Up until Monday, I was a pack a day smoker. I was traing 5 days a week, following the 3 day Hypertrophy template and 2 GPP days. About 2 weeks in, I started having some serious low back pain that felt like a muscle strain. I had been deadlifting 315 for reps and at the time this pain showed up I could barely get 100 lbs off the floor. I then switched over to the back rehab template and was progressing nicely, although by the end of week 3 I still had some nagging pain. I chalked it all up to loading mismanagement and was ready to repeat another week. Then I remembered a BBM podcast where the smoking/backpain association was briefly discussed.
Sunday night I said enough is enough and decided that i was going to quit come hell or high water, for general health but also as an experiment for dealing with this pain. Monday morning I quit smoking and had a training session Monday night. By the time I got to my training session, my back pain was nearly gone and I had the most productive training session I’d had in a long time. Today, four days later, any trace of pain I had is gone. I haven’t been this excited about my next training session in a long time.
I wanted to get this out there in case there are any other smokers here that are suffering from recurring pain. I’ll admit that I was somewhat skeptical, but it really seems that the connection is a thing. If you’re on the fence about quitting, you really should. Honestly, in just a few days i feel significantly better in many aspects. Also, big thanks to the BBM crew because I likely would not have made the connection and been so motivated to quit without them.