Building a Base

📅 24 Nov 2021

I am about to embark on the next phase of my exercise/workout regimen and thought it would be a good exercise to make sure I can explain it. As an added bonus, I think the concepts I will discuss apply to life in general, as I certainly see the practical implications in my own life.

Unfortunately, at a relatively young age, I’ve dealt with a lot of musculoskeletal issues. Fortunately, I don’t have any formal problem (that I know of), I’ve just had a smusculo-skeletaleries of overuse and acute injuries that have kept me from getting to where I want to be.

At the time of writing this, I’ve probably done a cumulative 3 years of physical therapy since I was 16. First, it started with shoulder overuse injuries. I was recovering from a very poor diet combined with overworking myself physically and started to have problems with both of my shoulders. Compounding that, I know at least one of my parents has joint issues so I probably am genetically predisposed.

Second, I had a major knee injury while snowboarding a few years back and couldn’t walk for about 8 months. I had two surgeries on one knee. Then, about 2 years later, I started having problems with my other knee, which I suspect was from hopping around on that one for 8 months while my other one recovered.

Now, fast forward to present day, and it seems that I have to take extra precautions to stay physically fit. I have several tools that I use on a daily basis - lacrosse ball, foam roller, voodoo floss, etc. If I don’t do these things for more than a few days, I can tell my shoulders and knees start to get weak and seem easily tweaked. I’ve had a few problems with my back but nothing some light preventative maintenance doesn’t help keep at bay.

All of that to say, I have to be careful. I am able to do everything I want to do and that makes me incredibly grateful. My knee injury especially could have had a much different outcome.

So, one of the things that I’ve discovered is really important is building a base. In my opinion, this might be the most significant factor when it comes to injury prevention and longevity of ones exercise/nutrition regimen.

If you have never heard that term, that’s OK. It might be helpful to think about musculo-skeletalit as a bit of a warm-up for your entire system. You let your body adjust to a certain workout load or nutrition plan and then are able to push past that.

In terms of exercise, the importance cannot be overstated. I’ve had periods of my life where I’ve spent months in the gym, only to have to stop for a period of time due to an injury. And often, it’s not two steps forward, one step back. It’s one step forward, two steps back, which doesn’t get you anywhere. I would start dead-lifting, quickly move up in weight because I felt comfortable, and then injury myself a few weeks later. Then, I would be off of deadlifts for a month or two. See the pattern?

Currently, I am in the longest period of a workout routine that I’ve ever done. For almost a year, I’ve done very similar exercises, slowly adding things as I could. About three months ago, I added dead-lifts, and here is where I really stopped to think about building a base. With my previous experiences in mind, I knew I could comfortably dead-lift 145.

And that’s all I’ve done for the past three months, dead-lift wise. Could I dead-lift more right now? Yes. But I don’t need to. I can tell my body is getting comfortable with the weight. And, I can do 10-12 reps for three sets comfortably, which some people indicate is the magic number for moving up weight, which I may do in a few weeks here.

A similar story for pull-ups and push-ups, except I am pushing past my base now. For months I just did a few pull-ups, enough to get a light burn, but never to an extreme point, where I was really having to grit my teeth. Same for push-ups. If there was ever a day when something didn’t feel right, I took a few days off, stretched and used my lacrosse ball, and then got after it again, often dropping back a few reps and re-building my base.

There is a funny anecdote I heard one time and unfortunately I can’t remember the source. But it was something like a sprinting coach made his athletes just walk (literally nothing else for their workouts) for something insane, like the first 30 days, or 3 months of their training.

I think this is a good principle in life as well. I think oftentimes we get comfortable with something, and we too quickly move beyond that. Obviously, this principle has to be contrasted with also pushing yourself, but that can easily be over-done. You have to know yourself and how far you can go.

Starting out though, as I am certainly doing with exercise and nutrition, I have certainly learned to err on the side of caution, and I feel I am better for it. And I think the evidence is clear - I can do more pull-ups than I have ever been able to (17), am more comfortable than I ever have been dead-lifting - even though I’m not lifting very much at all - and most importantly, am injury free.

I’ll take this any day over trying to kill myself and having to take months off. What’s the trade-off? There is no trade-off. I’m not a competitive athlete and I don’t need to treat myself like one by “leaving it all in the gym”.

My next steps? I am going to enter a “bulking period” (I’ve been “cutting” for about 2 months), which will be a great time for me to turn up the intensity a little and add some weight to my lifts.

💬 Looking for comments?