The Road Back to the Platform....

Every athlete has had a day when they felt they where on top of the world. Weather you compete at a national level or just in your hometown, You competed at an event and you did exactly what you had planned out. All those weeks of sacrifice and effort have paid off! You go home and are already planning for your next meet. As you get into the next training cycle everything is feeling great, your gaining good momentum and the weights are feeling lighter than ever... Then all of a sudden POP.... That dreaded sound and feeling of a muscle tearing... That was me June of last year. I was in the gym on my "light" squat day. I was doing sets of 5 on the squat with only 425 on the bar, at that time my max was about 540. I was on my fourth set 3 reps in when and went down for my fourth when it happened. My left Adductor Magnus tore and I dumped the weight.

After first checking that nobody was under the weight i limped over to box and sat down trying to figure out how bad it was. The pain was not terrible, I've had worse. After a few days the swelling had gone down and I was feeling around to figure out exactly were the tear was. Then I felt it, a huge gap where my adductor should be attached. What I thought was a tear was actually a partially detached muscle. I thought to myself okay, I've been through much worse than this. I planned out a recovery program and was going to put it into action. Then by chance I met a doctor and the gym and he said he'd check out my injury.

I was correct in my assessment that it was a partial tear of the Adductor Magnus. What he told me then was that I should completely rest it for at 90 days!! I took his advice... In retrospect that was the worst advice I had ever received! After about 6 weeks of immobility, scar tissue stated building up. What was just slightly painful began to become increasingly worse. The scar tissue was pressing on a nerve and it was painful to sit down for more than a few minutes at a time. The road back to the platform was further away than I thought....

Months went by with little to no progress. I was stretching aggressively and getting massage and ultrasound therapy as much as my budget would allow. In all honesty, I think the biggest factor in my slow recovery was a subconscious fear. My glute/ham area still felt very tight and would be sore for days after every squat and deadlift day. As time went by the pain lessened. It's been 9 months know and I'm finally free of pain! I had not gone anywhere near a max since last year and had no idea how much strength I had lost.

I was Invited by Spero Tshontikidis to come out and do the RAW United nationals, although I was not planning on doing this meet having made plans of my first meet back being the Florida State Championships in May. I tested my lifts this weekend and was not too unhappy with a 430 squat and 540 deadlift. I know I have a lot more in the tank because I got those numbers going up in small jumps. I must have done 8 to 10 sets by the time I finished. LOL

In the next installment of The Road Back to the Platform I'll outline the training strategy we're using as well as how it went at the RAW United nationals.

Until then keep training!!

Danny Aguirre
Ranked 9th in the 181 raw deadlift 2007 PowerliftingWatch.com
APA 181 raw World Record holder.
Ranked in top 100 Powerlifting USA lifting raw. 2004/ 2006