Heather Connor: What We’re Getting Wrong About Injuries

The whole thing you want in this sport is longevity. If you got to take yourself out of a competition, if you got to put your ego aside to take care of this injury, please do it. You’re going to regret it if you choose to compete and get more injured, and you’re out for over a year to where you can’t even go to the gym.

Welcome to the “BarBend Podcast” where we talk to the smartest athletes, coaches, and minds from around the world of strength. I’m your host, David Thomas Tao, and this podcast is presented by barbend.com.

Today, I’m talking to Heather Connor, one of the world’s top-ranked powerlifters. It’s tough to distill Heather’s accomplishments down to a quick intro, but we’ll try.

She’s a two-time IPF World champion, and the first female IPF powerlifter to deadlift four times her body weight raw.

Heather joins us to talk about the injury that sidelined her for nearly a year, along with why it’s so easy for lifters to ignore the signs of significant underlying injuries and issues.

We also chat about Heather’s goals in the sport, what big money sport competitions could mean for powerlifting’s future, and a weight gain strategy that involves lots and lots of tortilla chips.

 Heather, thanks so much for joining us today. The first thing I like to ask every powerlifter when we have them on the show is, “How’s training going, and what are you training for right now,” which is perhaps the more important question, because at the elite level where you’re at, training cycles can be very much long, and I know you’re planning your meets way, way far out, many months ahead.

Also, I want to take a second to say we’re incredibly thankful that you listen to this podcast, so if you haven’t already, be sure to leave a rating and review of the BarBend Podcast in your app of choice. Now, let’s get to it.

 I’m not injured.

Step number one, you’re healthy, there you go.

I’m healthy, which is pretty unusual. I’ve been injured for a little bit, and slowly getting out of that injury. I’m about 95 percent, going into my biggest meet today which is a Sheffield invitational in Sheffield, England, March 2020.

If you don’t mind me asking, what injury were you coming off of and what was the recovery process like for that?

Back in 2018, I strained my lower lat. I strained that pulling four times the body weight at the Arnold.

If there’s a way to strain a lat, it’s doing that. I strain a lat getting out of bed or picking up my backpack.

[laughs] I didn’t know that I had strained anything. I’m not going to say I mistook it for soreness, but that’s what I try to classify it as, rather than an injury.

It’s not like I could ask any other female in the federation like, “Oh, how sore are you usually after pulling four times the body weight,” because I’m in my own little category when it comes to that. I was like, “OK, I just need to rest a little bit.”

I went on a cruise, totally ignored all my responsibilities when it comes to anything physically-related to powerlifting. [laughs]

When I got back, even simply putting the bar on my back just…It took a lot out of me. I knew that it was no longer just me being sore. It was something I had to figure out. Because I took so long to recognize it, it healed, but improperly.

If anybody knows anything about the lower lat, it’s not just that lat area that it’s affected. It goes all the way down your back, into your lower back. [laughs] It was a nightmare.

I had to go to physical therapy. I had to go to a lot of things to accommodate that whole healing process. It’s taken until now to really see that strength coming back to where it used to be.

When people think of injuries, we think big catastrophic injuries like broken bones. We think torn ligaments. We think really bad tears and things as the injuries that take a long time, but sometimes, it’s something in the muscle tissue that can take over a year to get back to full speed, as you experienced.

Yeah. I’m super humbled about that injury because it did make me step back and realize a lot of things. Now, I take my training a little bit more seriously when it comes to stretching and mobility, in that aspect, because I don’t want to be in that situation again.

I’m more aware of how my body is feeling. If one day, it doesn’t feel good, I stop that workout entirely, and just try to continue the next day, depending on how the body’s feeling during that time, because this has been a process.

It’s been a very emotional one. It goes from highs and lows. I’m finally going back on that climb to where I could start appreciating everything I had to go through during this timeframe.

Is that the most sidetracking injury you’ve had in your powerlifting career?

Yeah. I would say so. I’ve had like little, dumb injuries occur. [laughs] For the longest time I had one of my floating ribs continuously pop out of place, and that…I don’t know. I don’t know. I asked how easy that was to happen and a chiropractor was like, “Oh, you can cough hard and that come out.”

But I had to change my belt and everything because apparently the belt I was using before my SBD belt was pushing that area when I would go to get tight and that floating rib was just constantly getting out of place. It was annoying feeling. That hurts you. [laughs]

It’s so amazing to me what powerlifters will put up with routinely, like, “My floating rib keeps popping out, but I’m not going to be able to get a new belt till next week so I’ll just deal with it.” This is a sport where you just deal with things that to the normal person sound absolutely insane physically. Do you ever step back and think about that?

