Hey all,
Just following up on this post from the Training Q/A moderated training forums: Entering Hypertrophy I with Minor Injury
It seems that my follow-up got accidentally stuck in moderator approval purgatory, so I’m just posting the follow-up here just in case anyone has a case similar to mine and is looking for a plan to work through the injury.
Here’s the follow-up / resolution post:
Hey - just wanted to report how everything turned out for me.
As discussed, I started Hypertrophy I and kept all squats and deadlifts to either tempo or paused variations without a belt. Had some minor tenderness during some sets, but once the adrenaline kicked in I didn’t feel anything. The absolute weight was so much lighter, given the rep range and paused+tempo variations, that my injury wasn’t being aggravated.
- Around week 3, I started using a belt with high-bar squats and did them at a normal tempo, since that didn’t seem to aggravate the injury.
- At week 6, I attempted normal, unpaused sets of deadlifts with a belt and conservatively light weight, but still at a decent RPE. The next day, pain from the injury was at a 2/10.
- At week 7, I did the same normal, unpaused sets of deadlifts, but increased the weight slightly. Next day, pain was at 3/10.
- At week 8, the same thing as last week, but next day the pain was 0/10 (i.e., pain was gone). From this point on, I completed the rest of the program, concluding at the end of week 10. Right now, I’m on week 3 of Hypertrophy II and loving it.
One unintentional benefit through all of this is that my squat form has dramatically improved. I’ve gained significant depth, knees aren’t moving around, etc. - very pleased with how that happened, even though I wasn’t even planning for it.
As of writing, I’m on the last day of Week 8 of Hypertrophy II, and planning to start Strength I after completing Hypertrophy II.