Ep 280 – How to Stop Being Afraid of Injuries

In this episode of Muscles by Brussels Radio, Ben and Giacomo discuss the fear of injury and how our mindset can shape our experiences with pain, training, and recovery. They explore the biopsychosocial model of pain, why an injury doesn’t necessarily mean something is permanently wrong, and how anxiety and catastrophizing can make setbacks feel more overwhelming. Through personal experiences and client stories, they highlight the importance of patience, reassurance, and building confidence over time.

The conversation also covers practical ways to keep progressing when injuries happen, including modifying exercises, adjusting loads, and gradually rebuilding training capacity. Ben and Giacomo emphasize the value of focusing on what you can do rather than what you can’t, while recognizing that people sometimes need to feel heard before they’re ready to look for solutions. Whether you’re a beginner who’s nervous about getting hurt or an experienced lifter navigating setbacks, this episode offers a more empowering perspective on training, recovery, and long-term strength.

🌱 Coaching Application

Take your fitness and nutrition goals to the next level with one-on-one coaching:

📖 Free 7-Day High-Protein Meal Plan:

https://bit.ly/4kab1Ll

💪 Muscles by Brussels Membership:

Try it free for one month:

✅ Membership Includes:

🔗 Follow Us Online:

MASS (Monthly Application In Strength Sport): MASS is one of our secret weapons and it continues to be an invaluable resource for us to keep up to date with the latest research. Don’t get swept up in fads or bogus info. Sign up and stay up to date with easy-to-consume journals and support the evidence-based fitness community.

=================================

TRANSCRIPT

Ben (00:00)
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio. My name is Ben. And

Giacomo (00:05)
And I’m Giacomo.

Ben (00:07)
we’ve got a real prankster on the other side of the screen. He’s trying to make

Giacomo (00:10)
And what you talk.

Ben (00:10)
me laugh here as we’re getting things rolling. He’s pulling

Giacomo (00:13)
Never happened.

Ben (00:13)
out or all sorts of props and tricks and trying to throw me off my podcasting game, but you can’t do it, Giacomo. So we recorded a podcast episode

Giacomo (00:16)
You have no proof. Straight as an arrow. Nope.

Ben (00:24)
yesterday. We went right into the topic, but I feel like it would be nice to do.

A little bit of catch-up, a little bit of chit-chat at the start of the episode. And I know not everyone’s into that. So if that’s not you, go ahead, skip ahead. We’ll try to time stamp it so you don’t get too impatient for us to get to the topic. And today that’s going to be talking about injuries. So we’re gonna be talking about different kinds of injuries, maybe some are quote unquote more risky than others, how to approach that, how to navigate around injuries, and this idea of the fear of injury as well. I think that’s a big one for.

a lot of people who are starting out on their weight training journey or ha who have had some injuries occur before. So before we get into that, Giacomo, it’s the end of the week, it’s Friday. What is one thing from your week that stood out or that was memorable perhaps? And what’s one thing that you’re looking forward to this weekend?

Giacomo (01:15)
I was ready for twenty-one questions personally, and believe you me, I would have had twenty-two for you in return. Just two? Just two questions? I’m limited?

Ben (01:20)
Well I’m glad that you’re prepared. Just two.

Giacomo (01:23)
Really? I see I already forgot that because that’s not enough. I need more. Okay, so one memorable thing in one

Ben (01:28)
One memorable thing that stood out about this week for you and one thing you’re looking forward to this weekend?

Giacomo (01:33)
I went camping with a client of mine for five days and it was so nice. I put pitched out a tent I pitched a tent out in Canada, like a little north of Toronto. And I haven’t gone camping in a very long time. And it was just nice to like wake up on the on the ground in my tent. It’s the way I like it. I I don’t I keep it very simple when I camp. And just wake up to nature.

Wonderful. It was such a pleasant change of pace. When you have an online, when you’re an online coach, you’re mostly your brain’s online, you’re online, right? And then you tend to, even when you’re not with your clients, you’re typically online doing something, especially as the world gets more and more plugged in these days. It’s hard to be off the grid. So that was just, my gosh. I I came back and I thought I’d be happy to come back. And I’m kind of like, no, take me back. Give me back out into nature.

And then I’m looking forward tomorrow, not to the weather, because we’re supposedly having a Nora Easter at the time that we’re recording this podcast, but we’re going to an Italian circus, like a cirque sole kind of thing that Danny got tickets for. We’re just hoping that the tent gets held up and there’s nothing crazy that goes down as the weather gets kind of nuts. I mean, I’m assuming that it’ll be okay, but you never know. Crazier things have happened, man. How about you? So a memorable thing.

And what you look one thing you’re looking forward to. Just one, Ben. Just one.

Ben (02:52)
Okay, something memorable from this week. boy, this week flew by so fast. I remember it was like Wednesday night or Thursday, one of these days. And I was like, how did we already get to this point in the week? And now it’s Friday evening. I just dropped off my girlfriend Dana at the airport. She’s flying out to Los Angeles for a job interview, which is exciting, which means that.

I mean, if you’ve been listening to the podcast for a long time, you know that I’m a little bit all over the place with my plans and where life takes me. So I don’t think it’s gonna be too surprising. Giacomo likes to tease me about that. And he didn’t even see this one coming. We were just talking off air about that. So we might have some more updates coming soon. So that’s kind of been front of my mind, has been helping her prepare for that, for her travels. And she made these really amazing yeasted like.

Buns slash rolls. She was practicing some recipes in preparation for the interview because it’s like an in-person practical sort of interview. And

Giacomo (03:53)
Perfect thing for when you’re prepping.

Ben (03:55)
well, you know what? It’s funny because I went to you just saw Dijon jump up there. I opened the window. So of course he’s you know itching to to get to get up there and look out. Anyway, so

It was one of these days where I was just rushing around, hadn’t had much to eat. I went to go pick her up from work and drop her off at a event that she was working. she’s in catering right now. And so I was just running around, went to pick her up, and I was going to to the gym directly afterwards. I had to go right after that to get it in. And I hadn’t eaten much that that day and my stomach was not feeling so great. It was a combination of hunger, but also kind of gas and bloating. You how his stomach gets extra sensitive on prep.