Yeah, I do. I think about some of the injuries or the aggravations I’ve had, but then I look on social media and somebody’s bicep just totally tears and I’m like, “OK. Well, I can bring down my dramatics a little bit.” [laughs] Oh gosh, I cannot watch those videos.

I mean, they’re certainly cringe-worthy and it’s not something that I would encourage people to go watch necessarily, but it’s a sport like any other. There’s a risk of injury.

It’s almost kind of sad sometimes that you have to go through an injury to be more conscientious and conscious of prepping your body and avoiding injuries moving forward. It’s a weird catch-22 sometimes. Like, “It’ll never happen to me,” until it happens to you.

Exactly. I try to preach that to people. Slow down. The whole thing you want in the sport is longevity. If you’ve got to take yourself out of a competition, if you’ve got to put your ego aside to take care of this injury, please do it. You’re going to regret it if you choose to compete and get more injured and you’re out for over a year to where you can’t even go to the gym. I’ve seen that happen plenty of times.

Powerlifting, certainly, is a sport where people can have very long careers. I always reference David Ricks as an example of this. Someone who’s been competing in powerlifting for, I believe, I think it’s over 30 years and who’s still winning national championships into his late 50s. You can be competitive in powerlifting for a long, long time.

You can look on the horizon of decades and staying healthy and competitive and moving well for decades as opposed to this short, little window. In a lot of sports, I feel like people only have that short, little window to perform at the elite level. Powerlifters, many of them aren’t peaking until their 40s in some instances.

Right. David Ricks is such a good example. Even though he did red-light me on that one time…

I’m going to [inaudible 8:36] such a good example because, not only has he been in the sport for so long, he has seen the changes within the sport. He is still a top contender as a Masters lifter in the open division, so kudos to him. [laughs]

But he is very strict when judging depth, apparently. At least that’s your perspective, huh?

That, and he gives the hardest press commands on bench. Oh gosh. [laughs]

If you make a lift when David Ricks is judging, that means you’ve really made that lift. You’ve done everything and then some.

Yeah, because it’s almost like he falls asleep a little bit and I’m like, “Hey, this is kind of hard.” He hugged me right before that competition started and I kind of wanted to take back that hug. Like, “Remember when you red-lighted me? I want to take that back.”

Well, just to give folks perspective on the body weight you’re training at, let’s talk about your lifts and your PRs pre-injury and then kind of how you’re feeling now and some of the numbers that you’re looking at heading into the Sheffield meet.

Yeah. My current PR in squat is 142.5 kilos, around 314 pounds, bench 72.5 kilos, 159 pounds, and deadlift is currently 183 kilos, which is around 403 pounds. The deadlift I set back this past October at Nationals and the other two lifts were from 2018 Arnold, where I had got that lat injury. As we progress in my lifts, my squat has gotten back up. It’s around 140 kilos, 308 which I hit twice the other day which is good. That boosted my confidence a little bit.

Bench has gotten up to about 75 kilos, 165 pounds. As of yesterday, I hit 185 kilo, 407 pound deadlift which was a goal for March. [laughs]

For reference, those are all impressive numbers no matter who you are. For folks who might not be super familiar with what body weight you’re lifting at, your competition body weight is?

Around 45.5 kilos which is around 100 pounds on a good day.

Those numbers are great for anyone, but just to put it in reference, Heather is, call it 100 pounds flat, just easy for a lot of people to imagine. Lifting four times body weight, you’re one of the few women in the world to do that right now. Do you know how many active female powerlifters are pulling for times body weight right now?

In the IPA and the USAPL and stuff, I am the only one. [laughs] Like in any federation, I want to say, and I could be wrong, but it’s just me and Stefi Cohen currently.

When you feel something or you mentioned when you strained your lat or when you have certain tightnesses or something from training. In many ways, uncharted territory as far as people you can talk to about like, “Hey, is it normal to feel that?”

Are you and Stefi on a chat or you’re just the only two people experiencing this stuff, so you’re just going back and forth compare experiences? [laughs]

It’s funny because when I started feeling like, “OK, this might not be just me being sore,” I did reach out to her because she specializes in stuffs like this.

Not even just as somebody who has also pulled four times a body weight, I’m coming her as on a professional and saying, “Hey, could this be what I’m experiencing,” because me personally if I sneeze, “Oh, I’m [inaudible 12:51] and I probably shouldn’t.” I knew I didn’t have lung cancer. I’m like, “Who could probably give me a good guess as to what’s going on?” [laughs]

That is one thing about Stefi Cohen. We do a lot of work with Stefi at BarBend and she became so well-known online for her lifting initially. Then, it took people a little while to realize like, “Oh, she has a fantastic body of knowledge when it comes to the human body and movement for performance.”

