In the world of lifting, few things are as feared as the dreaded injury. It's the ghost story we tell around the weight rack—a sudden pop, a sharp pain, and weeks or months of sidelined progress. Dr. Mike Israetel has been in the iron game for a long time, and he's collected a few of those stories himself. But these aren't just tales of caution; they're powerful lessons in how to train smarter, harder, and safer for the long haul.
Instead of learning these lessons the hard way, you can benefit from his experience to protect your body, manage your ego, and keep the gains coming for years.
TL;DR: Key Lessons to Stay Injury-Free
- Don't YOLO Your Volume: A single workout where you suddenly double your number of sets is a high-risk, low-reward strategy. Progress your volume gradually.
- Technique Over Everything: Never compromise your form to lift heavier or work around a nagging pain. Asymmetrically shifting or rounding to avoid discomfort can cause a much more severe injury.
- Control for Gains and Safety: For hypertrophy, slow, controlled movements are just as effective as explosive, heavy lifting but come with a significantly lower risk of injury.
- Listen to Your Body: Sometimes, a specific exercise just won't work for you, even if it's popular. It's better to find an alternative that feels good than to force something that causes pain.
Lesson 1: The Peril of the "One Epic Workout"
Early in his training career, Dr. Mike experienced a strange and persistent injury in his pecs and triceps involving benign fasciculations—uncontrollable muscle twitching after a contraction. This mysterious issue seemed to stem from a period of performing "YOLO workouts," specifically one where he did an excessive number of sets for his chest in a single session—far beyond what he was accustomed to.
He pushed a muscle group so far in one workout that it seemed to cause lasting damage, making the tissue more susceptible to re-injury for years.
The Takeaway: No single workout will make or break your physique, but one overly aggressive session can set you back for months. The key to progress is consistency over time. If you normally do six sets for chest, jumping to 12 in one day is asking for trouble. A much smarter approach is to add a set or two, see how you recover, and progress gradually. Don't let one day's enthusiasm sabotage a year's worth of gains.
Lesson 2: The Danger of "Working Around" Pain
A herniated disc is one of the most feared injuries in lifting, and Dr. Mike got his not from a failed max squat, but from a series of small compromises. It started with an inflamed SI joint from heavy overhead pressing, which made squatting with a perfectly upright posture painful. To get through his workouts, he found that tilting his hips slightly to one side relieved the pain.
This asymmetrical compensation was the critical mistake. While it provided temporary relief, it put his spine in a dangerously compromised position, leading to a herniated disc during a set of good mornings.
The Takeaway: Pain is a signal, not an obstacle to be creatively avoided. Altering your technique to bypass discomfort is a recipe for disaster. If something hurts, the answer isn't to find a crooked way to do it; it's to lower the weight, fix your form, or choose a different exercise. After the injury, his recovery involved dropping the ego, focusing on high-rep, controlled movements with perfect technique, and slowly rebuilding his strength over months. This patient approach not only allowed him to heal but also built bigger quads and better technique in the process.
Lesson 3: When Ego Outweighs Technique
We've all seen someone in the gym loading up the bar for walking lunges and moving with more momentum than control. Dr. Mike admits to being that guy, performing walking lunges with 245 pounds. The reps were fast, the descent was quick, and the goal was to move the most weight possible. The result? An audible tearing sound and a painfully torn adductor that made walking up stairs a monumental task.
After the injury, he shifted his focus. Instead of chasing the heaviest weight, he used lighter loads but with a much longer stride, a slower and more controlled descent, and a focus on shifting his weight to the front leg. His glutes grew more than ever, and the risk of re-injury plummeted.
The Takeaway: For building muscle (hypertrophy), the glory of clanging and banging is fleeting. Controlled reps, a deep stretch, and a strong mind-muscle connection are statistically safer and just as effective for growth. Ask yourself: are you in the gym to impress people for 30 seconds with a heavy, sloppy set, or are you there to build a permanently impressive physique? Choose the path that lets you train consistently and safely.
Lesson 4: Sometimes, It's Just Not Meant to Be
Not every injury has a clear, dramatic origin. After a week of heavy jiu-jitsu training, Dr. Mike went to perform a set of dumbbell upright rows—an exercise he had done for years. Suddenly, he felt a searing, burning nerve pain radiate down his arm, and his deltoid and trap began to fasciculate uncontrollably.
To this day, he has no idea why that specific movement causes such a severe reaction, while similar exercises like barbell upright rows or face pulls are completely fine. Trying the exercise again, even years later, brings back the same nerve pain. The injury left him with a chronic issue where sitting completely upright for too long causes discomfort.
The Takeaway: If you train hard for long enough, you will almost certainly get hurt at some point. Sometimes, despite perfect form and programming, an exercise just doesn't agree with your individual mechanics. The lesson here isn't about prevention but about intelligent response. Dr. Mike didn't try to force his way through the pain; he simply accepted that dumbbell upright rows were off the menu and found other ways to train his shoulders. Your best bet is to work around the problem, focusing on what you can do without pain, and slowly test the waters over time to see if the tissue has healed.
Final Thoughts: Train Smart for the Long Game
The common thread through all these injuries is that long-term progress is a game of patience and intelligence, not just brute force. Your ability to get bigger and stronger over decades depends on your ability to stay in the gym consistently. That means managing your volume, prioritizing flawless technique, checking your ego at the door, and listening to your body's signals.
If and when an injury occurs, don't panic. Allow yourself a moment of frustration, then switch into problem-solving mode. Back away from what caused the pain, focus on training everything else hard, and begin a slow, methodical, and patient rehab process. A smart lifter isn't one who never gets hurt—it's one who learns from every setback to come back stronger and more resilient than before.
