I get a lot of success stories from my programming, although I don’t usually share them here. Honestly, those stories mean the world to me – but it’s hard to share them without creating a tone of shady marketing, and, to me, it isn’t fair to the people who ultimately created their own success. Because let’s not get it twisted: no matter how good a program is (and I do truly believe my programs are damn good), results ultimately come down to grit: the passion and persistence lifters put into their training, day in and day out.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I want to share a success story.

Daniel works for the Dutch police force. He had been on the force for almost two decades when, in January of 2017 he was in the process of making an arrest and things got... out of hand. By the time he had the situation under control, Daniel had suffered a bad break to his right middle finger. The break damaged the circulatory system in his hand, and he developed dystrophy. The entire hand swelled enormously. It was a systemic reaction: his blood pressure skyrocketed to 150/100 and his pulse to 110. “My whole body was in a state of shock…. There was no room for experiments or fuck ups because I was not even allowed to break a sweat because of the effects it would have on my whole body.”

daniel injury 2

Doctors told Daniel he was likely to lose all function in the hand. “The surgeon said I had a 5% chance to regain normal use of my hand and I could forget lifting,” he wrote. Daniel didn’t think much of that assessment.

He began running Think Strong, at first taping a broomstick to his hand in lieu of a barbell. HIs doctors had no treatment for his condition, so he had to invent his own form of physical therapy: “basically… beating the shit out of it. I taped my hand to a 70 pound kettlebell and just started thumping it on the ground.” That worked well enough to regain some blood flow to the hand.

Daniel is still rehabbing, and it could be another year or more until he knows for sure the full extent of the damage. But as of today, his lifts are only 20 pounds off his pre-injury bests, and this week deadlifted 400 pounds for the first time since his injury (using straps, as the grip on his injured hand gives out over about 300).

It wasn’t easy. “I was scared,” he said. “I've had more than enough injuries (third time I broke something in my right hand for example) and seen it all in 19 years of law enforcement, but this time it was different.” I know I sure as hell would’ve been scared, too. Debilitation injury is one of my greatest fears.

That’s exactly why I find Daniel’s story so damned inspiring. Here’s a guy who’s suffered a freak injury, given a worst-case prognosis, and somehow, someway, manages to prove all his doctors wrong and make a (virtually) full recovery. The sheer amount of willpower that kind of comeback requires is amazing to me – and hopefully, if you’re rehabbing an injury, it’s inspiring to you, too.

Here’s the moral of the story: if you want to get strong(er), be more like Daniel, and start Thinking Stronger.