Now, it’s almost like she’s becoming popular again but for that even separately from the fact that she’s back squatting over 500 pounds and pulling four times body weight.

Is there anyone else in the powerlifting community who you often reach out to for advice, for counsel, or just to chat about their experiences?

I have recently and also, in the past, I’ve always chatted with Kimberly Walford. She has been in the sport for a while now. She gives me more of guidance into the sport and what I should be expecting as far as like social media trolls and how to respond people and who to respond to. She has been a good mentor for me in the past.

If I’m ever in a situation where I need to reach out to somebody that has way more knowledge in the sport than I do, I typically reach out to her, a few IPF reps that I will send my videos too, because if I want good critique, I’m not going to probably ask my friend at the gym who’s always cheering me on.

I want to have an IPF rep, who’d go like, “You know what? You could probably do this little bit better,” because that’s how I’m going to progress in the sport.

That’s what counts too. At this point, you’re not go gym lifts. Gym makes aren’t good enough for you, right? You need to make these on the biggest stages.

Yeah. There has been a situation I was in the gym and I knew…I don’t know what was going on that day, but my depth on squats, just everything was off. I did have that person like, “No, it was good.”

I’m like, “No, it wasn’t. Thanks, but I don’t need to send this video to my normal person because I don’t want to hear their response. I know how it looked. I know how it feels. I’m going to do this some other day.” [laughs] You got to be able to separate friends from who actually is going to be able to make that call when game day comes.

You mentioned trolls and social media and reaching out to Kim about how to handle that and to handle yourself online.

For better or for worse and people have very different opinions about this, part of being an elite level powerlifter, one of the best in the world, it seems like you’re almost required to have an active social media presence. It’s something that sponsors want. It’s something that federations want to help hype events and your performances. Let’s talk a little bit about that. What is behind that?

OK.

What has been your experience so far with balancing the positivity and negativity that comes with having that social presence?

Oh, my goodness. In my opinion, I’ve gotten a thousand times more better than I was in the past. Kimberly did tell me, “The bigger you get in the sport, the more hate you’re going to get.” It doesn’t matter what kind of a person you are, somebody is going to not like you for whatever reason. That’s fine. Now, Heather back in 2017 would be like, “That’s not fine.”

I would just go back and forth with people and I was not the nicest person back then. As I have said back, I have grown mentally a lot in the sport. Now I pick and choose who I respond to. If you are going to feel nothing but negativity towards me, unlike my page…

I get some pretty drawn out negative comments that probably took that person two minutes to type out and I just simply delete it. If I start to read the negativity in it, I just pause to read it because I’m not going to waste any more energy on it.

There’s a difference between constructive criticism and just being downright hateful and for like me being very open about my mental health, if deleting comments is what I got to do to be able to stay in a good mental space, that’s what I would do.

I do allow people to know that they are entitled to their opinion. However, you can give your opinion without being mean.

Is a lot of the hate that you get or a lot of the comments you get, is it coming from people within the powerlifting community or people outside of the powerlifting community?

I think it’s a little bit of both. There are people that just don’t want you to be successful. They don’t want to see you do good. A lot of that derives from jealousy, or whatever it may be, and that’s fine.

Sometimes it’s just random people who I don’t even think have any knowledge on the sport. That’s when I got to tell myself sometimes, you have the people on there that, “Oh, you shouldn’t be arching.” OK, cool. [laughs] I’ll take that into consideration, but these are people that probably know nothing about the sport.

I can’t assume that everybody that says something to me is knowledgeable on the sport, so I got to think about my reaction to them.

My favorite is the “sumo is cheating” trolls. There’s got to be some kind of email list or special forum where all these people gather and then just decide, “OK, how are we going to hate on the sumo lifters today?”

Yeah. [laughs] That’s my favorite, and it’s one of those to where when I posted my video from October, I knew the controversy that was about to come from it. I had mentally prepared myself for it, because me being the one that pulled it and being such a technical person, I knew how the lift looked. I knew people would argue about it.

Sometimes that’s really good in the sport, the arguments, and the controversy. It keeps the sport alive. When people are like, “Oh, sumo’s cheating. I bet you couldn’t do that conventional blah, blah, blah.” You’re right. I don’t train conventional at all. Why would I? I practice how I play, pretty much.

Sometimes, when I see these negative comments about sumo or my lifts, I don’t even respond to it. I’ll have those little arguments in my shower but the shampoo bottles are listening to me. Yeah, how about that, this is what I would have said. I bet you couldn’t do it either way so how about that. [laughs]

 It is funny when people…it’s like, “Well, that shouldn’t count,” or, “Couldn’t do it conventional.” It’s like, “She just pulled four times bodyweight.” Can’t we be at least a little impressed?