I think my stomach is sensitive, period, but especially so during this phase. And I was like, man, I’m probably gonna have to like go home to eat something before I go to the gym and train because I can’t, you know, the way that I’m feeling right now, I’m not gonna be good. And so she comes out to the car and she’s got like one and a half of these buns left that she had baked. And honestly, it was the perfect pre-workout snack because it was it was salty.

It had a bit of fat, but mostly carbohydrate. And up until that point that day, I’d pretty much just eaten protein. I hadn’t really had, you know, trace carbs and trace fats. So it was like the little little treat that I kind of needed or little snack that I needed before the gym. And I had a great great training session. So it ended up working out perfectly. I

Giacomo (05:14)
Okay.

Ben (05:14)
think that’s just, example of the I guess it’s flexible dieting epitomized, right? It’s this idea that you can fit things in. There’s no

Foods that are kind of off limit. Now, would I be trying to eat those every single day while I was on prep? Obviously not, but it was nice to be able to work it in in a way that actually worked out because if there was a time for me to have that, I probably would be in that, peri workout window, that pre- or or post-workout window. So it was great. Ended up working out well. She saved me because I was starving and I needed something before the gym. So that was great. So we’ll we’ll we’ll say that as something that stood out for my week. and then so I’ve been

And I’ve been thinking about those buns since I’m like, you gotta make me some of those after my after my competition. cause I I need to try those again. Something that I’m looking forward to this weekend, I will say going to see my family. So we haven’t hung out the five of us in quite some time. Our schedules are a little

Giacomo (06:05)
Really?

Ben (06:06)
bit a little bit all over the place. My parents are back and forth between their other house and the one closer to me. My brother is kind of back and forth as well.

Giacomo (06:15)
From India and Massachusetts or local ’cause he has taken some trips for

Ben (06:15)
And my sister well, not

Giacomo (06:19)
his studies.

Ben (06:20)
he has, yes, he’s he’s traveled around. But no,

Giacomo (06:22)
Yeah.

Ben (06:23)
mostly visiting friends, but also he will he will bounce back and forth between the houses as well, sometimes on a different schedule than my parents. And then my sister is a student and works a part-time job as well. So it’s hard to get the five of us together, line up all of our schedules up, living in multiple places.

So it’s been a little while but we’re gonna get together Sunday night, so I’m looking forward to that.

Giacomo (06:44)
I’m looking forward to hanging out with all of y’all in a short amount very soon. Very, very soon. The other thing, before we like get super into stuff, and I I’m sure we’ll have a segue into injuries because we’re constantly training hard and either one step away from what a niggling or an ache or a pain. And then obviously our clients have gone through injuries that we have worked with worked through them with. But I pulled this out before we got started and I’m like ready. Like I have it wrapped in plastic. Do you know what this is?

Ben (07:08)
is that one of the Torre Washington shirts from the Olympia?

Giacomo (07:09)
Like how you knew that without me even showing.

I was trying to like get some suspense going, but yes, I haven’t opened it up yet. And tomorrow, Torre competes. are you aware that he’s going to be the second oldest person ever stepped stage on the Olympia stage?

Ben (07:23)
No.

Giacomo (07:23)
Yeah. So number one is Albert Beckles. And he was actually vegetarian for a short period of time, but then he considered himself polo vegetarian. So like

Basically he ate a predominantly plant based diet and he stayed away from a heavy meat consumption. But he did try vegetarianism for a while. But he was the oldest at it the ages contested, it’s either fifty it’s either fifty three or sixty five. I mean, this is the these are the before years where we didn’t take keep good records of everything. So but

After him, it’s Torre. He’s the second oldest person ever stepped stage on the Olympia. And as a vegan as well, and PED free, which is unheard of. Albert Beckles was not drug free. I mean, you could take one look at him, and I haven’t done the research, but I’m taking a look at that athlete and being like, You were not drug free. And then the third oldest person is Dexter Jackson behind him at 51. Also not PED free. Not the So this is like crazy. I mean, this is like this was not supposed to happen, Ben. You a person who’s a

person who’s typical Olympians are on stage in their thirties and forties. And to to have someone step on stage as PED free as well, it’s just unheard of. Like we may not see this for generations to come happen again. So I am super excited to and I’m honestly I’m like very, very upset that I’m not there watching him in person, but we’re helping

behind the scenes we’re helping to get get some media attention surrounding his debut out there on stage. So our time and energy is better well spent here at home at the office. But I yeah, a large part of me is very saddened because it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to see something like that in person.

Ben (08:52)
Well, I know that Ryan is gonna be out there documenting Torre’s stepping on stage. And I’ve already seen a good amount of coverage in media about it. So I’m sure we’ll be getting even more and seeing that, like you said, historic moment. It’s funny that you mentioned Albert Beckles. I was actually watching some like old school golden age bodybuilding documentary a couple of weeks ago on YouTube. There’s a lot of like old

tapes that they put up on YouTube that you can watch. And he was in it and it was interesting hearing him talk. And my other guess was going to be Dexter Jackson. And like you said, it’s amazing that he’s not only the age that he is, but first of all, doesn’t look doesn’t look it at all. You would never guess. You would never guess looking at Torre, that, you know, that he’s that he is that age. and like you said, the other two as well, like first that I know of vegan competitor to qualify for the

A lit well, there may have been some who have qualified for them, but I’m not that that I’m really aware of, and like you said as well, natural, drug-free. So huge accomplishment, even just getting to that stage, stepping on that stage, representing he looked amazing. I saw some of his updates. So best of luck to Torre and just getting up there is history made.

