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Thoughts on Lifting While Injured, and My Experience with Pe..
🕑 Added 2025-04-14 19:44:47 +0000 UTCThoughts on Lifting While Injured, and My Experience with Peptide Therapy
Disclaimer: This is not medical advice! I'm not a medical professional. If you have an injury, please see a doctor.
Three years ago I injured my left knee while hiking a very muddy trail in Costa Rica. (I know, real privileged people problems 🙃) My foot slipped and I fell directly onto my bent knee, with the knee cap taking all of the impact.
Fortunately, nothing was fractured. But after several doctor visits, including an orthopedic specialist, and a couple X-rays, I found out that the cartilage in my left knee was severely bruised. Like, basically obliterated.
The orthopedist gave me two options for treatment: wait about two years for the cartilage to heal naturally, or pursue stem cell therapy, which would cost around $25,000.
There's no way I was going to spend that kind of money. So I decided to wait it out. In the mean time, I had to adapt everything about my training to accommodate for my fucked-up knee. I couldn't squat to full depth, and even box squats were painful. At the time, I was living in a three-level house with two steep staircases, and that was torturous in its own special way.
Cartilage is notoriously slow to heal. If you've ever had a cartilage piercing, you know what I mean -- cartilage has no bl00d supply. The healing timeline is entirely dependent on individual biology, and there's only a few things you can do to help it along.
I became obsessed with learning everything I could to help my knee injury heal on a shorter timeline, because not being able to lift normally for two years sounded like a terrible punishment to me.
I started by taking daily high-dose supplements of collagen and hyaluronic acid. Most over-the-counter joint supplements contain those ingredients, since they're important building blocks for cartilage regeneration. They did help, but didn't seem to sp33d up healing in any noticeable way.
Then, after plumbing the depths of the Powerlifter Internet, I learned about peptide therapy. A number of studies (here are two, for example: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5835815/#sec11, https://www.arthroscopyjournal.org/article/S0749-8063(24)00667-4/fulltext) show that certain peptides are incredibly effective for cartilage regeneration.
The only issue is that most peptides are not yet FDA approved. You can buy compounded peptides online, but the experience feels sketchy as hell. The websites that sell them literally have a disclaimer in the footnote that says "These are for experimental research use only, and not approved by the FDA for human use." But I was desperate enough to try just about anything (except for the insanely priced $25k stem cell therapy), so I ordered a six month supply of a few different peptides that are correlated with cartilage regeneration and joint healing.
At first, it was a little scary using them. I had to learn how to calculate the correct dosage and give myself a subcutaneous injection. And of course that FDA disclaimer was looming in the back of my mind. After I experienced zero adverse effects the first two weeks of peptide therapy, I decided to keep going.
Within three months, I experienced an incredible improvement in my knee injury. My mind was absolutely blown by the difference the peptides made. I was told I'd have to wait up to two years for the cartilage in my knee to heal, but after three months of peptide therapy, I went from daily pain, a crunchy knee, and limited mobility to little to no pain, a more lubricated-feeling knee joint, and being able to use stairs and do full-depth squats (with light weight) with no discomfort.
I continued peptide therapy for nine months, and by that point my knee was back to functioning normally. Of course I still had to adapt my lifts, since I'd lost a lot of strength, and gained about 20lbs due to limitations on my phsyical activity. But just being able to lift again at all, with full range of motion, was the best feeling. Now, three years later, I'm still rebuilding the strength I lost due to that injury. Just two weeks ago was the first time I squatted the kind of weight I used to be able to hit before my knee injury.
I'm not one to buy into woo-woo alternative health stuff, and generally speaking, I believe that most supplements that claim to work "miracles" are just grifter snake oil. But I truly feel that in my experience, peptide therapy is the closest thing to a miracle I've ever experienced.
In my humble opinion, it's a massive disservice to the public that peptide research isn't being more generously funded and sped up, to get this treatment FDA approved and make it widely available. (And of course, who knows how long it will take now, with that measles-loving idiot RFK doing everything he can to defund the NIH and the FDA.)
Last week I hit an 85 kilo squat for the first time since 2022. I must confess, I never really liked squats. I'm 5'9" and most of my height is leg. If you look at powerlifters that hold records for heavy squats, most of them have short legs for a reason. But after hitting that weight, the first thing I said to my coach was "I FUCKING LOVE SQUATS!" because I DO!
I don't think I could ever dislike squats again. After dealing with my knee injury, going through my experience healing from it, and finally being able to squat like a normal powerlifter again, I have so much more appreciation for squat day than I ever did before. I look forward to it now. I won't be breaking any records soon (or ever, lol), but that's not the point. Every powerlifter knows that even if and when you compete, you're competing against yourself more than anything. By that metric, I'm doing a great job. 🤗
