Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How Dangerous Is Weightlifting? What 20 Studies Have to Say

Episode Date: June 22, 2018

Many people think weightlifting is inherently dangerous, and I understand why. When you compare deadlifting, squatting, and bench pressing gargantuan amounts of weight to other forms of exercise, like jogging, cycling, or calisthenics, weightlifting looks more like a death wish than a discipline. Poke around on Internet forums and you’ll find plenty to feed your anxiety. Personal stories range from the tame--mild joint and muscle aches and the like--to the downright horrific and debilitating, with some long-time bodybuilders so incapacitated that they can’t even tie their shoes until the ibuprofen kicks in. If that isn't enough, there's plenty of video evidence, too. I’ll save your eyes (and appetite), but trust me--serious weightlifting injuries can be particularly gruesome. And so weightlifting, and strength training in particular, has been saddled with a bum rap for decades now. Thankfully, the tides are changing and strength training is gaining more and more mainstream popularity, but many people still think that the dangers of weightlifting far exceed the benefits. Well, as you’ll soon see in this podcast, while weightlifting does have its "dangers," they’re not nearly as bad as many people think. Ironically, research shows that it’s actually one of the safest kinds of exercise you can do...when it’s done properly. That, my friends, is the catch. When done incorrectly--and there are many ways to mess it up--weightlifting can become very dangerous, very fast. So, if you want to understand what science really says about the dangers of weightlifting, the benefits it has to offer most everyone, and how to do it as safely as possible, then let's dive in. 5:26 - How likely is it to get injured with weightlifting? 8:46 - What are the benefits of weightlifting? 11:00 - How do you avoid weightlifting injuries? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

you're about six to ten times more likely to get hurt playing everyday sports than hitting the gym for some heavy weightlifting the payoff for weightlifting is tremendous as well because it delivers a number of health and fitness benefits that you simply cannot get from other types of sports and exercise. Hey, Mike Matthews here from Muscle for Life and Legion Athletics, and welcome to another episode of my glorious podcast. This time we're going to be talking about the dangers, or at least the supposed dangers of weightlifting. So if you've heard that weightlifting is dangerous, and especially heavy weightlifting, oh, that's very dangerous.

And if you want to know what science has to say about this, then this podcast is for you. So the assumption that many people have that weightlifting is inherently dangerous is understandable. When you compare deadlifting, squatting, and bench pressing, huge amounts of weight to other forms of exercise like jogging or cycling or calisthenics, yeah, weightlifting looks more like a death wish than a discipline. And if you go on the internet and you poke around on forums and so forth, you will find plenty of things to feed your anxieties. plenty of things to feed your anxieties. You can find personal stories that range from the tame, you know, mild joint and muscle aches and the like to the downright horrific and

debilitating with some longtime bodybuilders so incapacitated that they can't even tie their shoes until the ibuprofen kicks in. And if that's not enough, there's plenty of video evidence out there as well. I would recommend that you don't go looking for it to save your eyes and appetite, but trust me, serious weightlifting injuries can be particularly gruesome. And so weightlifting and strength training in particular has been saddled with a bum rap for decades now. Thankfully, however, the tides are changing and strength training is gaining more and more mainstream popularity, but many people still think that the dangers of weightlifting far exceed the benefits and especially people who are in their thirties and forties and beyond.

who are in their 30s and 40s and beyond. Well, what you will soon learn in this podcast is that while weightlifting does have its dangers, they are not nearly as bad as many people think. Ironically, research shows that weightlifting is actually one of the safest kinds of exercise that you can do. Of course, that's when it's done properly, which is the big catch. When weightlifting is done improperly, when it's done incorrectly, poor form, poor programming, there are many ways to mess weightlifting up. Yes, then it can become very dangerous, very fast. So if you want to understand what science really says about the dangers of weightlifting, the benefits it has to offer most everyone, and how to do it as safely as possible, then you want to keep listening to this podcast. This is where I would normally plug a sponsor to pay the bills, but I'm not big on

promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm just going to quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my 100% natural fat loss supplement, Phoenix. It has sold over 100,000 bottles in the last several years, and it helps you lose fat faster in three ways. One, it increases your metabolic rate. Two, it amplifies the power of fat burning chemicals produced by your body. And three, it increases the feeling of fullness from food. In short, it speeds up your metabolism. It helps your body burn fat more efficiently, and it helps you control hunger and cravings and maintain high