Giacomo (09:58)
Yeah, for real, for real. I I feel like you can get smarter as you get older in terms of like figuring out how to work with your body and work with everything you’ve done to it over the years. But in other sense, it’s pretty hard to keep going. But we see that a lot in our in our line of work because we have athletes who come to us or people that come to us and have just started training and

Their bodies don’t work like the way they want them to work, but you turn around and eventually and out of nowhere they’re able to do things that they weren’t able to do without even the fear of injury. So it’s it’s interesting how a lot of the mental, the mindset, when it comes to mindset and when it comes to how you feel, like it can really affect what you do or do not do because of the power of belief. But obviously it’s so much more than that, of course. Like your body.

I used to say that, okay, well, like listen to your body, but don’t listen to your body. And then and now I’ve kind of settled upon like, well, listen to how you feel, but you can test the waters when you feel comfortable enough to do so, as long as your body doesn’t quote unquote betray you. Because if your body betrays you, that’s my way as a fitness coach of saying, like, okay, well, obviously you have to stop. Like my sister this morning called me up and she was like, I have a pinched nerve. Okay, well, obviously you can’t train. And she was losing her mind, Ben. She was, she’s like, what do I do?

This is terrible. Like, how do I I can’t not exercise? It’s good for mental health. And how what I was like, well, how about your lower body? So yes, but like how do I train? And what and she was going through a this whole cycle of of self-loathing because she was so worried that she couldn’t do what she normally could do. And the pain pain is subjective and it’s very real when it’s happening. Like when you’re in pain from an injury, and it’s very I mean, I don’t know how it works for you, but like what I’ve seen, the through line, the pattern is that

A client who is feeling that way, they think it’s gonna last for forever. Like, my gosh, I’m feeling this pain. It feels really bad. I probably won’t be able to train for the next five years. Like that’s the kind of reaction that I get from athletes, even even seasoned veterans at times. So what’s been the case for you when you’re working with clients and from your own through your own personal experiences when someone gets hurt?

Ben (11:59)
I’ve heard a lot of similarities in what you’ve said. There’s a lot of catastrophizing, I think. And I think my job as a coach is usually to help calm down some of these anxieties and fears because I don’t know if people realize how much the mind ends up impacting the manifestation of pain and of some of these injuries. And that isn’t just like,

Woo talk. you can go and look at the the evidence that’s out there. if anyone’s interested, I encourage you to look into the biopsychosocial model of pain as opposed to the biomedical model of pain. The biomedical model of pain is very much like, okay, if you’re experiencing pain, there is some physiology here that is causing that pain, and we can determine it and we can find, you know, the the physiological reason for that pain, find the cause, fix it, and that’ll fix the pain.

But as we know with clients that we’ve worked with or case studies that we’ve seen, it’s not always that simple. it isn’t always there isn’t always something that can be determined. Like you could go to the PT, you could go to the orthopedic doctor, you could get kind of, you know, passed around a bunch of different health specialists, and you they can’t necessarily diagnose exactly what it is that’s going on. and that can be really frustrating for people. And I think understanding that your psychology, your attitude towards injury.

your environment, your context, what people have said to you growing up and around you, the conversations around pain, these are all shaping your experience of pain. and so I think that’s something to to keep in mind as well. so do you have any thoughts on that?

Giacomo (13:29)
yeah, no, I completely agree. Like speaking from personal experience, I’ve dealt with pain myself and have thought that it was going to wreck my training or it was going to be permanent. And I’ve have found over time that how my relationship with pain as it has evolved, I’ve been able to experience less pain when I’m injured. And I’ve been able to understand.

what to do faster when I am in pain and injured and I’ve been able to be less injured over time. That didn’t happen overnight though. This doesn’t happen overnight, folks. I’m thinking of a client right now that comes to mind and he came to me, wow, let’s say five years ago. And the it was obvious it was clear to me that he felt that his pain would be a limiting factor and he wouldn’t be able to train his body normally from head to toe. And there wasn’t there was a side of him that was upset about that.

And he w and he wanted to do something about it. So he decided to to test the waters and say, okay, well, my coach is confident, not not like Cocky. My coach is confident that we could find a way to work through the pain. Find a set of exercises that work. And and he went for it. And that was cool. But he still got tested with the idea of like, okay, well, I’m still gonna have my shoulders still gonna hurt in this way and my back’s gonna hurt in that way, and my back hurts because of this accident forty years ago.

And my my shoulder hurts because of this thing that I did twenty years ago, or just because of the way it feels now. And some part of him knew that his body had limitations, but his mindset shifted and he believed that he could work through these things. And honestly, it’s been five years to date, and I will tell you this, Ben. We have had a couple of setbacks. I don’t I won’t c I wouldn’t frame a frame it like that if if I was talking to him, by the way, because attitude is everything.

we’ve had we’ve had a couple of challenges to work through, right? But I’ve acknowledged the pain, I’ve accepted that it’s it’s going to happen. And I’ve taken some accountability as a coach because of course my programming is a part of it. And we’ve talked through it without needing to change what’s gone down. But also I’ve let him know like eventually this is gonna we’re gonna get past this. And he’s trusted that even though he knows the pain could reoccur, that it’s gonna reoccur less often.

And that he’s gonna be able to to work through it. And and his body’s adapted. That’s the fascinating part about all this, Ben, is that in the past five years, and I kid you not, like, yes, his life has gotten less stressful, but he’s continuously pushed harder and harder and harder and done things that if we tried to do this five years ago, I don’t I don’t even think he would have attempted it. He would have like, You’re crazy, I’m gonna hurt myself. And now it’s been five years later, and we’ve put his body through the ringer as an athlete, got him competitive, got him pushing harder.

And got him confident, thinking confidently, knowing that like the pain’s less likely to occur and if and when it does occur, he knows that he could do something about it. And don’t get me wrong, he still has his setbacks and his like, why did this happen to me kind of moments, but he no longer is in a place where he thinks that he shouldn’t, couldn’t, or that he has to you know treat himself he handle himself with kid gloves or he needs to fragile. So to your point with the did you say bio bios psychosocial? Give me the words. I’m hearing it for the first time. That

Ben (16:29)
Bio, psychosocial. Yeah. It’s like this I this

combination of biology, psychology, and social influences. It’s just the kind of this acknowledgement that with social influences can just mean environment, essentially. that could be your physical environment. It could also be the, you know, the people who who are in your environment that you’re interacting with. and I think it’s important to say that when we’re acknowledging that psychology plays a role.

