the warm up sets aren’t just doing heavier and heavier weights. The warm up sets are designed to gradually stretch out the tissues with heavier weights and, as you get stretched out, allow you to increase the speed of the movement. (This is true of both the Olympic lifts and the assistance exercises).

In my opinion, the Olympic lifts are an exercise in “controlled acceleration”. The best athletes move as fast as they can with maximal weights, while maintaining perfect balance throughout the lift.

How do you know when to increase the weight or the speed of the lift during your warm ups?

You move up in speed or weight when you can control the bar movement in perfect balance at the current weight and speed. In other words, “you warm up” or monitor your technique as you add weight or speed. If you can lift an 80% maximum weight for that day with 75% maximum speed and still maintain perfect technique, you move up in weight and/or speed for the next set. The corollary to that is that if your technique is off as you warm up, do not increase the speed or weight on the barbell. You should stay at the same weight or the same speed (or lower) until you can control the acceleration of the bar. If you can’t control the barbell at 80% of maximum, you aren’t going to control it at 100% of maximum. Remember, the injury you prevent from using improper technique will be your own.

9. For your Olympic lifts, you should follow the same progression of warm up lifts during training that you use at a contest. There are certainly variations from one athlete to another. In general, to warm up for the snatch you take six warm-ups with weight greater than the bar prior to going out for your first attempt. For the clean and jerk, you should be warmed up and ready to take your first attempt after five warm up sets. Carry these same jumps into your training program for months before the competition. By the time you go to the competition you will have done the same warm up sequences hundreds of times. You won’t be guessing what warm up to take next.

So how do you use this in training to get used to making the same jumps in weight each time?

For simplicity, we will use the example of someone who plans to snatch 100 kilos on their third attempt at the next competition. Their warm up weights might be 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, and 85. Then their first attempt might be 90 with a second of 95 and a third attempt of 100. These will be the same weight increases for all snatch warm-ups during the training phase.

Now let’s say that for today’s training session, the maximum snatch will be 70 for three sets of doubles. Your warm up sets will be a 40, 50, 60 and you should be ready to do your training sets with 70.

What you want to avoid is doing something like eight sets below 70 and wearing yourself out. If you can warm up to 70 in three lifts at a contest, you can do the same in training.

10. Older lifters do not benefit maximally from doing sets of five or eight or ten or twelve repetitions. This might be used in the first few weeks of starting back into training. As soon as you are “in shape”, however, you drop your repetitions down to a maximum of three. Doing sets of more than three contributes greatly to the syndrome of “over training”. These sets wear you out, but aren’t put to practical use in Olympic Weightlifting competition. (If there were a competition lift requiring doing repetitions, it would then be beneficial to train for sets of five etc.). For a master lifter, in competition shape, the Olympic lifts should be done in sets of one or two, with triples being reserved for lighter weights. A master lifter does not gain any practical advantage from doing heavy squats in sets of more than three. (To do so would require such a long recovery time between training sessions that they would be much more efficient doing heavier doubles or singles).

Doing sets with more repetitions than three also significantly increases the master athlete’s risk of injury (from breaks in good technique during multiple reps or from being “over trained”).

The best older lifters are efficient in their training and in their warm ups.

11. Training sessions for young and old alike should be limited to 45 to 75 minutes (after the warm up and stretch, or the first lift heavier than the empty bar).

The best studies were done in young males and the recommended training times were an hour or less. (If you could recover between sessions, you would be better doing three 30-minute sessions in a day than one 90-minute session). These studies showed that training efficiency went down dramatically after 60-75 minutes.

In my opinion, younger masters can do training sessions of up to one hour and older masters are lucky to get in 45 minutes of good training before they reach the point of diminishing returns (“over training”).

Now some lifters do one set of exercise and then sit for ten minutes before doing the next. This is not at all efficient. If that is all the lifter can do or all the lifter wants to do, that is fine. It is not conducive to maximum performance. In general, you are better off getting into the training hall and moving through your work out for the day in 45-55 minutes of training. Maximum performance training is “work” and should be approached that way. It may be a lot of fun, but it is still a work effort designed to be done within that 45-60 minute window of efficiency.

12. So an efficient long-term training program includes proper tissue warm up and then stretching prior to each training session. This lets you know if you are ready to start lifting. After that is a warm up with controlled acceleration of heavier and heavier weights with progressively faster speed up to the maximum weight for the day. Sets are limited to singles and doubles and sometimes triples. Actual lifting time is less than an hour. Emphasis is placed on doing each set with perfect technique rather than just finishing sets by getting the weight up any way possible. On the last rep of the last set of each exercise you should feel like you could do a little more weight or another set. You train hard enough that when you show up for your next training session, you do not feel fatigued and you do not have any injury pain.

13. Figuring out what exercises to do, with what weight, with what number of repetitions, and how frequently is all a very individual thing for each lifter. It is not easy and it changes as the lifter changes.

14. Less may be more, especially the week before a competition.