Many of you may remember a post a year or two ago about my good friend Justin.  We’ve known each other for many years, and came up powerlifting together while at Ball State University.

After many years of powerlifting and bodybuilding training, when Justin and I started training together about a year ago, the guy was a mess.  His hips were stiff, his back hurt all the time, and his shoulders were an absolute wreck.

Needless to say, he needed some work.

When Justin started training at IFAST full time, we made it our first and foremost goal to get him healthy – anything after that was gravy.  For a guy that had basically been injured for years, this was no small feat.  Here’s a brief recap of everything we did with Justin.

For his hip mobility, we used all the basic drills from Magnificent Mobility. In the beginning we really empahsized single-leg work, and as things got better we got into more and more bilateral work.  The key with Justin was the squat and pull – he didn’t understand the concept of neutral spine when “in the hole,” and that caused a lot of pain and discomfort.  So we drilled neutral spine in his head, while simultaneously working to improve total hip mobility.

For the upper body we used Inside-Out for mobility, warm-ups and activation.  Over the first 6-7 months, Justin did no heavy pressing, outside of resisted push-up variations.  The reason for this was two-fold:

1 – His scapulae were very unstable, and bench press variations always caused him pain

2 – His serratus anterior was REALLY weak

In this case we did tons of upper back work, focusing on proper scapular stability.  The crazy thing was, his back thickness really improved, even in the initial months when his program was almost entirely “corrective!”

So after almost 8 months, here’s what Justin did in the gym last week:

Deadlift from floor, 405×3

Front Squat to Parallel Box, 255×5, 275×3

Neutral Grip DB Bench, 90×5, 95×5, 100×3

Keep in mind, we weren’t actively chasing those numbers – but as he got healthier and his confidence grew, they kind of fell into place. It’s going to be scary in the next year when we actually start training to get him stronger!

The next step in the program is a serious fat loss phase.  I’ll be taking before pictures today, with some after pictures to come in the next few months.  Stay tuned!

Stay strong

MR