We’re not we’re never saying like, people are making up their their pain or exaggerating their pain. The pain that you’re experiencing is very real. I think it’s just important to know that you have power and you have agency. That is huge because that is it’s empowering to know that I I can do something about this. the way that I think about this it impacts everything. So some something that I think that is a a good example of this that that folks may not know is

Giacomo, here’s here’s a question. This is gonna lead into what I’m talking about. what would you say is the number one area that people are concerned with getting injured?

Giacomo (17:25)
The number one area that people are most concerned with getting injured? Spine?

Ben (17:29)
Yes. Where

Giacomo (17:30)
Spinal?

Ben (17:31)
yes. So I it’s been my experience, low back or just back pain in general is something that people are very afraid of and very scared of.

Giacomo (17:35)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think so.

Ben (17:39)
and the evidence and the data shows that the majority of people who go to get an MRI or get a scan of their back will have some sort of abnormality with their discs or you know, with with their with their spine. So something like, you know, you it’ll

show up as like, I have a slip disk or or something is happening here. and so I think oftentimes, because people don’t know this, when they when they experience these things, they then go to get a scan. The scan then reinforces that idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with me. And then it takes away some of that agency and that power. But if you know that actually, this is a common thing. Like as our body ages and gets older, we can

Do these some things to help take care of ourselves, but there is going to be some natural degradation, and that’s okay. You know, we can we can work with that. We don’t have to be fearful of that. and I think that that’s something that’s really important for people to know. I just to give a personal example, I have probably injured or tweaked or whatever you want to say, my my lower back area, I would say at least a dozen, 15 times maybe in like the seven years that I’ve been lifting. It’s varied from

couple days, maybe a week, up to weeks, sometimes a couple months. but throughout that time, I have always tried to take the approach or mindset of what can I do instead of what can’t I do. And I’ve learned a lot through that. Like I’ve learned certain things that help and don’t help. Like when it would first happen, I would get very discouraged. I would get very down on myself, kind of similar to the client scenarios that you’re describing. I would feel like, man, I can’t go to the gym. I can’t do anything. Like

This is gonna plague me for the rest of my life. I would start to get worried. Like, am I gonna have low back problems when I’m older? Like, is this lifting thing really for me? Can I even do this? Again, these are conversations and narratives that we hear all the time with people that we work with. But you find over time that you recover from these things. You continue to get stronger. You find what you can do. You you notice patterns and trends of, what might have led to this injury? Was I maybe dehydrated coming into the session?

Was I a little bit underrecovered? Was my stress really high? Did I not sleep very well the night before? was there an abnormal amount of physical activity in the days around that workout? You start to pick up on things. And then you can kind of figure out maybe just j best general practices. maybe something was feeling a little bit off while you were warming up and then something happens. Okay, you know next time that if something’s feeling a little bit off, maybe I don’t go for that heavy set of five on deadlifts today. Maybe I decide to do some

back extensions instead for sets of 10 to 15. You find a different way to train those muscles without, you know, feeling like I can’t do anything at all. So throughout throughout that time, through these little niggles and injuries, over time, it’s like it still happens, but I’m better at recognizing the signs leading up to it. Like even, you know, I I RDL’d a couple days ago, pretty heavy, you know, set of nine, like 335 or something like that. And

You know, in the day in the night after, I’m like, ooh, my lower back’s a little tight. It doesn’t, you know, it it wasn’t injured or tweaked that there was nothing that happened acute in the morning, but I’m like, this is feeling a little tight. you know, did some kind of we have these like automatic cups. So I put those on my back, you know, in that in that night. And again, that’s something that is there a ton of evidence for? not necessarily, but it makes me feel better. And there’s there’s something to that as well. to a lot of these manual therapies like massage or heat or cold, whether or not the science is there, like again, playing into the psychology component, if it helps you

De-stress, relax, unwind. Stress and sleep, I think are huge when it comes to injury management and then hydration, I think, prior to training. All this to say, you know, these last couple days I modified my training a little bit, just tried to be smart and not do anything stupid. Like, you know, maybe I would have loved to load up the leg press or the pendulum squat really heavy today. but I knew that it would be a smarter thing to choose an exercise where I’m gonna use a little bit less load, like a split squat, and I don’t have to put as much weight on my back. And I ended up doing that instead. So

You know, it’s listening to your body, it’s understanding that these little tweaks are gonna happen, but when they do happen, you can find ways to work around them and come back stronger and better because the alternative is not training. And you know, as we know, you know, we’ve seen what happens when people get older without sort of resistance training. it’s it’s not the path that I would choose to go down personally. And there’s always there’s always some sort of way forward and something that you can do. And I try to really

ingrain that in the people that I work with so that when these things inevitably do happen, because when you’re pushing hard, you are going to have these little things pop up. It’s it’s almost certainly inevitable that it doesn’t become a catastrophe.

