There’s no free lunch, not in biology, not in physics, and not in life. In this vid I cover some of those realities with additional text/thoughts below the vid and offer some possible resources and additional thoughts.


8 time Mr Olympia Ronnie Coleman can hardly walk and is going through extensive rehab after multiples surgeries. PL legend Ed Cohen had double hip replacement a few years back ( and squatted 688×3 @ 50+ years old raw after his rehab!) which does not seem to have gotten much attention in the strength world. A bunch of strength athletes have needed various surgeries to repair extensive damage.

But if you ask Ronnie, or Ed, would they change anything? According to them no. Lesson here is, pushing the human body to its very edges of performance and tolerances can and often does come with a price. There’s fair amount people can do to reduce the risks, and or minimize the damage, but the human body will only take so much for some long. As Ronnie said on via his Intragram account:

“So you guy’s still wanna be like me, you still want to have the same work ethic as I had? Well as you can see I’m 8 X Mr Olympia and I can’t walk. I endured an 11 hour major back surgery last Tuesday.”

But:

“Do I have any regrets? If I had a chance to do it all over again would I change anything? Yes if I had a chance to do it all over again I would change one thing. That is when I squatted that 800lbs I would do 4 reps instead of 2, that is my only regret in my career. Those 2 reps I did still haunts me today because I know I had 4 in me but the coward in me only did 2. That is my only regret.”

Here’s Ed discussing his surgery with Ryan Spencer:



Two, If you don’t learn to train smart vs hard as you age, expect an accumulation of injuries to put you out of the game at some point. Personally, while I have the utmost respect for that 0.1% of people like Ed and Ronnie who had the ability to take their training to where they did, I have no interest in that level of injuries to attain it. Your mileage may vary. But one can make excellent progress and reduce the risk of injuries, overtraining and other stuff best avoided if they learn to train smarter vs harder…

In addition to watching the vid I made above on that topic, here’s some additional thoughts, options, and resources toward training smarter and more science based that can increase your chances of staying in the game longer while reducing the risk of injuries that kill progress:

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