Most people will never feel that weight in their hands. It doesn’t matter what style they pull it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a rack pole, it doesn’t matter if they use straps. Most people will never feel four times body weight in their hands. Like, “OK, she lives at a different style.”

Can we celebrate the strength aspect here? It’s also legal. It’s legal to do it. It’s not cheating big because it’s according to the rule book. I don’t know. I just…

Yeah. I tell myself that. I tell myself that all the time in my head. I’m like, “OK, well, how about you try to pull it sumo or conventional and we’ll see if it even budges off the ground and you tell me how beautiful it looks.” You can’t make it look beautiful if it doesn’t even break the floor. [laughs]

A lot of people who call out, “Sumo is cheating. This lift looks ugly.” If you go to their pages and they are a powerlifter, many of, it’s never an elite powerlifter. It’s never someone who’s very good at the sport.

You’ll see them pulling conventional and it looks like crap. Like, 9 times out of 10 the people calling people out for sumo, they’re pulling conventional. I’m like, “I wouldn’t pass that lift.” You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like that’s a bad looking lift. They’re doing conventional.

What is the lift that you think you have the most room…Just to completely change this perspective for a second? What is the lift you think you have the most room to improve on in the next phase of your powerlifting career?

Squats. I say that because I know where I was with squats back in 2018. I’m seeing that strength come back. I know there is some kilos to add. Bench, especially, for women, this could be debatable but this is just my opinion. I will take that two and a half kilo PR. I will take any PR when it comes to bench because it’s hard to progress.

That particular lift, at least, you’re not going to see females that are at the top level all of a sudden get a 10-kilo bench PR or a 20-kilo bench PR. They’re going to get what they can. It’s usually around two and a half or five kilos.

Then deadlift, I’ve set the bar for myself to where, again, I’m just chipping at it at this point, like, what more can I do in that lift.

With squats, I know there’s still strength to be built in that particular lift. I’m excited to see how far I can push that one.

Have you changed anything technically about your lifts in the past couple of years?

Yeah. [laughs] That was really dumb on my part, I don’t know why I did this. I used to squat strictly in my Converses and then right before 2019 Worlds, I was like, “I wonder what it would feel like to squat in heels,” and it went terrible for me. [laughs]

To clarify for people who aren’t active lifters listening to this, lifting shoes not like high heels but [laughs] lifting shoes with a heel.

It could be high heels, whatever they want to think. [laughs]

 Sure.

[laughs] I did that a month and a half out, I don’t know why, I was like, “Hey, let’s see how this goes” and it went absolutely terrible.

I still won Worlds but not in my best form. So right after Worlds, which was in June, I was like, “Well, that was lame.” I switched back to Converses.

I had a fun little competition in Ireland back in August and did great. My lift went significantly back up as soon as I switched back to Converses.

I’m going [inaudible 24:18] . This past October, actually went with a flatter shoe, the notorious lift slippers, which have worked out very well for me. I use them in squat bench and deadlift. For me, because of how flat they are, I get a really good feel of the floor underneath. So I know if I’m going more on my toes or if I’m sitting too far back, like in a squat.

With those slippers, I’ve been able to get a good feel of positioning and so I tweak that a little bit with my squats. With bench, I use them and I get more leg drive. With deadlift, aside from my grip, I’ve moved my left side in a little bit to accommodate that lat.

Yes. I think the shoes have been the biggest change [laughs] on lifts.

How long do you see yourself competing at this very high level in this sport?

I see myself doing it for a little while. I won’t say that it will be in the 47-kilo weight class too much longer, because I’m at the point where I’m like, “What else can I do in this weight class?”

In the IPF, the 47 kilo in the open division is the lightest you can be. The next class up is the 52 class and that is something that, long term wise, I would want to ease myself into because I sit normally around 45 kilos.

If that means taking some time off to train, gain that muscle, and gain that weight to be a good candidate in that weight class, that’s what I’m going to do. As far as long term wise for the 47 class, I don’t see that going much further.

Are you someone who has difficulty gaining weight? When I talked to most people in the lighter bodyweight categories, very rare is it that someone is training below bodyweight, or below bodyweight for that category.

Is gaining weight something you’ve worked on in the past and had difficulty with?

Yeah, it has been. Being someone that has Crohn’s disease, I got that back in 2017. Going into 2018, my diet has changed and I can’t eat certain things without feeling side effects or potentially getting sent to the hospital for those reasons.