energy levels. Phoenix also contains no artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk. And all that is why it has over 700 reviews on Amazon with a four star average and another 250 reviews on my website with a four and a half star average. So if you want to burn more fat every day and have an easier time sticking to your diet without having to pump yourself full of harsh stimulants or potentially harmful chemicals, full of harsh stimulants or potentially harmful chemicals, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Phoenix today. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps,

use the coupon code podcast at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order. And lastly, you should also know that I have a very simple 100% money back guarantee that works like this. You either love my stuff or you get your money back, period. You don't have to return the products. You don't have to fill out forms. You don't have to jump through any other hoops or go through any other shenanigans. So you really can't lose here head over to www.lesionathletics.com now place your order and see for yourself why my supplements have thousands of rave reviews all over the internet

and if for whatever reason they're just not for you contact us and we will give you a full refund on the spot all righty that is enough shameless plugging for now at least. Let's get to the show. All right, so let's start with the big question on many people's minds. How likely are you to get injured with weightlifting? Now, there's a saying in sports, especially in competitive, high-level sports, that you're always between injuries. And that might sound a bit morbid and pessimistic to you, but there is a kernel of truth there anybody that has played sports very competitively for any period of time knows that injuries eventually occur even if they're only mild and weightlifting is no exception to this

rule if you do it seriously for long enough you can count on having to deal with at least problems of the nagging variety, you know, some tendinitis, some joint pain, some excessive muscle tightness. Anyone that has spent a fair amount of time in the gym has experienced these things and it's just part of the game. That said, research does show that bodybuilding is one of the safest sports, if you want to call it that, that you can quote unquote play. So for example, in one review of 20 studies, scientists found that on average, bodybuilding produced just one injury for every 1000 hours of training. And to put that in perspective, if you spend five hours per week weightlifting, you could go almost four years without experiencing any kind of injury whatsoever.

Researchers also noted that most of the injuries tended to be minor aches and pains that didn't require any type of special treatment or recovery protocols. In most cases, rest with a bit of ice and heat was all that it took. Now, as we move into more intense and technically demanding types of weightlifting like CrossFit, Olympic weightlifting, and powerlifting, the injury rate did rise, but not nearly as much as you might think. These activities produced just two to four injuries per 1,000 hours of training. activities produced just two to four injuries per 1,000 hours of training. And for the sake of comparison, studies have shown that sports like ice hockey, football, soccer, and rugby have injury rates ranging from six to 260 per 1,000 hours. And long distance runners can expect about 10 injuries per 1,000 hours of pavement pounding. So in other words, you're about 6 to

10 times more likely to get hurt playing everyday sports than hitting the gym for some heavy weightlifting. The payoff for weightlifting is tremendous as well because it delivers a number of health and fitness benefits that you simply cannot get from other types of sports and exercise. and fitness benefits that you simply cannot get from other types of sports and exercise. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram

at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. Twitter at Muscle for Life and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. give you greater insulin sensitivity. It can enhance your heart health, improve your brain health, give you greater longevity and a better quality of life, higher bone density, lower risk of fracture, increased metabolic rate, and improved flexibility. And that's not an exhaustive list either. Those are the highlights. So when you compare all of that to the rather negligible risk of injury and the generally mild nature of most of the injuries that occur, I think the choice here is very clear. Choosing to lift weights is far better than choosing not to out of fear of getting hurt. The reality is if your number one goal in life is to experience no physical injuries or discomforts or pains whatsoever, then your only surefire option is to never leave your bed. Of course,

until your body wastes away and then you suffer from the ultimately deadly effects of sedentary living. So, I mean, if you think about it, every time you step into your car, you take the stairs instead of the elevator or even type on a computer, you are flirting with injury to one degree or another. I mean, dealing with risk is just a part of life. All we can do is weigh the probabilities and the potential upsides and downsides and make choices that are most likely to play out in our favor over time and then do everything we can to create positive outcomes. Now, I mentioned earlier that my enthusiasm isn't for weightlifting per se, but weightlifting that is done safely and intelligently because if you're going about your training properly, you can be squatting hundreds of pounds every week and have healthier joints and a lower

risk of injury than a guy who just walks his dog around the block a few times per week. If you go about it recklessly though, then every time you step in the gym, yes, you are asking for trouble. So let's look at the major differences between these two approaches. Let's look at how to best avoid weightlifting injuries. Now, contrary to what many people think, many weightlifting injuries are not caused by training too intensely, but by failing to fully recover from previous workouts. Sure, you can find people that have ripped a pec while benching or a bicep while curling or, you know, who have collapsed while squatting underneath a bending barbell or who have jackhammered their lower back with a heavy pull.