Giacomo (22:05)
Exactly. And we’re not there out there being the bodybuilding kind of style because some people profile us like, well, they’re bodybuilders, so they train others like others like bodybuilders. They must push me really hard. So like if in my if I’m in my forties, fifties or sixties, like, do I really want to work with them? And sometimes people I feel like clients in their forties, fifties and sixties come to us on purpose or seventies or whatever, because they’re like, they’re gonna push me. But like our idea is to not get you to the edge of a cliff and then

go like this and push you off our ideas to make sure to show you that like hey you can push and honestly I’ve seen clients come to us from other coaching companies that were afraid to push them that baby them that got them into like okay you’re at this age and you’re going through menopause or you’re at this age and you have osteopenia or whatnot and they they baby their clients, right? They they cater to where they’re at and we’re like, okay, we’re gonna be careful with you. And like that’s not the answer. That’s not the solution. Alternatively the

the opposite is also not the solution. You don’t you don’t you don’t like just dismiss where someone’s at and be like, yeah, we’re just gonna like you could do everything and you we could push you really hard and you could do exercises. You know, you take someone who is deconditioned, who is afraid that they are not gonna be able to get out of bed and train. You don’t immediately be like, Well, we’re going to the gym today and we’re gonna put you on some equipment. You you ease your way into it with them but

be surprised you turn around and they go from they skip the bands and go right into dumbbells and you’re like, Okay, all right. Like you’d be surprised what you’re capable of when you have the a kind of attitude, a kind of approach, and the kind of support that can put you into a place psychologically speaking where you’re capable of more than you realize. Like it makes a huge difference to your point with the social, psychological and and biological kinds of different

points that you can make where somebody can really be f You know what I like Ben? I like thinking about powerlifters because as when you’re not when you don’t have a specific when you’re not married to a specific set of exercises, you can just switch the exercise. But when you look at a powerlifter, like if they can’t do their squat, their bench and their deadlift, they’re crippled. They’re screwed. They might as well just see their way out the game. But they find a way through somehow, even though

powerlifters are injured eighty with the statistic I think unless it’s changed has been like they’re injured at some point or another, eighty percent of the time. Eighty percent of the time throughout the year, Ben, powerlifters are injured. But they still find a way to go back to these lifts and they still find a way to get stronger. And some of them just live with the pain, but many of them work through the pain and are on the other side of it. Right. And they’re able and some powerlifters are in their sixties and seventies, just getting stronger and stronger each day. So if if

If you can look at that model of that kind of lifter and see that they’re able to to work through it and they’re not doing anything magical. They’re just they just know that that is their option. They either do those three lifts or else. And there’s something it’s kind of like when you go to the doctor and they say, put your affairs in order, or you have a death set, this is your disease. You have this now. Are you gonna accept that? Or are you going to say to yourself, screw that. That’s my diagnosis. I’m gonna do something about it. Probably the latter. And when you think about bodies and

you getting hit with an injury, what are you gonna do when you get an injury? Are you gonna say, This is my injury and defines me? Or or are you going to find a way through it, essentially?

Ben (25:15)
One thing that I also try to have conversations with people about, I like that you brought up the powerlifting example because like you said, there’s so many things that you can do that is in your control. You know, exercise selection is a tool that I use a lot. With powerlifting, it’s a little trickier, like you said, because you don’t want to get away from those mainlifts as much. But even within those exercises, you can vary the tempo, you can vary the range of motion, you can vary the load, you can vary the rest times. Like there’s so many things that you can do.

to continue to train in some way that is specific to what you’re trying to do. Hypertrophy, training for muscle and strength, which is the majority of people that we work with want some combination of the two of those things. That is even more quote unquote forgiving in the way that you can seek those adaptations. There’s just so many things that you can do creatively with programming. There’s techniques like blood flow restriction and you know, same muscle supersets, like too many things to even talk about in the scope of one practice in terms of the actual.

techniques and we’ve done podcasts before. you go look at past podcasts about okay, you’re injured now what I believe is the name of the podcast episode. And that’s where we really talk about specifically like what to do when you’re injured. So I would say go check that out. This is more, I think, talking about the psychology and the attitude around injury and how we build up confidence in the people that we work with. And one thing that I also try to ingrain in people, coming back to what I was trying to get to, is

This idea of technique and acclimating to your body’s current demands. So when I start someone out, if they are terrified of getting into the gym for the first time, maybe they’re open to going to a commercial gym, but they don’t know necessarily like how to kind of navigate that. I’ll start them out on like s pin loaded machines where you can look at the instructions on the machine.

it’s pretty self-explanatory in terms of how to use the equipment. And I’ll have them, if they’re comfortable, send me some videos of them doing it. So I can give them these little tweaks. but starting them on those exercises that are a little bit more externally stabilized so that they feel confident, like I’m not gonna drop the weight on myself or I’m not going to get my body in a position that it isn’t supposed to be in. just letting them know that hey, this is a safe way to push yourself.

and then looking at their technique. And of course, once they’re comfortable, or if they’re comfortable from the start, using something like dumbbells or a barbell or or or cables or whatever it is, cables kind of along the same lines of machines, having a look at their form and giving them that encouragement like, hey, that looks really great. we can continue to build from here, we can continue to progress, giving them that confidence. That’s why I really try to get people to send me form videos as much as they can because.

Getting that encouragement, like I had a client say to me the other day, he’s like, I was watching my forum videos back and I was feeling like, man, there’s so much that I have to work on. But getting your encouragement really helped me to feel like I could continue to push things hard and I could continue to, add weight to my lifts and keep going. and I think that’s huge. And especially for people who maybe do have that that fear or they have an injury history, finding some exercises that they feel like they they at least can do and getting them to start really small and

saying, that looks great. Let’s continue to kind of like progress from this baseline. and your technique looks really good. Cause I think a lot of people they’re afraid of messing up the exercise or doing it wrong. So if you start really basic, start small, start light, and then build up their confidence slowly over time, that’s a huge way for them to say, I did a Romanian deadlift and I feel okay. I felt it in my back, but it wasn’t painful. And that’s it, that’s actually a conversation that I have with people a lot too. I’m feeling this in my back, and

That’s not a bad thing. That means that you’re engaging the right muscle groups. did you feel it in your hamstrings and your glutes too? yes, I did. I felt it in my glutes and my hamstrings and my lower back. okay, great. our back has to stabilize in these lifts. That’s actually the point. That’s one of the reasons why we’re doing this exercise. So as long as it’s not painful, and I can look at the video and see, these are generally good lifting mechanics and we’re lifting with a good tempo, fantastic. Let’s keep going.

