Avoid These 3 Mistakes in Weightlifting Rehab

If you're experiencing pain during the Snatch, Clean, or Jerk in CrossFit or Weightlifting, and you're working to recover, it's crucial to avoid these three common mistakes in the process.

Many athletes follow a therapeutic plan to address pain or injury, and while their exercises may target the right problem areas, the effectiveness of these exercises can be undermined by one of these three errors. 

Focusing solely on exercises for painful areas isn’t enough; sometimes, overcoming the issue requires a thoughtful approach to program design, proper dosage, and re-training movement patterns.

1) Only training the FULL lift, and avoiding training components or variations of the lift.

It’s GOOD to keep training the movements that had hurt you, but it’s even BETTER to be training the components, specific variations or drills related to the lift. I’m talking about your snatch deadlift, snatch pull, behind neck presses, jerk presses, tall cleans – the options are endless! These are exercises that work on specific components of a lift, including the timing, speed, coordination, and specific muscle group engagement during the lift. 

For instance, athletes often focus on training the full Snatch during every session, while neglecting key variations like Snatch Pulls, Overhead Squats, or Snatch Balances. By only practicing the full lift, they may be overlooking important movement patterns that contributed to the pain in the first place. Take, for example, an athlete who habitually pushes their knees back when the bar leaves the ground, creating a large gap between the hips and the bar. This causes the hips to travel too far forward, often leading to lower back pain. If the athlete only works on full Snatches from the ground to the squat position, without addressing the mechanical issues through exercises like Snatch Pulls or Deadlifts, the underlying fault will persist. As a result, their other rehab exercises may not fully resolve the problem.

By training Weightlifting variations and lift components, we can 1)  Overcome technique errors, 2) Build body awareness in more optimal movement patterns, and 3) Can allow an athlete to CONTINUE training if the FULL movement is too painful right now

By breaking down the movement, adhering to cues and improving the movement pattern, you’ll overcome WHY you had pain in the first place and be training BETTER than you were before. 

2) Separating their Rehab vs their Training 

 Have you ever thought, “I’ll wait until I feel 100% before getting back to training”—basically avoiding the painful area in an attempt to 'let it heal', and only returning when ALL symptoms are gone? You might still be doing your rehab exercises, but steering clear of any real training until you feel like the rehab has worked. 

Well, you’re not alone—I’ve heard this mindset a lot, and I’ve even felt that way myself.

But let’s challenge that perspective for a moment: How can your shoulder, lower back, knee, or any injured area ever truly heal to 100% if we don’t start restoring movement and strength? How can your rehab plan set you up for success if it doesn't include exposing the injured area to load or relevant movement patterns? 

The thing about Weightlifting rehabilitation is that there are PROGRESSIONS to everything. For example, if you're not at the capacity to do a FULL snatch in the squat position due to knee pain, but are able to work on Muscle or Power Snatches, do so! If you're unable to perform a split jerk with speed due to shoulder pain, but the strict press is just fine, then start working on the things you CAN do to progress back to your "100%"!

Don't avoid movement altogether thinking you'll magically come back to your previous 100%. To fully recover, we need to address what caused the pain in the first place. But simply avoiding training and de-conditioning yourself won’t help you get there.

3) Not training at effective stimuli 

 In other words, intentionally working at a weight, volume, or range of motion that you KNOW will keep you 100% symptom free.

I’ve heard this a lot from athletes I’ve worked with. “My pain feels much better this week…. But I've only been moving an empty barbell”. Well, of course it feels better if we are not putting stress on this area!

However in most cases, we actually NEED to stress the tissues a bit in order to help them adapt and recover! (But In some cases – such as acute injuries, significant swelling/inflammation, newly post-operative or post-partum – lower levels are both safe AND effective training stimuli!)

This brings us to the SAID Principle: Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands. It’s a foundational concept in exercise science and rehab, meaning your body will only adapt to the specific stress you place on it. So, if you're not challenging your tissues appropriately, you’re not setting yourself up for progress.

It’s OKAY to feel about a 2/10 discomfort, and honestly, it SHOULD resolve in 24-48 hours. This is NOT the “no pain no gain” principle, but rather an effective-stress principle.

So seriously, go back and let yourself feel some stress to your body, and don’t be surprised if you actually start to see improvement!

Ready to learn more? Have specific pain problems that are limiting your performance goals? Czarbell is here to help. Reach out at [email protected], or schedule an appointment with me through the main page of this website, to learn more!