But these worst case scenarios rarely happen. The reality is most weightlifting injuries are insidious and they give you plenty of time to change course before the bottom falls out. You know, your knee feels a little stiff the day after your heavy squats, you shrug it off and you keep going. A few weeks later, it's starting to hurt while you squat and no pain, no gain, you say, and you keep going. A few more weeks go by and well, now your knee just hurts all the time. a few more weeks go by and well now your knee just hurts all the time and these types of injuries are called repetitive stress injuries or rsis and they are the absolute bane of every athlete everywhere these are the things that are not painful enough to keep you on the sidelines but cause just enough trouble to hinder progress. And fortunately, the solution is very simple for

these types of injuries. And it's just rest. A bit of rest is usually all it takes. Because once an RSI has set in, studies show that the only way to get through it is to avoid the activity that caused it. And that means avoiding certain exercises or in some cases training certain muscle groups altogether. I myself have experienced this a few times. A couple years ago I was getting some biceps tendonitis on my right biceps. And this was really probably the first RSI that I had experienced that was enough to prevent me from doing certain exercises. And that's just what I did. It wasn't actually even curling that was the issue. It was more pressing, especially inclined barbell pressing. So I didn't incline barbell press for a while.

I did a lot of flat dumbbell pressing. I did a lot of chest flies. And I also worked with a physical therapist and worked with a massage therapist because I had a lot of chest flies. And I also worked with a physical therapist and worked with a massage therapist because I had a lot of tightness on my right side, tightness in my neck, things that were contributing to the biceps tendonitis. And it took about six months. I was still able to train and yeah, maybe I didn't make as good of progress as I could have if I didn't have the injury, but I was able to continue making some progress. I was able to completely maintain my physique, still enjoy my workouts and get rid of the biceps tendonitis. And now I'm back to my normal routine and I can press without any pain and I don't have

any residual discomfort after workouts and so forth. And that is the smart thing to do. I got there because I was not being smart. I, just as I mentioned, I had the signs. I was getting tightness in my neck. I was starting to get tightness was referring down into my, into my shoulder area. This was after my heavy pressing workouts, which was then referring down to the biceps tendon. I thought it might just go away because I hadn't experienced it previously. It did not go away. It just got worse until I stopped aggravating it and gave it a little bit of help to recover. Now, I mentioned earlier that if you spend enough time in the gym, you are probably going to experience one of these types of things

to one degree or another, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't take preventative actions to stave them off for as long as possible. And I want to share a few of these that work. So one is if it hurts, don't do it. No pain, no gain is fake news. And you know, this sounds like common sense, but common sense isn't really all that common as we all know. So the rule here is simple. If something hurts, just stop doing it immediately. Now I'm not talking about muscle soreness here, right? I'm not talking about lactic acid buildup, the burn that you feel when you're doing high rep stuff. I'm talking about pain. If a rep hurts enough to make you wince, that means you need to stop right away. Pain is a warning that something

is wrong. And if you don't listen to that warning, you are asking for trouble. So when you hit pain, stop, rest for a couple of minutes, and then try the exercise again. If it still hurts, do something else and come back to it next time you are programmed for it and see how it goes. If it's still a problem, then do a substitution instead. Don't think that you have to do any exercise, even if it hurts. And I don't care how important that exercise is to your program. I don't care if it's the squat or the deadlift or the overhead press or bench press. If it hurts, do not do it. Work around it and only come back to it when it doesn't hurt. Now, if you aren't sure if something qualifies as pain or just

the normal discomfort of training, then just ask yourself two questions. The first question is, is the pain on both sides of my body or just one? When you perform exercises correctly, both sides of your body are fairly equally subjected to stress. Therefore, if one side is starting to hurt more than the other, it's more likely to be a sign of pain that requires stopping rather than just muscle burn or fatigue. And the second question is, is the pain concentrated around a joint? And this is important because these are the types of pains that you're most likely to encounter because muscle strains and muscle tears are just very uncommon. Aches and stiffness generally go away if you warm up properly but genuine joint pains will not and

in fact they will even get worse so when these things do happen simply rest the affected joints until the pain is completely gone again to share my personal experience here i've had knee aches on and off for a couple years now and they usually come toward the end of training blocks. I'm still training pretty intensely these days, lifting a fair amount of weight. So when I come off of a deload or a rest week, I don't have any issues with my joints, but usually toward the end of the mesocycle, when my body is needing a break, I'll notice it first in my joints. That's always been one of the first things I've noticed when it's time to deload is some stiffness in my knees. Sometimes I'll feel a little bit of stiffness, a little bit of achiness in my shoulders, and then deload or take a week off and come back and be totally fine.

