I’m currently in meet prep for the 2016 XPC Finals at the Arnold Sports Festival on March 5th, in Columbus, Ohio. I will be competing at 132 pounds, raw with knee wraps.

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Saturday marked the two weeks out point. My plan going into the session was to take my openers on squat and deadlift, and also take a reverse band with an approximate of my second attempt for each.

As a whole, things felt heavy, but the speed and how things looked were pretty good...up until my final deadlift. On my final pull, I managed to tweak something in my lower back. I have no idea what exactly I did, but I do know that there was no audible noise, pop, or anything like that. Basically as soon as the bar started to leave the ground, I had an immediate acute pain (not shooting) in my low back down by my L4/L5-S1 area. It just caused me to quit pulling immediately and basically my low back had a locked up feeling. Basically, I think I threw my back out. I proceeded on to see what all movements I could and couldn't do, and I actually did have the ability to do quite a few movements, but there was just general pain in almost anything that I did that had a slight degree of lumbar flexion. I knocked out some glute ham raises, reverse hyper for some decompression, and some planks for some light ab work and just decided to cut my losses. While none of the above caused any pain, I just knew that I needed to start rehab immediately.

I made some phone calls to some teammates on immediate steps that needed to be done, and proceeded (you can see that below). This is the first immediate injury I've ever had while training. The next closest thing was a grade 2 MCL tear in my right knee during my wrestling tenure. I know that it comes with the territory of training and trying to become a strong ass powerlifter, so it's just part of the process. Luckily, I do believe that I can be ready to still go for XPC's, I'm just really going to have to work my ass off on recovery at this point.

By no means is this what I had expected (especially my final deadlift of damn prep). But, without disappointment, you can't appreciate victory. I will be keeping my training log up to date each day of what I am doing to resolve the solution so that I can be good to go come meet day.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr8h2ruguZA]

Items Used in this Training Session
Micro Mini Bands
Maverick Knee Wraps
Krait Knee Wraps
Light Bands

Warm Up
Reverse Hyper - 3x15
Standing Cable Crunch - 3x15

A1) Squat
65x10
155x5
245x3
295x2
335x1
385x1
425x1
475x1 - add Maverick Knee Wraps
500x1 - add Krait Knee Wraps
525x1 - add reverse micro bands

B1) Sumo Deadlift
135x5
185x3
245x2
295x1
335x1
385x1
415x1
445x1
485x1
515xMISS - add reverse light bands

C1) GHR
3 sets of near failure

D1) Reverse Hyper
3x20

E1) Plank
3x60 sec

REHAB

30 min of ice
Contrast shower and 5 min of spot contrast on low back
Ibuprofen and Fish Oil (double)
60 min of stim