Almost 10 months in managing some radicular pain down the leg, believed to be from what an MRI found to be a herniated disc at L5. Things are finally going well on a more regular basis - trying to focus on the wins workout to workout and week to week to build more confidence.
Now, while i do plan on in the next 6-8 weeks or so to begin gradually returning to “normal” training - I did want to explore and try the idea that has been mentioned a few times of just lowering the RPE of each exercise by 1. Some clarification however: Does this mean lowering across the entire exercise or just the top set?
Ie: 6@6, 6@7, 6@8, 6@8 becomes:
A) 6@5, 6@6, 6@7, 6@7
B) 6@6, 6@7, 6@7, 6@7 drop the highest RPE by 1.
Also, this injury has in a way given me an opportunity to explore exercises I never really programmed for myself - and in a way I would like to capitalize on that. Not that i was only doing the main lifts, but for instance I had never sumo deadlifted outside of trying it once the odd time. On that note: i notice that my hips don’t really open up enough even with feet pointed outwards really far and my knees get in the way of the barbell on the ascent - any tips on avoiding this? For now because the weight is so light i have just been using dumbells but that is not sustainable (only go up to 150 and get real tall).
Fortunately enough, while the injury occurred initially during a squat, it is still a lift I am very comfortable with - the deadlift (and OHP - even single arm dumbell) seem to bring on the worse symptoms so I am trying to be a little more creative in working around this as opposed to avoidance.