NeoSpartan: Your reasoning that OLing should have less injuries makes a lot of sense to me too. But for some reason, based on many others who have posted (ie Dominator who posted after you), it doesn’t some to be true in reality, and OLers get injured quite a bit too. Very odd, but I guess OLers just have their own unique injury issues that arise.
[quote]lavi wrote:
NeoSpartan: Your reasoning that OLing should have less injuries makes a lot of sense to me too. But for some reason, based on many others who have posted (ie Dominator who posted after you), it doesn’t some to be true in reality, and OLers get injured quite a bit too. Very odd, but I guess OLers just have their own unique injury issues that arise.[/quote]
if I’m not mistaken, common PL injuries are : blown knees, rotator cuff, torn biceps, broken ribs and broken legs. For OL common ones are : shoulder injurys, dislocated elbows, worn out knees and broken arms.
Alright, lets get down and dirty in some numbers.
First up, olympic lifting (weightlifting):
So we have 3.3/1000 for oly in high level competition. Here’s a link to the abstract:
1: J Athl Train. 1999 Jul;34(3):232-238. (search on pubmed or scholar)
Next up, powerlifting:
So 4.8/1000 for the non-international competitior. According to this the higher ranked competitor is less likely to get injured.
The link: J Strength Cond Res. 2006 Aug;20(3):672-81.
Now lets compare that to something CRAZY…like soccer!
The problem with soccer as opposed to strength sports is that for strength sports you get lucky if you can find one poorly made study. With soccer you need the time to weed through all the masses. You can pick a gender, age, country, whatever. Lets go with american men:
I only have time to do one soccer study and only read the abstract, just wanted to get a quick number. And 4,34 is the number for practice but a lot higher for games.
J Athl Train. 2007 Apr-Jun;42(2):270-7.
I’m sorry but I have to.
Is it safer to eat apples or oranges? Which will have less risk of choking to death? What about food poisoning?
In all seriousness, in the grand scheme of things neither is safer. It all depends on how you do it, not what is being done. If you really listen to your body and lay off when you know you need to, do all your prehab/rehab. In the end you will still get injured, will the injury be less than if you go full bore and don’t back off and don’t do prehab/rehab type stuff? Probably.
This is not to say to be a pussy about things and half ass it. Figure out how to throttle your intensity level accordingly to how beat up you feel. Regardless of the sport you pursue.
I said it earlier, you gotta follow your passion, and since then I’ve seen a lot of discussion basically saying the same thing, either nicely or with flame attached.
I thought the issue of "safety" for choice of sport, rather than simply which sport was more injury-prone, was the issue that bugged many people. And I think it still is. I recalled that I remember Charlie Ward of FSU, a legendary college quarterback, choose the NBA over the NFL in part because of the more "dangerous" NFL, and this pissed off almost everyone in Tallahassee. There have been others choosing baseball over football for the same reason. While I can understand it, especially with them carting off a new quadriplegic off the football field about once a year, I still can't respect it. Sorry, I just can't. Doc
I have to agree that its a coin flip. I think they’re both pretty safe choices since both encourage good muscle balance.
If you’re stupid with your training you’ll pick up ALOT of injuries in powerlifting. You admit yourself you’re constantly injured. Is this the nature of powerlifting, or is it bad training?
Think about it.
[quote]Hanley wrote:
If you’re stupid with your training you’ll pick up ALOT of injuries in powerlifting. You admit yourself you’re constantly injured. Is this the nature of powerlifting, or is it bad training?
Think about it.[/quote]
OK let me think…
My training has been based on:
-Form taught to me from a high level PL and a high level BB. Otherwise I have had little personal contact with other PLers. PLing is not exactly a popular sport where I live.
-Basically 100% from here and elitefts
-Balancing BP with rows, etc. Attention has been paid to not getting injured.
-Definitely NOT overtraining
Let me know if you find the “stupid” part.
[quote]lavi wrote:
…
-Balancing BP with rows, etc. Attention has been paid to not getting injured.
…[/quote]
just though this “row” is worth reviewing lavi:
-a lot of articles have been posted about rowing NOT balancing ur bench. Other things like pullups (especially when u tilt ur body at 45 degrees when u come down or just hold), wall slides, face pulls, push ups (weighted or not) overhead shrugs, etc, do more for balancing the muscles that pull on the scapula.
[quote]lavi wrote:
NeoSpartan: Your reasoning that OLing should have less injuries makes a lot of sense to me too. But for some reason, based on many others who have posted (ie Dominator who posted after you), it doesn’t some to be true in reality, and OLers get injured quite a bit too. Very odd, but I guess OLers just have their own unique injury issues that arise.[/quote]
Not 100% exactly lavi… like u and others have said Oliters have their own injuries as well as common ones. The rate at which they occur I don’t know. What I wanted to point out is how OLifting in a way “forces” you get urself “balanced” otherwise you ain’t gonna make any decent lifts, let alone do well at comps.
-ex: if u can’t squat ATG and do it fast, when u snatch/clean a heavy weight u won’t be able to get under it and squat it up because that heavy weight ain’t gonna travel up that much.
Thanks again for the responses. I am aware of the bench/row thing, I just putting that out there as a “general example” which in retrospect wasn’t smart as it is considered to be wrong.
