 Our next caller is Gunnar from Washington. What's up Gunnar? How can we help you? How's it going? I Had a hernia surgery about a year a year ago. I was cleared to exercise. I've been exercising since I'm running anabolic right now and I plan to run aesthetic after that at both those programs and Squats and deadlifts are very prominent in that program and when I do those I noticed flare-ups like where I had that surgery at I'm kind of pretty itchy there for a couple of days Just kind of Unnecessary pain in that area. I think it's due to the big load Kind of With weight in those exercises and I'm curious what you guys would recommend switching out for those two Yeah, okay, so you don't want to mess with hernia surgery if that happens. Yeah, that tears again You're it's gonna be I'm sure the recovery was probably a pain in the butt and it took a while So that being said we don't need to abandon the no Here's a deal. This is somewhere where I would I would if you were my client I'd have you go back to the doctor and I would talk to them and get their clearance on what you can and can't do Because you're feeling something post exercise That tells me that either the way you're bracing or maybe even the way that the procedure was done to repair your hernia Did they add any mesh material or did they just sew up what was open? Yeah, they did add mesh and when I exercise now like I've been doing It's what I've been doing. I'm about halfway through anabolic. I've been doing vulgarian split squats with like Lighter weight and kind of doing time under tension And then I did like kettlebell Romanian deadlifts yesterday. Okay, and no pain. Yeah. Good. Yeah. I would go again check with your doctor because sometimes The itchiness is literally where the mesh attaches to the muscle And it could be just Part of the healing process things are moving not necessarily a bad thing But I'm not a doctor and I would clear that with your doctor because if it tears again The second time around is going to be worse than the first time around. This is not something you want to mess around with So I'm with sal. I obviously doctor stuff first, but then I also wouldn't abandon the movements I would just lighten the load and and slow down the tempo and really concentrate on bracing my core and And keeping my spine nice and neutral through the movement and just master the technique of the movement And don't even though even if you're following something like anabolic, which I know is a strength focus first phase You know, don't worry about always loading the bar more and more weight. Get more into perfecting the movement I love your decision to go to the vulgarian split squats. I think that was a great. I think that's a great call But there's just so much value in in the squat and the deadlift and We don't we don't want to because basically if we say you're going to move away from it now Are we just going to accept for the rest of your life? I'll never be able to squat or deadlift again It's like, no, I don't think you you want that. I don't want that for you And so, um, you know, let's first get some clearance from the doctor to make sure we're all good to go But then let's just start from the ground up and move real slow Yeah, just keep that load way down until you know for sure Like, you know, you can feel when it's healed up and things are sort of operating Back to to normal and so like the the vulgarian split squats and like kind of doing the unilateral type training Is going to benefit you quite a bit. You're still going to build muscle And you're still going to build a lot more stability and support for when You know, you feel like you're you're now ready to then start stacking the load on so it's there's nothing wrong with You know staying in that type of mentality for a while Yeah, and you might be surprised like you might go to the doctor and the doctor might say Oh, well, that's normal where we attached the mesh to the muscle and stuff scar tissue is changing and growing and you know Not growing excuse me stretching and that's just a normal process of you know Your body adapting to this particular procedure. So they might just say that to you. So but nonetheless Get clearance. I've worked with people who've re-injured a hernia and I'm gonna tell you right now You don't want to do that. It's it's not worth it Okay, great. Thanks guys. No problem. Got her. I know a guy that had He kept re-injuring hernia and obviously your gut starts to poke through the hole and he would push it back in with his hand Anyway, it got so bad It pinched off a piece of his I guess his intestine which died. He had to go and get it removed. Yeah Oh, hernias can be really bad. They could be really really bad things Yeah, to the point where they can become almost life-threatening or you just keep re-injuring this area And then you're left with this kind of permanent issue And it's such a like a weak link right there Like it's it's susceptible to I mean it's easily like torn once it's done at once So it's like it's it's just one of those things you want to make sure it's really healed up before you start adding the intensity back Now given say the doctor does clear him and he's fine This is an example though of why I would not want to abandon those movements It's just and this is where you can play with things like tempo and isometrics Like no, I mean nothing stops you from Okay, we obviously he does date normal movements getting up and out of a chair and stuff like that and so Load the bar really really light and you know pause at the bottom and pause midway through the movement and Grip the floor and then squeeze and contract at the end and you know Slow it way down on the centric portion of the exercise So lots of different ways for you to play with it and then unilateral like Justin was alluding to I mean do some single leg Deadlifts and get really good at that and perfect the movement We're always so hung up on moving weight on the bar as our Sign of we're getting better and stronger. It's like you absolutely do not always need to do that And here's a perfect example of somebody who instead of us a because the natural thing that someone at 24 wants to do is go Like, okay, should I just stop squatting and then go leg press really heavy? Yeah, you know because I feel okay leg pressing. So let's go stack six by the way the leg press would be the worst possible I know that's even worse But I mean that's how they would think though, right? I mean that's a client would they or go to some machine leg extension Sure stack the plates on there It's just like we want to just go heavy and do something that we feel safer doing it's like no What you what we should do is just really Lighten the load and those movements because you know being able to hinge at the hip, you know and squat down Parallel or blow fundamental human movement. Yeah, we don't at 24. I don't want to give up on you having that