Should I stop training while an old injury flares?

Usually not completely. Most irritable joints tolerate a shorter range, a slower tempo or a different variation of the same movement. Stop and see a physician if a joint is hot, swollen, locking, giving way or painful at night.

Which injuries do you work with?

The common ones for active men over 45: stiff or painful shoulders, chronic knee pain, ankle pain or instability, low back pain and tight hips. Anything acute, or anything that needs a diagnosis, goes to a physician first.

How do you know if the training is too much for the joint?

You record a 0 to 10 pain and stiffness score for each limiting joint every week. A score that holds or falls while the load rises is progress. A score that climbs for two or three weeks means the plan comes back a step.

Is this physical therapy?

No. It is strength coaching led by a licensed chiropractor, delivered online. It does not replace care from your own physician or a hands-on provider when you need one.

Injuries

Training around old injuries

Keep training while a knee, shoulder, ankle or back settles. The injury is managed inside the program, not in a separate six-week detour.

Book a free 15-minute call See Foundation 90

A man doing a controlled band row on a training machine

What is training around old injuries at Doctor of Strength?

Doctor of Strength builds your training around a recurring knee, shoulder, ankle or back problem instead of pausing it. Loads, ranges and exercise choices are adjusted week by week against a 0 to 10 joint score, so strength keeps building while the joint settles.

Dr. LaMar Sheppard, DC

The injury is part of the program

The usual pattern goes like this. The shoulder starts pinching, the pressing stops, a few weeks of physical therapy follow, and you are discharged the moment you can lift your arm overhead. Then you go back to the program that caused it, and the same thing happens on the same schedule.

Doctor of Strength handles it the other way round. The joint that has been limiting you stays in the program from day one, trained at a load the tissue can absorb, and progressed as it earns it.

How it works in practice

The variable changes before the exercise does. Depth, tempo, grip, stance and load come first. Most irritable knees still squat, to a box. Most sore shoulders still press, with a neutral grip.
The joint gets a number. A 0 to 10 pain and stiffness score, every week, for each joint that has been limiting you. The trend makes the decisions, not a single bad day.
Month one has one standard. In Foundation 90, the first thirty days are measured by one line: nothing flares.
Your outside providers stay in the picture. Where your case calls for it, the plan is coordinated with your physician, orthopedist or local rehab provider.

The common ones

Shoulders that limit pressing and pulling. Knees that have been complaining for years, sometimes with a replacement already mentioned. Ankles that roll. A low back that decides when the weekend is over. These are the problems the program is built around, because they are the ones men in this age group bring.

For the detail on two of them, read training with a cranky knee and when your shoulder limits pressing and pulling.

When it is not the right starting point

Some joints need a physician before they need a program: swelling after an incident, locking, giving way, sudden weakness, or pain that keeps you awake. If that is where you are, you will hear it on the call, along with who to see.

How to start

Most people start with a free 15-minute call. If you want the whole picture first, including any imaging you already have, The Baseline is a sixty-minute assessment with a written report.