Giacomo (28:58)
Yeah, absolutely. The client that keeps coming to mind for me, that’s been coming to mind for me for like the past 10 minutes or so as we’re talking is someone that I’m training right now for competition. And she was like, I like to list with low rep ranges and I like compound movements for my rows. And I’m like, Okay. And hip hinging movements for her rows, where she’s using barbell work. She likes barbell work, she likes low reps. And I looked at her form and

Her form was like she has, she was putting a lot of a lot of spinal loads. She just has a very good range of motion for hip hinging. But point is, so I don’t I don’t want to confuse people here and get like lost in the sauce and and just nerd out too much on her list. But here’s the deal. So we were we were training her, her hamstrings and her glutes, right? Without going heavy and low rep with barbell work. And we were getting to a place where we eventually I was gonna load it in and progress her to that.

And of course, what happened? She was hip hinging and she injured her back real bad. Real bad. And we hadn’t even gotten to barbell work yet. And we hadn’t gotten to low rep barbell work with hip hinging for her glutes and her hamstrings. So even if you don’t understand exactly what I’m saying in terms of programming, think about like us progressing to be able to do something harder from like, say, dumbbells to barbells, right? For low back work. And she hurt herself with that exact progression.

And all of a sudden she got super freaked out. She’s like, my gosh, like, what am I gonna do? This is like painkiller kind of bad stuff. This is gonna this is gonna completely halt my progress. This is the area of my body I want work on the most. I’m the the the the cycle of like worry just went on and on. How long is this gonna last? This is the thing that I enjoy. I mean, it just kept going, Ben. And all the while, right? My my job was to not invalidate, my job was to not dismiss, my job was to assure her that.

This was a bump in the road or hurdle and not something, not a fork in the road and a big giant concern as far as like what were we gonna do after the fact or like even after the fact we’d have to baby things. And as we were going through this injury, Ben, you know what I said to her? I I told her that on the other side of this we’re gonna well, I don’t even know if I said it, but as soon as we got on the other side, and and we did, it didn’t last for forever.

It took it took about two to three weeks. So it was significant enough, but it went away. The pain went away. And she was like, okay, I can do this. And we went back at like 50% and then 75% and 100% intensity with all the same exercises. And as she I think as she was getting better, I’m like, we’re gonna put those exercises into the mix eventually that we’re gonna progress to. I said it to her like I was like, but I said it to her not in like a like a like a super like screw this thing. Like I said it to her with like some trepidation, like.

We may not be able to do this, friend, but this is still the direction we’re going to take. And if this happens again, we’re not going to blame this progression. We’re just going to look at it and reassess then. And it’s been, I want to say two, three months since then. She’s in a deficit. We have progressed her to low reps and barbell work with for hip hinge, because it’s what she wanted. More than anything, it’s about what she wanted. It wasn’t about what I thought was best programming, it’s what she believed was best. And it wasn’t going to hurt her progress or her glutes.

And her hamstrings, and she’s not injured, and she’s not getting re-injured. And she’s stressing her body out more with the calorie deficit. And we’re progressing her to do to train harder with the exercises that she wanted to do, with the rep ranges that she wanted to do. And all the while it was like, as she was getting on the other side of it, the psychological part was going away. We were, I was like, okay, we’re now I dangled the carrot. We’re gonna do these exercises, but we might, if we get hit with something, we’ll cross that bridge if and when that time comes. And it’s been three months later, and guess what, Ben? It hasn’t.

Hasn’t happened. You know? So it it’s the power of the mind is is just like it’s crazy. And it can feel punishing if you take something away from somebody, put it that way. You know what I mean?

Ben (32:35)
And I think what was so important was you didn’t look at that injury and say, okay, screw the plan. We’re not gonna, do this progression. We’re gonna completely change to something else. Because the reality is that sometimes these things just happen. Sometimes they just happen. And you can’t figure out why. There doesn’t seem to be necessarily a correlation or a reason. I’ve heard stories of like people were were warming up with like a lightweight, something that wasn’t even close to the working weight that they were gonna be using. And they tweaked something.

I remember Jeff Alberts talking about once, who’s a coach at 3D Muscle Journey. He went to go pick up his son’s toy or something off the floor and tweaked his back. you can injure yourself doing so many different things, so many random things. And so it isn’t always a result of the training that you’re doing. In fact, sometimes maybe you would have actually gotten injured sooner if you hadn’t been doing the training that you had been doing.

and Alice loves talking about this You can choose to not train out of fear of injury, but you’re gonna get injured one way or another. And I would prefer to be injured and strong than injured and weak. and I think that that that is huge. And I’ve also found that you can bounce back faster when you have a history of training. because you can you know how to build up those surrounding structures. you know how to

Push your body in other ways. and ultimately I think that being able to maintain your routine as much as you can is so, so big. Because another thing that I see, and I’d be curious to know if you’ve seen this as well, I suspect that you have, is oftentimes when people get injured, they then feel like, well, because I can’t do this program perfectly or what I wanted to do perfectly, then I’m either not going to go to the gym. And on top of that,

I’m not going to pay attention to my sleep. I’m not going to pay attention to my nutrition anymore. everything goes out the window because they’re spiraling as a result of this injury. And I get it. I’ve been there where you get injured. It sucks. You want to be down on yourself. And I think it’s okay to feel those feelings and to be upset and to be frustrated and to say, I’m injured. I hurt myself. I’ve got this niggle. I want to be able to train the way that I want to train and I can’t right now. And that sucks. And that’s fine to say that.

And at the same time, I think once you’ve allowed yourself to feel those feelings and when they come up, let yourself feel those feelings. Same time, you have to be able to say, All right, can’t do that. Can’t do exactly what I want to do. What can I do? That’s that’s what it comes back to. And the people that I work with who take that mindset of what can I do, I think they also recover from the injuries faster. I don’t know what there is necessarily to it. Again, it could just come down to that broad idea of.

keeping that, positive psychology or positive mentality, whatever it is. But I feel like the people who take that attitude of let me focus on what I can do instead of what I can’t do, I really do think that they end up getting back to where they want to be faster. And I always try to tell them, like you said, I always, I always say this is a bump in the road, but we are going to get you back to where you were and stronger than that.

