Restoration Edition – Starting Strength Weekly Report May 5, 2025

The 2025 WFAC Weightlifting Invitational tested lifters in the old, three-lift weightlifting format: clean & press, snatch, clean & jerk this past Saturday, May 3rd. View full results.

Josh Hanson up from Starting Strength Plano makes an easy power snatch. [photo courtesy of stef bradford]

Hank Greathouse lands the split jerk. [photo courtesy of stef bradford]

Lifters at the 2025 WFAC Weightlifting Invitational. [photo courtesy of stef bradford]

moberts

I recently went through this with a c5/6 bulge causing significant radiculopathy down my left arm. I almost went for surgery but due to the reasonably short time I’d had the condition I chose to put it off. After making this decision I began to improve quite a bit. Some time under an exercise physiologist I was following rehabilitation exercises and I got to the point where I wanted to get back into strength training.

Where I differ from the others in this thread is that I am quite some time removed from actually following a strength program. Starting pretty much at the beginning with my weights but the main issue I find, and the thing that brings me to this forum, is that the deadlift tends to aggrevate the left lat when the weight gets up. When the lat gets cranky I get afraid that the condition is flaring up again.

Does anyone have advice on progressing in my situation? I firmly believe that I can get strong and do so using starting strength but I want to make sure I do it right and without the wrong kind of discomfort.

Paul

I have a nearly identical story to you. In 2019, I was 37 and I had C5/C6 bulges coupled with moderate stenosis. Numbness and tingling in hand and arm as well as shoulder pain, all on my left side. I saw a neurosurgeon and his opinion was that I should get better without surgery but it could take 6-9 months before symptoms went away. I was a hockey player, and worked construction up until about 34 when I took an office job. The combination of feeling frail from the spinal injury and feeling weak from not doing physical work anymore was a horrible feeling. I was worried about making my neck worse so in my search of ways to slowly and safely get stronger I stumbled up starting strength.

I started with an empty bar across all lifts and worked through the program. Even though I could lift more, I kept it light, added 5lbs a session. I basically did the NLP all the way to 315 squat, 405 dead, and 235 bench. Probably over 8-9 months. I had a couple flare ups along the way, but nothing major. The best part of all of it was the mental assurance, as more weight got added to the bar, I became more confident that I wasn’t destined to be weak and frail.

Now I’m not qualified to say whether your lat pain is problematic or not. Is there a weight that it does not hurt? Have you had anyone look at your technique?

Frank_B

I discovered Starting Strength in 2019 after dealing with chronic neck/upper back issues for several years. I have a disc herniation at C6-C7 and a lot of arthritis at C5-C6. I had more neuropathy in the shoulders/traps than anything and no discernible imbalances or atrophy. My neurosurgeon told me I was too young (~36 years old) to have surgery and told me I would thank him later. I hated him for it and fired him. I went to a different neurosurgeon and he told tell me to never lift more than 10 pounds over my head ever again. I should have fired him, but I didn’t know what I know now.

In what I can only describe as total luck, on a slow night at work, I stumbled across a video of Rip reading an article about why squats and deadlifts are good for back pain. I hated to admit it, but I couldn’t refute it and got to thinking about why that might work and wondered if there was a lift that worked that upper shoulder and trap area. Low and behold, the VERY next video to cue up was “How to Overhead Press” or something like that. I decided that I was going to try it and if my neck broke and I collapsed on the floor a paralyzed pile of goo, then at least I tried something and the second neurosurgeon was right.

I went to the gym, a little nervous, and pressed the empty bar. As it turns out I didn’t die. That night on my way to work I slowly began to realize that although I still had this nagging pain, it wasn’t as bad as it had been lately and chalked it up to pure coincidence. Within weeks, and as I added weight, I began to realize that the press was the best damn medicine ever. Within about 2-3 months and getting my press to somewhere around 115, I pretty much eliminated my neck and shoulder issues. It’s been 4-5 years since I committed to training and doing the program. I still have what I call “shitty neck days” but I’ve found that the heavier the single, the better the medicine. I also have learned that anti-inflammatories make it worse. Let the blood flow from the press do the work…

So, on those days where my neck bothers me, it doesn’t matter if it’s supposed to be a volume press day or a bench day or even if I have an upper body lift scheduled that day, I just work my way up to a really heavy single that I know I can complete and do the one rep. It never fails. I feel better instantly. It’s an n=1 experience and it would be nice not to have to interrupt my regular training from time to time to fit a heavy single in, but it works and it keeps me training more regularly. I need to go back and thank that first neurosurgeon for not operating.

