There's Always Something You Can Do

I’m a Filipino dude, and needless to say, I’m a shorty. Last time I checked, I was a shade under 5’6”. But I’ve always liked to jump, and surprisingly for a short guy I can jump pretty high. But not high enough to touch a basketball rim. For years I would always be an inch or two from touching it, but never closer. I stopped trying to touch the rim after I got into triathlons. And since getting vertical isn’t a priority for a triathlete, I stopped jumping. Although I could still jump high despite all the mileage I logged biking and running.

In the last few years I haven’t been racing and training much in triathlons, and I wanted get back to things I stopped doing during my pursuit of triathlons. So last year, I was tried a program to improve my vertical jump. What spurred on the interest was a previous program I was trying to help increase my strength. At the end of the program I decided to jump for the hoop for shits and giggles, and to my surprise, I touched it for the first time in my life. I thought “well shit, if a strength training program got me to this point, imagine what a specific jump training program will do for me.”

I got all gung ho about it. I was picturing myself flying through the air like Spud Webb and throwing down the ball. I wanted to bounce around like a kangaroo and leap tall buildings like Superman. Unfortunately, my dreams of soaring the skies died pretty quick.

It was week 2 of the program and I was performing deadlifts at the start of my session. It was at a manageable weight, about 205 lbs. I’ve pulled that weight many times before so I figured it would be a piece of cake.

Nope. Not sure what I did, I must’ve pulled funny because I felt a little twinge in my low back. But stupid me, instead of stopping right there, I decided to finish off the set and do 5 more reps. The next day I couldn’t bend over, even for the simplest things. That put a damper on my training. Deadlifts were definitely out of the question and squats couldn’t be done either, even front squats. The slightest bend forward with load would bring about pain in the lower back.

What was I to do? I love deadlifting and squatting, and not being able to perform them was kind of depressing. Most people in this situation would end up quitting. But I knew there was a way around it, so I experimented. Any kind of bend at the hips was out of the question, especially when under load. So I had to keep my torso upright the entire time. What exercise would allow me to do that?

Split Squats!

This exercise was a godsend for me. It allowed me to work my legs hard without putting any undue stress on my lower back. And I could do variations on it. Check out some of the variation below:

Dumbbell Split Squats

Bulgarian Split Squats

Barbell Split Squats (back)

Barbell Split Squats (clean grip)

The only variation I didn’t perform was with the bar on my back, as I still had a slight bend forward. Otherwise, I was able to work around my injured back. It took about 6 weeks until I was able to perform regular deadlifts again.

Anyway, the point of this article is that no matter what injury you have, there are ways to work around it. Injuries can happen to the best of us. Whether you strain your back like I did, pulled your hammy while running, sprained your ankle, or suffered a fracture, there’s always something you can do.

Obviously there are things to avoid, but it doesn’t mean you can’t train. Broke a finger? Work the other arm. Sprained your ankle? Focus on upper body training instead.

Yeah, it sucks that you can’t do what you want to do, but you can’t mope about it. Moping isn’t going to help you heal any faster. Besides, by focusing on something else, it will help expand your training vocabulary if you will. You’ll be trying things you’ve never tried before and just might enjoy it.

Oh, and if you’re wondering if I ever grabbed the rim, well I had to put that on hold. When my back felt better and I was ready to kill it in the gym again, my wife gave birth to our baby boy. And since then I could care less if I grabbed the rim or not. My boy, my family has got my attention. One day I’ll get back it, just not now.