Is strength training worth it? (I don't know if this is the right place to post this)

Hi BBM, I have just listened to Eric Helms talking on Omar Isuf’s channel, and he said something along the lines that he had to get a hip surgery as a result of powerlifting and squatting low bar, and that he had to switch over to training high bar instead. He also said that the risk to reward ratio for him of training for powerlifting and bodybuilding simultaneously (Main goal is hypertrophy but still being interested in strength) was not worth it for him as he wasn’t willing to risk his joint integrity in the long term. This made me think about whether training for strength is worth it for a recreational lifter? In my case, my main goal is hypertrophy but I am still very much interested in strength just like it is for Eric (I am not comparing myself to him in any way, I am just saying my goals are similar to what he explained in his video), but my problem is that I have always been very injury prone and I constantly find myself getting injured in the gym (Even though I spent quite a bit of time lifting less weight and focusing on my technique), so I was wondering if there is any benefit to strength training, and if the risk of injuries in the short term, and in the long term (Everything to do with the joints), is worth it for someone who doesn’t intend to ever compete?

We don’t have enough information about his specific issue, diagnosis, or surgery to know for sure what was going on there. For example, if he was diagnosed with a hip labral tear and underwent surgery for that … well, labral tears are incredibly common in asymptomatic individuals, so it’s difficult to know for sure whether squatting had anything to do with it. Furthermore, hip labral tears frequently do not need surgical intervention at all.

All of this is to say that we don’t know what happened to him and whether the management was actually appropriate. I would also point out that training for “powerlifting” (i.e., 1RM performance in three lifts) and “strength training” are not necessarily the same thing – there are many ways to train for strength that do not require 1RM efforts, for example. We do not have evidence that strength training poses any risks to “joint integrity”, but rather the converse – that strength training is incredibly important to maintain healthy joints and can reduce pain and improve function in individuals with osteoarthritis.

We don’t know enough about you or your training to say why you may be experiencing these injuries. There may be programming issues or fatigue management issues at play, for example. I would recommend listening to our podcast on injury risk reduction for these topics. We recommend strength training for everyone who is safe to train.

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