As for OL being safer and such, I see what you are saying. According to the numbers posted by Muppet though, OLers still get injured 2/3 as much as PLers anyway. Doesn’t seem as good as I would have expected. (Of course the numbers are probably not fully accurate, but it seems there isn’t really any other way to figure it out…)
The way I see it, the lower reps, full range of motion, and general improvement of athleticism, as well as the lower weight division requirements/tendencies lends itself to better longterm promotion of healthy joints and body.
Stereotypically, PLs are heavier stronger people that put more stress on their bodies. I have seen 80 year old Olympic Lifters with healthy joints and body. I Have Not seen healthy 80 year old power lifters…still lifting as powerlifters.
My $0.02, Take it for what its worth.
[quote]lavi wrote:
Hanley wrote:
If you’re stupid with your training you’ll pick up ALOT of injuries in powerlifting. You admit yourself you’re constantly injured. Is this the nature of powerlifting, or is it bad training?
Think about it.
OK let me think…
My training has been based on:
-Form taught to me from a high level PL and a high level BB. Otherwise I have had little personal contact with other PLers. PLing is not exactly a popular sport where I live.
-Basically 100% from here and elitefts
-Balancing BP with rows, etc. Attention has been paid to not getting injured.
-Definitely NOT overtraining
Let me know if you find the “stupid” part.[/quote]
I never said you’re trainig was stupid. I have no knowledge of it. It would be foolish of me to jump to conclusions.
I’ve picked up a lot of stupid little injuries over the last 2 years and the majority of them have all been down to muscular imbalances. Not neccessarily program related, but as a result of the training I was doing.
You face that risk in any form of resistance training obviously, but since you have to push to the limit with higher intensitys in powerlifting more often than you would with other forms of training if there is an imbalance or weakness you’ll quite quickly find it and injure it.
That’s all I’m saying.
Intensity wise, Olympic lifters probably train with a lower intensity on squats and the likes than powerlifters do. Since the majority of their training is dictated by bar speed they don’t struggle and grind out reps as often as a powerlifter would. Although of course from time to time they do.
It would seem that the majority of weightlifting injuries are acute in their nature and are caused by bad body and leverage positions. Whereas alot of powerlifting injuries are caused by a build up over time of the wear and tear you put your body under.
Do you get what I mean now?
[quote]Hanley wrote:
lavi wrote:
Hanley wrote:
If you’re stupid with your training you’ll pick up ALOT of injuries in powerlifting. You admit yourself you’re constantly injured. Is this the nature of powerlifting, or is it bad training?
Think about it.
OK let me think…
My training has been based on:
-Form taught to me from a high level PL and a high level BB. Otherwise I have had little personal contact with other PLers. PLing is not exactly a popular sport where I live.
-Basically 100% from here and elitefts
-Balancing BP with rows, etc. Attention has been paid to not getting injured.
-Definitely NOT overtraining
Let me know if you find the “stupid” part.
I never said you’re trainig was stupid. I have no knowledge of it. It would be foolish of me to jump to conclusions.
I’ve picked up a lot of stupid little injuries over the last 2 years and the majority of them have all been down to muscular imbalances. Not neccessarily program related, but as a result of the training I was doing.
You face that risk in any form of resistance training obviously, but since you have to push to the limit with higher intensitys in powerlifting more often than you would with other forms of training if there is an imbalance or weakness you’ll quite quickly find it and injure it.
That’s all I’m saying.
Intensity wise, Olympic lifters probably train with a lower intensity on squats and the likes than powerlifters do. Since the majority of their training is dictated by bar speed they don’t struggle and grind out reps as often as a powerlifter would. Although of course from time to time they do.
It would seem that the majority of weightlifting injuries are acute in their nature and are caused by bad body and leverage positions. Whereas alot of powerlifting injuries are caused by a build up over time of the wear and tear you put your body under.
Do you get what I mean now?
[/quote]
I see what you’re saying and think you are 100% right.
However, I feel that even though PL injuries generally build up over time due to imbalances and such, that hasn’t made them any easier to figure out. Even after all this time of going to PTs, ART, research on here and other places, orthopedist, etc, I still haven’t figured out how to correct the injuries or even why they happened.
All I know is that they’ve built up over time and haven’t gone away. And I promise that neither I nor my doctors are stupid (Well at least I’m not :P.). The question I am now facing is if I ever do fix myself, do I wanna go through this crap again?
Or, assuming I enjoy it, would OL be smarter in that it has (a) less injuries due to less “grinding it out,” and (b) injuries that are more acute and quicker to fix.
Anyway, this post has become a rant about my specific situation. Point is, I think we agree, and I appreciate the response and clarification.
Almost everyone that I have known who has tried Olympic lifting has done so by going to a gym with specially designed facilities for it and sought out a proper coach to learn technique.
On the other hand, many of the people who I have known who have tried powerlifting think just go to a gym or a basement for that matter, and do their lifts. Which means that they might not be learning good technique from qualified people. Which is not a good way to go, because something like the squat is, in my opinion a very technical lift.
So maybe it’s just a matter of powerlifters getting injured more because they don’t learn as good of technique as Olympic lifters.
I can’t see the actual movements being more or less dangerous, except for maybe in O-lifting their is more explosiveness, and maybe with the speed things have a bigger chance of tearing, popping,etc. But on the other hand, backs seem to round more and the weights are heavier in the deadlift or the squat. So I dunno…
Too many variables that cannot be easily isolated to form an objective, empirical opinion on it for me…