I know you’ve put out a bunch of material on these types of things. And I’ve read/listened to/watched all of them multiple times, and have what I believe to be a pretty good understanding on your general recommendations regarding pain and training. However, I was just re-watching an old Q/A video on Alan Thrall’s channel from about 3 years ago when you did a squat/deadlift seminar there. Someone asked a question about back pain, and there were six recommendations given: 1. More activity.
2. More training over time to slowly increase the ability to tolerate more training.
3. More judicious use of a belt.
4. Exercise selection based on the ability of the individual to tolerate the training volume and intensity required to make progress.
5. Control fatigue via intelligent programming (not stated in the video, but made clear in many other places: auto-regulation)
6. Gain weight. It’s obvious from following the development of your thinking about training, programming, nutrition, injury risk reduction, pain management, etc., that some of these recommendations would not be made today if asked the same question (#6), and that others would still stand (#s 1, 2, 4, 5). As someone who has experienced what seems to be an annoyingly frequent number of back tweaks (which I’ve successfully navigated due to your exceptional pain management resources), I’m particularly interested in whether or not #3 would still be a practical (though likely anecdotal) recommendation. In general I’ve followed the recommendation to only wear my belt when directed in the programming. But could it be worth trying to wear my belt on assistance exercises more frequently? Or is that more likely to compound the problem due to a likely increase in load on the bar?
We told someone to gain weight to reduce their back pain? I thought we told PunchNugget to gain weight to be a stronger powerlifter, not to handle any back tweaks… Maybe it sounded like they went together.
We would not recommend weight gain for pain management. I think a belt is a fine practical strategy that may allow someone to do certain movements they’d otherwise avoid without the belt.
Thanks, Jordan!
To be fair, the gain weight recommendation was couched in the context of “if this were Rip…” but it still sounded like a secondhand recommendation regardless. But that was back in the SS days and it’s been made super clear in many places that you’ve changed your recommendations regarding rapid weight gain since then (among other things). Which, by the way, is one of the things I appreciate most about what BBM is doing - actually following the evidence and updating positions on things as new evidence emerges.
I’ll try adding the belt on more assistance stuff and see if that helps over the long term.