What's up, guys?
Sean Nalewanyj on www.SeanNal.com - www.RealScienceAthletics.com, and today I wanted to talk about something
a bit different.
Something I've never talked about before on the channel, and that is the fairly significant
injury that I've had for about seven years now.
And it's an injury that's had a pretty big effect on my training.
It's part of the reason why I don't upload lifting footage on YouTube, at least not right
now, since I can't really train the way that I want to.
And the reason why I wanted to address this is to just kind of give you guys some more
insight into myself and where I'm at, because I don't talk about myself a lot here, I mostly
just do informative content, and I also wanted to share some advice on how I've dealt with
that injury mentally just in terms of maintaining motivation and continuing to train in spite
of it.
Now, most people probably wouldn't guess this, but I've actually been lifting consistently
for almost 20 years now.
Longer than my teenage subscribers had even been alive.
I'm 32 and I started lifting when I was 13.
The first 10 years of my training were pretty smooth sailing for the most part aside from
just some minor injuries here and there, the kind of stuff that most lifters deal with
from time to time, shoulder tweak, some lower back discomfort, things like that, but about
seven years ago this random really weird injury happened that just never went away.
I'm still dealing with it now.
It was just a normal everyday push workout, I went in to train chest shoulders and triceps,
I started off with some dumbbell presses and then I went on to a machine press, and on
the first set all of a sudden, out of nowhere, both of my elbows just start popping on every
rep.
There was no sudden form slip up, I wasn't going heavy, there was no warning for this
whatsoever, but just on each rep right when my elbow would hit about 90 degrees on the
way up I'd get this sort of snapping, popping sensation in both elbows.
It wasn't overly painful but clearly something was off.
I honestly didn't think much of it at the time, I just figured you know I'll give it
some rest, maybe there's some tightness in there so I'll stretch, I'll get a lacrosse
ball in there and loosen it up and everything will be fine.
But a week goes by it's still there, another week still there, and now it's also starting
to get more painful as well.
So, I go and see a physiotherapist to get it looked at, they can't tell me what it is,
I go and see another one they can't tell me either.
So I just kept on training, I worked around it as best I could, and ultimately I ended
up seeing probably seven or eight different people to try and get some answers, I did
a bunch of stretching and foam rolling and mobility work, but unfortunately none of this
really did much of anything.
And then eventually by doing a bunch of digging online and a lot of research on my own I finally
figured out what it was, and it turns out that I have something called snapping triceps
syndrome.
You've probably never heard of it, it's a fairly uncommon injury, it's not understood
exactly what causes it but basically what happens is that when I flex and extend my
elbow a portion of the medial head of the tricep snaps back and forth over the elbow
joint, and then the ulnar nerve which also runs through that same area, that nerve snaps
along with it and that's the funny bone nerve, it's the nerve that controls the pinky and
the ring finger.
And that's why if I try to go heavy on pushing exercises not only is it painful but I also
get nerve symptoms as well, things like aching and tingling, and a bit of a numb feeling
in these two fingers.
But the bottom line is that unfortunately snapping triceps can only be cured fully through
surgery and it would probably cost around 6 to $8,000 per elbow to get it done, and
it would really put me out of commission for a while and probably take a year or so before
I'd be back to full strength.
And I'd also have to do each elbow separately spaced out by about a month or two each, so
that's going to prolong the recovery time even further.
At this point I'd say I'm pretty much 95% certain that I am gonna get the surgery at
some point, seven years is a long time to have this injury but I've just been working
around it over all these years, and I've also been really focused on my business, so fitness
hasn't been my main focus and so just maintaining has been fine with me and I wasn't even sure
if I wanted to go through with the surgery, so that's why I've left it all this time.
Earlier this year I tried to reach out to pretty much every orthopedic surgery clinic
in Canada that I could find, I did go and see somebody here in Vancouver for a consultation,
but unfortunately I haven't been able to find any surgeons in Canada that have operated
on this injury specifically, which is important to me because it's not a small surgery and
I need to feel 100% confident if I'm going to go ahead with it.
I do know of a few surgeons in the US but it's just too much of an undertaking right
now to try and set that all up.
I'm also planning to go traveling early next year which complicates things further, so
I do plan on getting the surgery eventually but it's just something that I've had to put
on the shelf for now until the time is right.
But as a result of this injury, I have not been able to do any free weight pressing whatsoever
for the past seven years.
No dumbbell presses, no bench press, no overhead press and I'm also really limited on triceps
as well, I can't do any close grip pressing, no narrow grip dips, no overhead extensions,
the only exercise I can really do for triceps are rope push downs if I angle myself just
right and I keep the loads on the more moderate side.
For chest what I can do are pressing movements using cables, for some reason that doesn't
cause the snapping.
Certain machine presses using moderate weight I can also do, and then I can do fly movements
as well.
And for shoulders lateral raises and face bowls are fine but no overhead pressing, again,
unless it's using cables.
And for somebody who's a bit of a perfectionist and who really does enjoy training, this injury
has been extremely frustrating for me at times.