I don’t have a time frame. I can’t tell you exactly when that’s going to happen, but let’s come up with a plan right now and let’s make sure that, if it is a case of we need to decrease some of the training load, let’s pour that energy and attention that you were putting there either into other muscle groups. maybe there’s some sort of injury that’s preventing me from training my upper body as

As heavily. Let’s really lead into the lower body training. Let’s really try to grow the, you know, grow our legs right now and get them excited about that. Get them excited about okay, you what? I can’t do as much upper body, but we’re gonna really hammer the lower body. We’re gonna grow, grow like heck there. That can be really exciting to people too. So trying to find it like almost see it as like an area of opportunity to work on something else. Or hey, maybe it takes you from three days in the gym down to two days in the gym. What can I do with that other day?

can I focus on making some recipes that I haven’t had the time to make? Can I lean into another hobby that I really enjoy doing that helps me de stress? Can I try to get a little bit more sleep, spend more time with my significant other or my friends? using it as an area of opportunity I think is so huge.

Giacomo (36:29)
Yeah, it really depends on the person. Like I tried that approach with my sister this morning. It’s like, what do I do? I was like, You can focus on recovery and you can improve upon your sleep, which would be better for the and she just didn’t want to hear any of it. Like just she she just completely she went cold immediately. And I was like, Okay, I get it, ’cause it takes one to know one and we’re both the idea of like the achievement and the thing you’re doing and what if you can’t do that thing and how frustrating that is and

Blah blah blah. But so because I’ve ’cause I’ve tried that approach with clients at times and I kind of wonder how many clients have listened, like heard me, but not listened and been like, yeah, and like that’s not gonna help me. You know what I mean? But but you know, but it is true. It it is it is a good value to instill in someone, focusing on what you can do that isn’t training and trying to give them reasoning and support and encouragement to focus on the other things as well. But when someone is that frustrated that they can’t train.

It’s all obviously you want to make sure you keep that focus on that as well. Because when someone goes to train, that’s typically it’s the anchor, right? Ben? The training itself?

Ben (37:28)
I think so, yeah.

Giacomo (37:29)
Yeah.

So what do you do when you’re not anchored? When you

Ben (37:31)
You you struggle. You struggle. You struggle. Honestly. That that’s the honest answer.

kind of like the stages of grief. They’re still kind of in that denial stage where they’re like, I don’t want to admit that I’m injured or that something happened. And I don’t want to think about what I can do. I want to think about what I can’t do. And I want to be angry and I want to be upset and I want to vent. And I think our job as coaches, often in that initial stage, is just like you were saying earlier.

To hear them, to listen to them, to validate what they’re what they’re saying. And once they’ve gotten it all on the table, all the frustrations, all the fears, all the anxieties, then I think you can kind of come in with that gentle reassurance, like, we’re gonna get through this. Let’s come up with a plan together that we feel good about and let’s tackle it. But they have to be ready for that. in that initial couple hours or that initial day after it’s happened, they might not need to just.

hear a little reassurance that it’s going to be okay without immediately jumping to the solution and how we’re going to fix it. I think I you know I definitely think that as as as males we can do this more often sometimes where it’s like immediately we go for the solution instead of just hearing somebody out and you

Giacomo (38:32)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (38:34)
know trying to fix the problem instead of just being there to support somebody. So that’s something that I’ve tried to become more conscious of over the years is some you know the solution can always come come when the person is ready for it, but sometimes

People just want to feel understood and heard and listened to. so I always try to make sure that before I jump to any of that, unless they’re asking me explicitly what are we gonna do about this, that I’m just meeting them with where they’re at first.

Giacomo (38:58)
Yeah, it’s funny. I’m reading a book right now and they’re like framing how they’re gonna do things when it comes to emotional eating and they’re just going through the logic versus the emotion and how the brain works from left to right and all that. And it’s just like what’s on the brain right now in terms of thinking about how, yeah, it’s you need a combination of the two. Like the logic is gonna work and the reasoning is gonna work, but the emotion needs to be there too and you need to play out the hypotheticals and the scenarios. And if you don’t do both of those at once, you’re bound to repeat the same

mista you’re gonna bound you’re bound to make the same mistake again and again and again. And maybe maybe at some point if you continue to use one tool, if you continue to use the hammer to hit the nail, because that’s all you think that you have access to is a hammer, well, eventually you’re gonna turn around one day and and probably have realized in hindsight that you could have done things a lot differently. And if nothing else, the and that the the way that I like to frame this with clients is like you could get through this the in in a way the miserable way or you can get through this the fun and enjoyable way. Either which way

because of who you are and because of what you signed up for, we’re gonna get you there. But which which way do you want to go? Right. And I think I feel like the kinder approach, while it may not be the kind of pattern that you’ve created in your life over time that is is workable for you, so I’m gonna lose my words, Ben, but you can create a pattern that’s workable, right? That’s not that w in a way where you’re not kind to yourself and you can get to the other side. But if you keep leaning in that direction, well

then you’re gonna get through it the miserable way. But it doesn’t have to be that way. And maybe you’ll make some more mistakes than than you could have. But to the to your point of like doing I forgot how you worded it, but you said something about like taking action, right?

Ben (40:31)
Can you say that again in a different way?

Giacomo (40:32)
Going to

the solution, right? So there’s two so there’s two vegan greats that I want to bring in into conversation for context and s is focused like focusing what you can do. Those are those are the words. Focusing what you can do. So Ryan Stills, right, did not get what he wanted as an athlete because he had to because he knew that he had to get shoulder surgery. So he he had to make the choices he made and then he had to stop powerlifting and then he got both shoulder both shoulders operate on. Do you know what he did?

after shoulder after his shoulder surgery. He worked out with pink dumbbells that were two pounds and he started lifting them over his head. Now did that really do anything for his mobility? Did it really do anything to get for his strength? Did what it did what it did for him was it proved to him that he could still lift. And guess what? He’s lifting hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of pounds again after his shoulder surgery. But he did that practice right there in my mind to prove to himself that he needed to be in the gym

He needed to be lifting weights and he would eventually be able to lift the kinds of weights that he was going to lift. It wasn’t about rehab work. It wasn’t about PT. It was about instilling that confidence in him that that’s where he belonged and that’s what he was going to do. And he didn’t look at that as like, I’m only going to be able to lift two pounds and with pink dumbbells, and that’s it. It was just, it was a stepping stone to prove to himself that’s what he needed. And then the second one is Gino Bua. And these are athletes on our plant build, on our Beacon Strong plant build team.

