10-Minute Tip #29: 4 Tips to Keep Barbell Training After Leg Surgeries or Injuries

10-Minute Tip #29: 4 Tips to Keep Barbell Training After Leg Surgeries or Injuries

Injuries are unavoidable, and sometimes you may end up with an injury or surgery that leaves you non-weight bearing. You may think you must stop all powerlifting while recovering from injuries or surgeries affecting your legs. However, we encourage you to modify your movements and mindset to continue your barbell training without interruption.

Common injuries and surgeries that may affect your ability to barbell train are quad and Achilles tendon repairs, labral repairs or FAI surgery, ACL reconstructions, knee scopes, or even ankle sprains or fractures. All injuries vary in the length of time it takes to fully heal from them, how much weight you can bear through the limb, and your movement ability at each leg joint.

However, this does not mean you have to stop training, it simply means you have to find a way to continue to train as best as possible. 

When designing a powerlifting program to accommodate a leg injury or surgery, we need to consider a few things:

  1. Can you bear weight through the affected leg?

  2. Are you able to bend your knee?

  3. Is it safe for you to maneuver weight plates yourself?

  4. What equipment do you have access to besides a power rack, barbell, and weight plates?

Considering all this, we can formulate a training program that allows us to continue training the upper and lower body with little interruption after a significant injury or surgery to one of your legs.

In this 10-Minute Tip Podcast episode, we discuss specific modifications to powerlifting and barbell training for all of these scenarios.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

  1. 56 Alternatives to Barbell Train Around Mobility or Injury Limitations (Article)

 

GET IN TOUCH WITH THE SHOW!


Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: [00:00:00] Alright, guys, welcome back to the Progressive Rehab & Strength podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Rori Alter, head clinical coach here at Progressive Rehab & Strength, with my lovely co-host back here on the podcast, Dr. Alyssa Haveson. In this 10 Minute Tip episode, we are talking about ways to train with one leg. The reason we're talking about this is because as physical therapists and as strength coaches, powerlifting barbell coaches, et cetera, we work with people who have had injuries or surgeries that they are either non-weight bearing or unable to evenly train their lower body or upper body lifts with the involvement of one or both legs. Oftentimes we deal with a lot of clients who might have this mindset that when you injure one area of your body, that's it. You have to wait until it's healed before you can train. We might have someone who has ACL reconstructions and quad or Achilles tendon repairs or a rotator cuff surgery or a hand surgery or elbow surgery. I mean, obviously, I guess that's basically the whole lower limb, I mean, the whole body.

Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC: [00:01:29] Yeah, the elbow.

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: [00:01:32] Even hip surgeries, whether it's a labrum repair, a tear, fii surgery, et cetera. If any surgery to any part of your limb or any injury, such as skin injuries, you know, we see a lot of skin injuries with hands in barbell training, there might be a period of time where you cannot involve one or more limbs in your training. In this episode, we're going to talk about quickly ways that you can modify your training for a lower extremity injury to keep training your other limb or some area of involvement of both limbs and your both lower limbs and your upper body. I don't know, I feel like we should stop using the timer because we always go too far beyond ten minutes. But I guess if we didn't use a timer, we'd take way, way more than an hour. I know, right? These would just be our episodes. All right. So for those of you who are watching on YouTube, I've got our ten minute timer here and I'm going to go hit start. So Alyssa, let's say someone has an Achilles tendon repair, quad repair, ACL reconstruction, or hip surgery where they or a fracture something in their leg where they cannot bear weight or they cannot bend their knee or hip too. So non-weight bearing and can't bend the knee or the hip. How might we continue to train the squat movement or the deadlift movement?

Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC: [00:03:19] Yeah. So I think this is a really good question, especially when we're considering somebody who really cannot bear weight on that leg, because when we're talking about a single leg exercise, there's different levels of of concern we might have. Do we want to be in a position where we could lose balance and have to put that leg down? Those are things that we have to consider and have to be careful of. We might not be able to just go directly to something where you are balancing. So, in this scenario, especially if we're talking about a squat movement, I would say a single leg press is a really safe place to start, especially early on in the rehab process. When we are non-weight bearing, you can still use that other leg. You can move through a decent range of motion and not risk losing balance. Standing on the other side, you know, and then if you are able to balance, that's when we want to have something next to the person. It's not going to want to just be in space hoping that we're going to be able to catch ourselves.

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: [00:04:25] So I think for the balancing aspect, if we can do something in standing weight bearing on the other leg, we have to consider does the knee bend? Can the knee bend? Because if we can't bend it, so if it was a quad repair or an ACL reconstruction and we're trying to do a Bulgarian split squat, where are you going to put that leg if you can't bend it? Could you put it up on a bench in front of you? Possibly. But we have to consider hamstring length and all that kind of stuff, which might be irritated or not available when you're in a brace. So, for when we can't bend the knee, absolutely I say leg press, but if we're able to bend the knee, then we can put the foot up on something behind us and we can do a Bulgarian split squat. I think that would be really good. But again, always having something to balance on. Before we move on, just something to consider is that when you can't bear weight on a leg, you can't carry weights, you can't carry plates to load a bar or to load a plate loaded machine. We're going to be thinking more dumbbells. If you're going with that leg press, if your gym only has a plate loaded machine, you're going to need a training partner or just ask someone to load the plates for you. I would default to a pin loaded machine for the leg press instead of a plate loaded, because if you're alone and you can't walk around with both legs and hold the plate with two hands, you just want to consider safety more than anything else, because if you fall and you are newly post-surgical, one of the biggest things post-surgical in those first couple of weeks is really protecting the site. So, anything else regarding the squat for lower limb?