To go from 130 pound flat dumbbell presses and 105 pound overhead dumbbell presses to
these just lightweight cable presses and these little fly movements and stuff, really sucks,
but I've just done the best I can.
And I've tried to stay as consistent as I can and to work around the injury and to just
try and not complain about it.
And fortunately even though I can't train the way that I want to in the gym, in terms
of muscle building aesthetics, the exercises that I can do have still been enough to keep
my chest and my delts and my triceps in a shape that I'm happy with.
Now, in terms of how I frame this all in my mind in order to keep going forward even with
a nagging injury like this, there's a few things that I find helpful.
The first thing is very simple, and that's to just accept the situation as it is and
accept that things are the way they are.
You can sit there and you can complain and wish it with some other way, or think you
know what if this or what if that, but ultimately the present moment is what it is.
This is how things happen to unfold and there's nothing you can do to change that.
And the only thing you can do is take the variables that are in front of you right now
and make the best decisions that you can moving forward.
But dwelling on it, feeling sorry for yourself, or whatever, that's not productive, so you
just have to step up pull your shoulders back and just press forward as best you can.
Secondly, what I find helpful is to actually think of it as sort of a challenge.
It's a lot easier to stay on track with things and strive for your goals when everything
is going perfectly smoothly and perfectly according to plan, but it's a lot harder to
keep focused and motivated when things aren't going your way.
And that's one of the main reasons why so many people fail to achieve their goals in
the long run, not just with fitness but with pretty much any area of life, because as soon
as one thing goes off track they get discouraged and they just end up slowly self-destructing.
So, I try to kind of frame it as a test that's being thrown at me and think most other people
are gonna quit when something like this happens, and the reason why I'm gonna succeed is because
I'm gonna handle it differently.
I'm not gonna go off course, I'm gonna do the very best with what I have in front of
me right now.
And ultimately when I do succeed, then it'll be even more satisfying knowing that I overcame
these certain roadblocks in order to get there.
Thirdly, is to just keep things in perspective and realize that even if you do have an injury,
if you're able to train, if you're able to go into the gym and push yourself and lift
and move your body and make progress, things could always be way, way worse.
So I just try to be grateful that I'm able to lift, period, and be thankful for the stuff
that I am able to do in the gym rather than focusing on what I can't do.
Because it's really all relative and if a situation arose where I wasn't able to lift
anymore at all, then I'd look back at my current situation and I'd give anything just to be
back here.
So as humans we tend to have this negativity bias where we focus on the things we lack
and then we just take for granted the things that we do have, so when you're injured I
think it's important to try and flip that around and actively look for the positives
in your situation rather than dwelling on the negatives.
Another thing is to just realize that you're not alone, because most people's training
isn't perfect, at least not in the long run.
If you're committing to this for the long haul and you're moving recently heavy weights,
and you're looking to build you know some decent muscle and strength, you're gonna have
injuries along the way, it's very rare to see a serious lifter out there who hasn't
struggled with some kind of injury at some point.
So it's easy to just look at other people and see their online highlight reel or look
at other people in the gym and just feel like everyone else is perfectly healthy and has
no issues they're dealing with, but that's obviously not the reality.
So if you're struggling with an injury, just remember that you aren't the only one.
It largely comes with the territory.
And most people are dealing with something in their own training and if not now then
they probably will at some point.
And then the last thing is to keep in mind that unless you're dealing with a really serious
injury, usually there is a way to work around things in the gym if you really put in the
time and effort to figure out how.
Now, if your goals are purely strength related then that's going to be a bit different, I
mean, in my situation, for example, with my elbow injury, there's no possible way for
me to do heavy free weight pressing right now.
But from a pure muscle building standpoint, there's a lot you can do to maintain your
gains and to even continue progressing even if you do have an injury of some kind.
For example, a cable press like I mentioned before, that might sound like kind of a wimpy
exercise but ultimately as long as you can put the targeted muscle under tension through
a decent range of motion using the right movement pattern and you can apply progressive overload
to that movement in some way, you're ultimately going to build muscle from it.
It might not be ideal but it will still produce results.
So try to find other exercise variations you can do without discomfort.
You can alter the range of motion a bit, you can use lighter weight and higher reps, you
can test out different angles, usually there is a way to get the job done if you just put
your mind to it.
Now, safety obviously comes first, so make sure to get things checked out, don't do anything
stupid in the gym, if there's pain and obviously you do need to scale back, but if you get
creative with your training then you should still be able to find a way to progress, or
at the very least maintain your gains while you get the injury treated.
So I'll leave it there, guys.
I hope this gave a bit of insight into my current situation and some mindset advice
that you can apply for yourself.
The bottom line here is don't expect your training to be perfect, don't expect your
life to be perfect for that matter, obstacles and setbacks and messiness are inevitable,
and you just kind of have to roll with the punches and deal with whatever variables are
in front of you for moment to moment in the best way that you can.
So I hope this was helpful.
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Thanks for watching, guys.
And I'll see you in the next video.