Gift of Injury by Dr. Stuart McGill and Brian Carroll

This book is about healing injury in the athletes back and then building resilience to compete once again. Anyone who trains will enhance their injury resilience and performance employing these principles proven over and over with athletes.

In the highly competitive world of strength athletics, a back injury is seen by many as the ultimate career-ender. In truth, if handled properly, it is far from a death sentence. Follow the journey of international powerlifting champion Brian Carroll, who can attest to this first hand. This remarkable athlete went from 1100 lb squats and 800 lb deadlifts to unending pain and disability after a massive spinal compression injury. After a fortuitous meeting with leading back expert Professor Stuart McGill, he reset his training and his life to fight his way back to the top of the winner’s podium.

Glean expertise from McGill and Carroll, both masters in their field, and learn how to orchestrate your own triumphant comeback. Whether you are a former champion yourself who has fallen on hard times, or someone starting a new foray into the world of strength training who wants to avoid injury and maximize training, the wisdom found within these pages is sure to take your resilience and lifts to the next level.

Over 200 full color, rich illustrations demonstrate technique.

Table of Contents

FOREWORD BY WORLD’S STRONGEST MAN BILL KAZMAIER
How to read this book
Meet Stuart and Brian

SECTION 1: A STRENGTH ATHLETE’S STORY

Chapter 1: Breaking Point – the fork in the road

Chapter 2: The Early Years

• The path
• Mentorship – everyone needs a mentor
• The path to powerlifting
• Creating the monster
• Tunnel vision
• Early success

Chapter 3: Charting my spine’s demise

• Encounters with back pain
• My luck was starting to run out
• Bad back to worse – broken back
• Searching for relief

Chapter 4: Recovery – The athlete and the professor

Chapter 5: The injury explained

Chapter 6: The negotiation

SECTION 2: YOUR GUIDE: THE PATH FROM DISABLED BACK TO ULTIMATE STRENGTH AND INJURY RESILIENCE

Chapter 7: Commitment and resolve to get better

Chapter 8: A general approach to guide recovery

• Stage 1: Getting rid of disabling pain
• Stage 2: The general approach to determining the training program

Chapter 9: Assessment: Testing yourself – the key to designing your rehab-training program

• Step 1: Assess demands
• Step 2: Assess the athlete capabilities
• Step 3: Design the program

Chapter 10: Programming – The foundation for pain-free and resilient training

SECTION 3: BRIAN’S PROGRAM AND PROGRESS TIMELINE

Chapter 11: Re-inventing a strength athlete 2013-2015

SECTION 4: STRENGTH TECHNIQUE, COACHING, TRAINING, AND PROGRAMMING

Chapter 12: Re-Mastering the powerlifts for all

• The 5 basic principles of strength training
• Your Warm-up guide
• Coaching the powerlifts
  • – The Squat
  • – The Bench Press
  • – The Deadlift
  • – Programming assistance work for the big lifts

Chapter 13: Training wisdom – lessons earned the hard way

• Training mindset and approach – the mentality
• Big weights require big mindset
• Visualization
• The night before
• Game day
• Final countdown

Chapter 14: Retirement – Knowing when to step away

Chapter 15: Conclusion

SECTION 5: CHARTS, LOGS AND GYM BAG ESSENTIALS