Several years ago, I wrote an article for elitefts™ titled “Train Through Pain.” The article rehashed a back injury I’d experienced and how I dealt with it. It also ended up getting posted on Bodybuilding.com. However, elitefts™ has a more hard-nosed audience than Bodybuilding.com. Of this, there isn’t any doubt. While I didn’t get any feedback on elitefts™ (I don’t think elitefts™ had a feedback medium at the time), within 48 hours I had an inbox full of straight hate mail from the posting on Bodybuilding.com.
Orthopedics, young guys, old guys, hurt guys, guys who had heard about a guy getting hurt, guys who had been hurt by what I wrote, and one girl—they all said that what I’d produced was irresponsible if not downright dangerous. My response was that the article was more of a motivational effort, a different approach to dealing with training around injuries. At the core, I didn’t really buy into this. I just wanted to smother the fires a bit and not be assassinated by a dude who hurt his back deadlifting. Seriously, I’m sure modern writers of the internet era are more than used to this kind of thing, but I had no idea the amount of pissed off people that were out there just waiting for someone to decapitate.
The truth was I’d never experienced a serious injury. I weighed 245 pounds. I had totaled 1500 pounds raw. I was 26 years old. Any injury I’d sustained went away in like ten days or miraculously healed after a pint of Jack. I trained with strong guys at a great gym. I went on lifting and rolling right through the tweaks and the strains. When my shoulder started hurting, I kept the weights heavy. I trained five to six times a week. If I lifted in the morning and things didn’t go well, I’d come back that afternoon and lift again. In hindsight, somewhere deep down I knew where this was going. It’s so easy to know what lies at the end of this path.
The problem is that when you’re the one walking it, you wear an irremovable pair of blinders. Do you think that dude who cheated on his wife and then lost both her and the kids in a divorce thought that’s where he’d end up one day? Think that’s what he set out to do that morning? Of course not. But I bet you saw it coming. A series of decisions brought him to that point, and you probably watched him make a bunch of ‘em to get there. We all know where certain sequences of decisions lead, especially when it comes to the decisions and actions taken by others. But it’s way harder to apply this type of clarity to our own paths in life.
It’s even harder when that path is something as seemingly harmless as lifting weights. Who’s gonna pull you aside and be like, “Hey buddy, you really need to lay off those weights. You know those things’ll ruin your life?” It isn’t like abusing a power rack carries the same risk of say blowing mountains of coke every day for years on end. But the principle itself remains true regardless of the application. The end result just looks a little different.
My training pedal remained punched to the floor with the windshield spray painted black. My shoulder passed the point of hurting. I got to where I couldn’t lift my arm up to drive a car. I kept lifting. I did incline benches instead of flat. When I couldn’t incline, I did strict standing presses. Finally, when I couldn’t military press a 45-lb bar, I went to the orthopedic for an MRI. Two of the four tendons that made up my rotator cuff were hanging by a thread. I was all of 28 years old. I never played baseball, and I’d never thrown anything heavier than a bitchin’ kegger in my entire life.
I passed on the surgical option and performed my own version of rehabilitation with Indian club swings and foam roller stretches. I started conditioning just because I couldn’t do anything else. Jim Wendler and 5/3/1 had obtained cult status about this time, so I bought the book and read. I could still squat and deadlift with minimal pain, but I even had to be careful with those. Training through pain in my situation would have led to a left arm amputation the way I was going. The blinders were at last removed now that I had pretty much wrapped the car around a telephone pole.
I’m now almost a year removed from the MRI and diagnosis. The guys I trained with have moved on. The gym I went to closed down. I used to have knee and back pain and a healthy dose of tendonitis in both elbows. I used to box squat with chains, chainsaws, bands, kettlebells, cowbells, bellboys, and any other crap we could find to hang from the bar. I used to do nothing but rack pulls to train my deadlift. I wore knee wraps, wrist wraps, lifting straps, and a belt to do a dumbbell row.
My training has since found its rightful path. I squat with knee sleeves and nothing else. I deadlift and military press with a belt. I use boxes to put stuff in. Bands are music groups that write and perform songs. Supplements and nitrous oxide amino inhibitors stopped affecting my strength level when I quit thinking they affected my strength level. I throw on wrist wraps for my last set of incline bench presses. Chains are used to pull trucks out of the mud. I threw my lifting straps in the trash. I eat when I get hungry. I train at a big stupid commercial gym in Atlanta and I don’t care. I weigh 220 pounds. I just turned 30 and I have a kid on the way. I don’t have lifting partners, spotters, heavy metal music to lift to, or anything remotely close to a motivating training environment.