Because I’m very particular about what I eat, there’s a lot of things that I choose not to eat that would be very good at me gaining weight.

Aside from that, because of my occupation, I’m always on my feet, I’m always walking. If I see myself going up five…

Last night, I had Texas Roadhouse, and I had two baskets of rolls, a whole meal.

I  was like, “Oh, I wonder how much I weigh.” I only gained two ounces from that. I know that going back to regular eating today, it’s going to go right back off. [laughs]

It’s like, “I went to the buffet, what more can I do?” [laughs]

It doesn’t stay. I laugh at this, for Raw Nationals especially in competition days, my adrenaline gets so high to where nothing stays on my body. We had late weigh-ins at Nationals for the Prime time event. We started at 6:00 and my weigh-ins were at 4:00 PM. I wake up at five o’clock every day, it doesn’t matter if it’s a weekend or what. I’m up and I’m ready to go.

I understand that because you emailed me this morning, we’re recording this early on a weekend day. I got an email at 06:59 this morning, “Are we still on for today?” I’m like, “Yeah, yes, madam. Yes, a 100 percent.”

I, at this point, had already eaten breakfast. I had started the laundry, let me go ahead and send this quick email. I’m up and going, I was up before breakfast that morning. I had two protein bars. Breakfast opened up and I had breakfast at the hotel. I might as well go to the venue to see if I can do early equipment check. They’re like, “No,” I’m like, “OK.”

It is 10 o’clock in the morning and I have till four o’clock. There was a Target right across the street within the same parking lot. I went and got those Uncrustable peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Oh, those are so good.

Oh, they’re so good. So good, that I ate a whole box up of them, wow. [laughs] That was my lunch. Then I had a bag of popcorn and some other nonsense. I still weighed-in at 99 pounds. 99 pounds. That’s it.

This is so rare to hear because most powerlifters you talk about them, before weigh-ins, they’re miserable. They’re, “Oh, I’m eating slightly less than normal.” Most powerlifters hate losing weight.

Most people hate cutting weight in this sport, at least in my experience. The fact that you’re housing Uncrustables beforehand and still coming in under-body weight, it’s a rare thing. I wish you the best on that weight gain journey, if you want to move…

I’ve seen some grumpy grumpy people and I have learned, speak to the [inaudible 30:14] weigh-ins. You got to say, “Hello” and look at them. Don’t even look at them sometimes. If you can eyeball how they might be feeling, just wait before they start eating a bag of chips or something. [laughs] They probably don’t know how they’re coming across if you say, “Hello,” so I’d save it.

It’s one of those Snickers commercials, you’re not being yourself right now. You’re just not. [laughs]

Heather, we’ve talked a lot about recovering from injury. I was going to ask about your favorite mid-day snacks, but it’s clearly Uncrustables and popcorn.

What are some, as your powerlifting career progresses, some recovery techniques and things that you started to prioritize more.

I definitely started doing a post workout stretching. I am a nightmare when it comes to stretching. I just won’t do it. I’ll neglect it and I will be the first to tell you, I should probably be way better at it. I should utilize it a lot more. I had to learn methods to keep myself not being the mind of a seagull when it comes to stretching. I have to do it.

I can’t get distracted from doing it. I’ve turned on my favorite Netflix show and I do it at home to where I’m not at the gym, socializing more than I’m stretching. I’ve really prioritize that part, pre-workout and post-workout stretching and mobility.

Taking to the salt baths, really been doing that. Making sure that right after these workouts, I’m having a proper meal that’s not going to make me feel poop before I go to bed.

Heather, that’s the end of the questions I had for you heading into this recording. Where is the best place for people “non-trolls” to keep up to date with what you’re doing online?

“Non-trolls?” [laughs]

Where’s the account where you send the trolls and, where’s the real account where you send the fans?

I always send them to my Instagram account, that’s where I’m most active or heather.e.connor. I started a YouTube, it’s actually the same name as my Instagram, so it’s super easy to find. [laughs] I just have one video, so I’m not cool or anything. Hopefully, I can get better at that.

You’re basically, a professional YouTuber right now.

Yeah, I don’t know why I’m not rolling in the dough right now. Has anybody seen my video? Jesus.

[laughs] Here’s my video. Guys, check out my video on YouTube. It’s on YouTube.

Make sure you like and subscribe.

Heather, it’s been an absolute pleasure. I really appreciate you taking the time. I was going to say early on a Saturday morning, when we’re recording this, but it sounds you’ve been up for six hours already. So, happy afternoon.

Thank you.

We’re really excited to see all the stuff you have coming up, especially the Sheffield Meet in 2020 and all of your performances beyond that. I really appreciate you taking the time.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.