Throughout the years I’ve encountered people with similar injuries and I have noticed that this kind of injury needs about 6 months to “heal” and after that is when training seems to be the most responsive to helping with lingering issues. The shrug at the top is important too, as I believe the thoracic extension and scapula position help contribute to taking some of the pressure off the injured area. I have seen volume help some people, but I personally prefer the heaviest single I can muster on that day.

Will Still

I had a couple of events over the last 2 years that accentuated the natural deterioration of my 55 year old spine. Two years ago, as a government teacher in NY, I was stabbed between the shoulder blades with a pencil by a sociopathic 6 yr old, as I was covering a first grade class. Fortunately, the kid was weak and the pencil dull, so the attack did not do too much damage. However, my reaction to it did. As I spun around to face the little fucker, I herniated the discs associated with c2-c7. The MRIs also revealed a herniated thoracic disc and lumbar disc as well. The onset of symptoms were immediate: my left arm went numb, and my right arm had a shooting electrical pain from my delt to my finger tips. I also had sharp stabbing pains in my mid back and low back.

My spine doc wanted to replace and fuse my cervical vertebrae, however, I luckily saw a response from Steph to a poster to try a cheap, Amazon, cervical traction unit first. I purchased an over-the-door, $20 unit. Upon initiation of treatment, my relief was nearly immediate. The numbness and pain was reduced by 90% in the first session. After I informed my PT, who initially scolded me for attempting my own treatment, he immediately put me on a Saunders cervical traction unit and gassed up the tension to 35lbs after I told him that I was using a 25lb plate at home. This daily traction eventually brought me back to baseline and I resumed training without restriction once I was released from PT.

The following year, I was sucker punched in the head by a 13 yr old shithead while breaking up a fight in the Middle School. The same symptoms resumed immediately. This MRI showed no change in my thoracic and lumbar spine, but a total deterioration of my 5 herniated cervical discs, including a complete absence of 3 of the discs associated with C5-C7, these vertebrae are now essentially bone on bone. My spine physician asked my permission to use my recent cervical MRI as a teaching tool, challenging his students to find an un-fucked cervical disc. The joke being that there isn’t one.

Again surgery was suggested, but due to the success of my previous experiences with cervical traction, I informed my team that I would start there. After some initial pushback, they relented and agreed to prescribe me a home Saunders unit that would allow the 35-40 lbs of tension required to stretch the significant (in their view, not lifters) girth of my neck. Again, I was able to stave off surgery. Although complete relief of symptoms took longer this time around, I was still able to minimize my numbness and shooting pain in my arms to the point where it is now episodic and rare. When it occurs, resumption of the Saunders traction unit resolves symptoms quickly. It is my uneducated opinion, which my spine doc shares, that the traction allows enough tension to separate and relive the compressive forces that are acting on my fucked up cervical vertebrae. It is (in his view) allowing enough relief of the pressure to let the herniated discs back into position enough to relieve symptoms. It has been 10 months since I was released from PT to resume training as tolerated. Since that time, I have slowly progressed from the empty bar to the following numbers:

squat: 350 x1
DL: 350 x 1

reverse, narrow grip bench (bad shoulders): 250 x 1

press: 140 x 3

snatch grip high pull to mid chest (PC causes symptoms that the HP does not) 220 x 3 x 5

chins – bodyweight, starting at ten, then ARAP sets to 40

I know, not great. But for a 5’8″ 185 lb, 55 yr old man with severe spinal pathology and OSA (c-pap) on trt, I’ll take the slow, but steady progress.

aschaul10

Quick question with regards to skipping lifts. Working through the NLP and am supposed to lift today, however for the first time in a while I pitched fast pitch softball in a tournament this weekend and am pretty sore in the shoulders, glutes, etc. and all around pretty stiff. My lifts have been pretty heavy (for me) the last few weeks, and I worry that if I lift today I will not be able to make my weight jumps/overloads and may fail due to the soreness/fatigue from the weekend.

In a situation like this, am I better off trying to push through my lift today, or skipping a day to get to feeling 100% before I lift again? Thanks!

Mark Rippetoe

As I have pointed out several thousand times, your subjective perception of how you feel is irrelevant, because it is unreliable. If you don’t want to train today, don’t train, but if you can’t train when you’re tired and sore, you’re going to have a very short career under the bar.

VNV

It is ironic that the Prime Directive (~ your feelings are irrelevant) is not in the book (I think).

Mark Rippetoe

May have to add a section.

aschaul10

Well, turns out you were right (as I expected). Added 5 lbs to my squat, bench, and deadlift and the weight moved just as easy or easier than Friday’s session. Thanks!!