Hello guys. First I would like to thank you guys for taking the time to read and answer questions on this forum.
I have been to the doctor and he has diagnosed me with a “mild” form of hernia on my upper abdominal wall. He said that I should not be that concerned, but he also said that I should not be pushing any numbers in the gym, specifically when doing the three main movements (squat, bench, deadlift). When being in the gym, he said that I need to work on specifically with the breathing technique (creating an intra-abdominal pressure), putting my belt a little higher and not pushing the numbers, as written. For now, this hernia is just a little “bump” on the upper part of the abs. There is no pain coming from it. Im just very concerned and totally not interested in doing any surgery as a 16-year old.
Is there anything that I could do to make this hernia go away and what can I do to still lift weights (<70% of 1RM) while recovering from this? Any answers are appreciated. I also do not have alot of knowledge on hernias.
No, there is probably not anything you can do to “make it go away”.
It sounds to be very mild. While it may indeed progress over time, no one can tell you how quickly that may occur, or whether training will have an impact on this.
Do you have any tips on what I could do, in terms of my training and recovery? Should I back down a little bit if the training is actually impacting this?
Train with loading to tolerance, just like we would in any other scenario. As I said above, there isn’t really any “recovery” process here.
I think i have a mild hernia as well and from my reading, hernias don’t get better over time and there is no magic pill. I too am confused about my program (week 4 of Bridge 1.0).
For those interested, and a word of caution, if you’ve had an appendectomy, be very careful with loads WITHOUT A belt. The scar tissue for the appendix removal can instigate adhesions which may weaken the abdominal wall. Squatting without a belt 2 weeks ago caused a pulled groin and I am pretty sure that pulled groin had to do with the hernia.