Gino Bua and he after re injury after re injury of his spine to the point where he was in a pain center unbeknownst to him and unconscious because the pain was so severe, Ben, that he blacked out for days. And then he woke up one day and was like, I guess this is where I am now. And the doctors explained to him that this is where he was. That’s how bad his pain was, Ben. He couldn’t even register it. His body was unconscious. Do you know what he did when he got out of that pain center?

The second, the second that he could walk again, he started, he walked and he marked it. He walked his first hundred feet. And at that moment in time, when he walked his first hundred feet with the support of his partner who was working out with him, showing him like helping him feel his way through it and giving him the confidence and support that he wasn’t going through it alone, right? Your support system matters. Once he got past his first hundred feet, he knew he could start training again. And he did.

And he just he j this was like about a year ago and he stepped on stage multiple times since then and he stepped on stage even again just recently, a couple of weeks ago. And it was his best look ever on stage, and he took first as an IFBB athlete, as a PED free IFBB athlete on stage in Masters. It’s pretty killer, and I think he even did pretty decent overall too. I think I want to say he took second or third for our team. So there is something to be said on focusing on what you can do no matter what the scenario.

And these are like some major, major injuries. Like the these are the kinds of injuries where if you didn’t have that attitude, you’re getting taken out for the rest of your life. So it really does matter how you react and respond.

Ben (43:18)
And I think these are just examples that go to show like even the people who have gone to the highest, you know, echelons of the sport that they’re in, they’re still humble enough to be okay with regressing down to whatever it is that again is is doable for them at that time. There’s no shame in meeting yourself with where you’re at and building up from there. and

One thing that I kind of was touching around earlier, but I didn’t exactly say explicitly is I think it’s important for people to know that there’s no exercise or movement pattern that is inherently injurious. It’s all about building up from a baseline. And you can do that with any muscle group, including your your you know, your lower back. You can see videos of people doing exercises where they’re like,

Bending their spine over completely and then straightening it up. It’s called like a Jefferson curl. and people start with literally like a PVC pipe and then they build that up to hundreds of pounds. So it’s like even with these muscle groups that we think of as being inherently more risky, it’s all about load tolerance, load management, starting where you’re at, building up slowly, building confidence and knowing that there are going to be, again, road bumps, but you can work around those road bumps and you can continue to.

improve, get better, and and live a live a long and and healthy life. And it’s important, especially as we as we get older to continue this practice because it becomes so much more debilitating if we have that fear-based mindset around injury and then we stop when something when something happens. And building that base, the earlier you can build that base, the better. But it’s never too late as well. We’ve had so many people in

their fifties, sixties, seventies, maybe even eighties, who have started weight training and have seen the benefits of that. More energy, more strength, more independence. So it’s never too late to start. And no matter with you know no matter where you’re at, you you you know, you find what you can do and you build from there.

Giacomo (45:16)
Yeah, yeah. I’m lo I’m looking and I think that’s a good I think this is a good ending. I don’t think I I think this

Ben (45:22)
Excited.

Giacomo (45:22)
is pretty complete. I like ending on this note. You? You go with it? You sure? Okay. Alright.

Ben (45:25)
Okay. I’m good. I’m good. Yeah, you wanna take

us out and do our little outro?

Giacomo (45:30)
I suppose I could. Thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio. If you’re looking to get into the best shape of your life, please consider going to veganproteins.com and hitting the contact button. And we’ll get back to you right away within a business day or so. And we could have a conversation about how to help support you and get you to achieve all of your goals.

There is not there is no reason why there’s anything in life that should be able to hold you back, especially not injuries. And our clients are living proof. And we’d love to have a conversation with you. Stay in touch with us on the socials. You know these better, Ben. Go ahead. Give us all of our social handles.

Ben (46:05)
Okay, we’ll rattle them off. We didn’t do it yesterday, so I’ll do it on this one. I’m at Ben A Mitchell, Giacomo is at Muscles by Brussels,

Giacomo (46:08)
Yeah, let’s hear it. Mm-hmm. Yes.

Ben (46:11)
Dani, as many of you I’m sure know, is at vegan proteins. Sawyer is at muscles. Sawyer’s not at muscles by brussels. So all right, it’s five

Giacomo (46:18)
Soy boy.

Ben (46:19)
you know, six PM on a Friday. Cut me some slack. It’s Soy Boy Fitness Coaching on Instagram,

Giacomo (46:23)
Yeah.

Ben (46:24)
and then Alice is vegan proteins Alice. So

Giacomo (46:26)
Yeah.

Ben (46:26)
you can find us all there on Instagram.

Giacomo (46:28)
But it’s so much cooler when you come in and you join our Muscles by Brussels membership where we’re all having a private conversation. Like we did a little pew pew to Facebook and Metal. Like you you don’t need to be on social media and Doom Scrolling. You come hang out with us. Unfortunately there is a waiting list right now, but you should leave the link for the waiting list in the show notes. And when we do open up the doors again, we’d love to have you in our private community. Once again, yeah, totally.

Ben (46:49)
yeah, get in on that. It’s great.

Giacomo (46:51)
Totally. so

All right, Ben. Well, I’m gonna go eat some ramen, Sawyer style, and I’m gonna call it a night pretty soon. I hope that you enjoy your evening. Once again, my name’s Giacomo.

Ben (47:01)
I’m Ben.

Giacomo (47:01)
We’ll talk to you soon.

Ben (47:02)
All right, catch you in the next one, guys. Bye.

Giacomo (47:04)
Later.

Yeah.