Okay, so my next tip for avoiding injuries of all kinds as effectively as possible is to make sure that you are progressing gradually. One of the easiest ways to get hurt in your weightlifting is simply getting greedy. Maybe you're feeling particularly strong one day, or maybe you want to impress or one-up someone in the gym or just move that progressive overload needle a bit faster so you load the bar with a weight that makes your spidey senses tingle. Yeah, that's almost always a bad idea because it increases the likelihood that your form will break down and that can place more stress on your joints and ligaments than they can handle. And it can also increase the likelihood that you'll fall behind in recovery. And depending on the exercise, sometimes all it takes are slight imperfections in form or slight breakdowns in

form to lead to, I wouldn't say severe injuries, but lead to injuries that take several weeks to get over. A much smarter and ultimately more effective approach to progression is one that is slow and steady. So if you're new to weightlifting and you can add five pounds to your big lifts every week or two, for example, at least for the first several months, that's great. If you are an experienced weightlifter, intermediate or advanced weightlifter, and let's say you're on a proper lean bulk, then I would say gaining just one rep per week, which means of course you're adding weight every few weeks on your big lifts at least, is good progress. often i find on my lean bulks that i will progress on my big lifts more or less at that pace which i'm always doing first in my workouts when i'm freshest

because they require the most energy and then often i won't progress much on my isolation work at the end of my workouts because i've used a lot of energy up on those compound lifts. And especially if I'm progressing on those heavy compound lifts, that's of course making my workouts progressively harder and harder, especially those beginning portions of the workouts are getting progressively harder and harder, which means that it's even harder to progress on the exercises later in my workouts. And that's okay. My next injury avoidance tip is be a stickler for good form. So if you want to know one weird trick for immediately increasing your whole body strength by at least 10%, here it is. Use

shitty form. Cheat on your reps. It's an easy way to add weight to the bar, but of course, it also reduces the quality of the training and increases the risk of injury. And of course that was sarcasm. Please do not do that because remember that the goal when you perform a resistance training exercise isn't to just haphazardly lift as much weight as possible, but to carefully control it through a full range of motion. This not only protects you from injury, but it also makes each and every rep exercise and workout that you do maximally effective and maximally conducive to muscle and strength gain. This is especially important with the compound exercises that I've

been talking about, like the squat, deadlift, and bench press, because while these exercises are not inherently dangerous exercises, they do generally involve the heaviest weights and the most technical skill. And that's why there's a very big difference between cheating on the last rep or two of something like your dumbbell curls or lateral raises versus a barbell pull or press. So the takeaway here is very simple. Do not sacrifice form for the sake of progression. Instead, learn proper form for every exercise that you do and stick to it. So the bottom line here is that weightlifting is simply not as dangerous as many people think. In fact, it is generally one of the safest sports and safest types of exercise you can get into.

It is less dangerous, for example, than hitting the soccer field or running trails. That said, it must also be approached responsibly. You have to respect your body and you have to respect what you are demanding of it and realize that it's almost always reckless weightlifting that leads to the haunting types of injuries that make many people afraid to even touch a barbell. So while you can expect your fair share of mild muscle and joint aches and pains as you progress as a weightlifter, and especially as you rack up years and years of training, you can also on the whole remain very healthy and very injury free. So long as you don't try to push through pain, you don't try to rush progression and you don't compromise on your form.

Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies.

Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback. So please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.

And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in, so instead I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine. Specifically, my 100% natural fat loss supplement, Phoenix. It has sold over 100,000 bottles in the last several years, and it helps you lose fat faster in three ways. One, it increases your metabolic rate. Two, it amplifies the power of fat burning chemicals produced by your body. And three, it increases the feeling of fullness from

food. In short, it speeds up your metabolism. It helps your body burn fat more efficiently, and it helps you control hunger and cravings and maintain high energy levels. Phoenix also contains no artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk. And all that is why it has over 700 reviews on Amazon with a four-star average and another 250 reviews on my website with a four-and-a-half-star average.

So if you wanna burn more fat every day and have an easier time sticking to your diet without having to pump yourself full of harsh stimulants or potentially harmful chemicals, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Phoenix today. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code podcast at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order. And lastly, you should also know that I have a very simple 100% money back guarantee that works like this. You either love my stuff or you get your money back period. You don't have to return the products. You don't have to fill out forms. You don't have to jump through any other hoops or go through any other shenanigans.

So you really can't lose here. Head over to www.legionathletics.com now, place your order and see for yourself why my supplements have thousands of rave reviews all over the internet. And if for whatever reason, they're just not for you, contact us and we will give you a full refund on the spot.