Hello - I was just diagnosed with a posterior vitreous detachment in my right eye. Symptoms are mild but Opthalmologist recommending “doing more reps with lighter weight” when I said I lift seriously five days a week. I specifically asked about valsava bracing and he said, “yeah don’t to that”. He has advised this for one month (I have a follow up then) and if all looks good I can return to regular lifting. In the meantime is there any advantage to lifting (with the goal of maintenance in mind) if I can’t brace internally and if so, what does that look like or should I just rest and focus on cardio or something else? What percentage of max weight and rep range etc. focusing on hypertrophy, not powerlifting. Thanks!
Hey Tim,
Sorry to hear about the eye. Hope you heal up soon.
As far as the ophthalmologist’s recommendations go, it would be inappropriate for me to suggest you do something else via a forum post.
That said, you can’t exercise without a Valsalva, as any challenging movement will force you to do it reflexively to some degree. If you want to go lighter for the time being and stay further away from failure, the increase in blood pressure during a given set is likely to be less, but some amount of Valsalva will still be done. Regarding training, pretty much any intensity range greater than 30% 1RM will work for hypertrophy. We have lots of material on training for muscle size, how-to do it, options, etc. on the website, as well as programs explicitly laying out what we would recommend.
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