I lift four days a week, three, if life requires it. It’s now simply the bar and me with a heavy dose of focus. I don’t bench or squat near what I used to, but that gap is closing by the week. I’m on track to deadlift 600 pounds by the end of July. I run up and down the hill in my neighborhood twice a week. I military press the same weight I did when I weighed 245 and benched 405 pounds and will surpass this in the next thirty days.
You must constantly learn and adapt. Sometimes you’re smart enough to do this on your own. More often though life forces your hand. Remove the blinders and take a good hard look at the path you travel. As surely as our time on this planet is finite, so too will your path take you to its eventual destination. In the weeks following my diagnosis, I was borderline depressed. Training was and still is a very important part of my life. The idea that it might come to an end was extremely tough to deal with.
In hindsight, that rotator cuff was a blessing in the truest sense. Not only did it allow me the opportunity to reprioritize what really matters in life, but it also put me on a path of patience and perseverance. Wendler’s 5/3/1 requires both and one’s success using the program requires nothing less. If you push too hard, it will push you right back down. The program isn’t about benching 500 lbs in eight weeks. It’s designed to blueprint your training for an entire lifetime. Be patient. Work hard. Leave your ego at home when necessary and your path toward raw strength will unfold in a straight line. Don’t lose a year or more going ninety miles an hour straight toward a brick wall.
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Though born with some of the worst genetics one could have for the sport of powerlifting—long limbs, chicken legs, and bad knees (all of which don't bode well for lifting heavy weights)—Brent Moody is absolutely hooked on powerlifting. His lifts are fairly modest compared to the big boys out there (475-lb squat, 400-lb bench, and 525-lb deadlift), but he’s fine with that because he isn't competing against those guys. He’s competing against himself. 
UNBELIEVABLY COOL AND SPOT ON
Great article. Thanks for taking the time write it.
Great article, always inspiring to hear how others have gotten through/around injuries. A serious ongoing bout of sciatica made me re-think my training and 5/3/1 is what I settled in to. Love it, the best advice ever is Wendler’s ‘start too light’.
What a great article! I am twenty-four and, after four dislocated shoulders and a back injury that kept me from training for about six months, I finally learned this very same lesson. Hopefully this article will remove the blinders for some trainee out there.
That is a good read right there, being in my early 50′s it took a long time for me to take the blinders off, I couldn’t nor should I lift like I was in my early 20′s again. Ego bruising that it was, every time I measured (tried to set PR’s constantly) I got injured, depressed and then drunk. On my 50th birthday I said enough of this shit, I started reading and educating myself on training, came across Wendler 5/3/1, bought it, read it 4-5 times and it sunk in my stubborn thick skull. What is crazy, I am slowly (that’s ok cause I’m old, slow is good in gaining back strength) climbing my way back to the strength levels I had when I was in my early 20′s. I recently attended two certification seminars and damn I was hanging with the young studs. I can relate to your closing, I lost years of training because of the pain associated with trying to get in “shape” again. Good news is the body is an amazing machine, it’s the mind that we have to work on constantly to get it right. Thanks for writing this.
I really like that about 5/3/1. Doing the three day split is keeping my body strong and while lifting heavy is stressful on the body, I get more than enough rest between the days. Good article man, that should be the best way of thinking about lifting if you’re planning on sticking with it in the long run. Lift smart.
Great article! Really enjoyed the read.
Glad to see you straightened it out …..
Reminds me of myself, especially the supplements. Replace the rotator cuff with abdominal surgery, and i was in the same place. IM getting ready to start 5-3-1 so this was a big encouragement for me.
Good Article, I’m turning 30 soon myself and just had this “epiphany” talk about my training life with my wife this past week…weird
>I used to box squat with chains, chainsaws, bands, kettlebells, cowbells, bellboys, and any other crap we could find to hang from the bar.
Awesome.
Some of the people on here might demand your head for ‘dissing’ all the various powerlifting gear / methods, but I really enjoyed this article. I’m a huge fan of 5/3/1 because of its simplicity. You lift things up and put them down and then you get stronger. You run up hills and push a prowler and you get awesomer. It just works.
Truth.
Great Job! I love the article. I used to do 5/3/1, but the group I lift with now, has me on something else. But I’m definitely a firm believer in it. I saw great results with it and my back grew like crazy. Keep it up!
Excellent.
Excellent article I can relate completely with a recent low back/hip injury. Squatting heavy 6 days a week for 5 months straight and although it worked amazing for awhile it eventually took its toll. I’m now doing 531 powerlifting as well and LOVE IT. Peace.
Well if you’re in Atlanta needing some training partners, I’m north of the perimeter, as are a few other guys training with some big weights, if you’re ever out that way feel free to join.
Awesome and timely article. I’m dealing with a recurrent back strain myself and am using Wendler’s 5/3/1 to train.Thanks for the article.
I thought this was a great article. Sums up a change of mindset I have had over the past 8 months or so…it takes a while to come to terms with it, but once you do life gets a whole lot better.
Great article. Thanks for putting it out there.
Can any one name a Elite level lifter that uses 5/3/1 program to peak them for a meet???
Same thing happened to my rotator cuff… I had to take a few months off but came back and surpassed all of my previous lifts, I got much leaner during the layoff too and am now stronger at a much lower b/f.
I had that very same mentality over the last year. I stopped playing Rugby fulltime because I wanted to be a Strongman. I gained 70lbs, increased all my lifts very significantly and just kept the pedal down now matter what was hurting. I wanted to make it to Amature Nationals (Nov 4,5). I finally got the invite and I felt like shite; knees, elbows, lower back…it was all painful. So I just stopped and took at look at my situation. I do what I do beacuse its fun. I have goals and I want to be as strong as possible, but I also want to be able to play a rouge game of flag football when it arises. And hell, get outa bed without having to sit back down. Overall health should never be a trade-off to reach a goal. So Im dropping a few L-Bs and feeling better. Kinks are going away and get this, strength is going up! Listen to your body, its smarter than you are!
Thanks for the article Brent. Are you able to provide any more information on how you run the prgram – assistance template, conditiioning, did you push the last set hard etc. I really like the program and always like to hear any advice from those who have run it successfully.
Thanks
Dan
Great read!!
good article. I remember reading your original article (rolling my eyes) and thinking ‘this mans never actually been injured”.
This was a great article. Thanks.
Awhile back I wanted to build a solid strength based. I figured that Powerlifters and Strongman where the strongest people in the world so why not learn from them. Then I found 5/3/1. It is perfect for someone like me (36, noncompeting, family, carrier engineer, etc). When I first read 5/3/1 I was confused as to why there was no band or chain work. It seemed overly simple. I felt that seeing this book was written from a powerlifters point of view it would “look” more like what I see on youtube (I know, I am ignorant). Now I understand. This article has confirmed I am on the right path. The reality is unless you are a pro Powerlifter it does not make sense to kill yourself in the gym. Work hard, yes, but do so safely while using you brain. I have a wife, children, and a boss who expect and rely on me to make it to work and be able to function and do my job. Add to this typical house work. If I get injured I am screwed. It is bad enough I walk funny after my squat day.
Even if your (raw) total is only a little over 1000, you are still stronger then just about everyone around you (unless you only hang with powerlifters and strongman lol). Almost 1 year down doing 5/3/1 (with great results), can wait to see what this next year brings.
Great article. 5-3-1 is by far my favorite program. It was hard to sink in that I didn’t need to be in the gym for 3 hours straight to get results. 5-3-1 showed me that. Thanks for sharing your life lesson. Good Luck to the future!
Great article Brent! While my totals were never close to yours, I trained with a (looking back at it now) silly, single mindedness, with virtually no progress. I discovered “functional strength” training, foam rolling and active and dynamic stretching 3 years ago, and it was clearly the best thing I could have done. A few programs later, and I am now a HUGE fan of 5-3-1. The simplicity and directness of it have been a godsend! I have improved my lifts, gained some size and learned new ways to get strong and be awesome. Best of luck with your next phase of getting strong and being a dad!!
Mwstrtong:
Jim Wendler
Hi.
How did you get on with the indian club swings, did they help your shoulders. Do you still use them. Interesting article. Thanks.
About 2 years ago I got a copy of 5/3/1 and became a true believer. I have gained a ton of raw strength and helped me get to the next level in my sport, Timbersports. The program has kept me injury free and consistently getting strong(er). Thanks Jim!
Simon,
i bought a set off the internet then watched youtube videos to learn some exercises. I believe they are a key reason i was able to press again. They strengthen the tendons while simultaneously increasing the mobility and flexibility of the shoulders. I use them before any pressing exercise as a warm-up. No stretching, just club swings. i used to just stand in front of the tv and swing them for minutes at a time.
Dan,
Day 1: Incline bench 5/3/1; face pulls; tricep pushdowns supersetted with push-ups
Day 2: Squat 5/3/1; good mornings, lunges
Day 3: Standing press 5/3/1; weighted pull-ups; dumbbell bench press
Day 4: Deadlift 5/3/1; abs
I’ve tried a million different variations of assistance work but this is the selection and split that seems to work best for me. I run hills two days a week. I only push one of the pressing exercises at a time. One cycle i’ll go for reps on standing press and do only prescribed on incline then switch it back the next. hope this helps.
Congrats Brent. And thank you for writing this article.
I agree with Jim’s sentiments…congrats, and thank you for sharing your story.