Young man

Go and have it fixed and the back will have to be evaluated.

Umm, have you been diagnosed with a hernia by a medical professional who examined you and confirmed it?

That section of your quote that I bolded is very unusual for a hernia. Get yourself to a MD (no offense to your Mom) and have them examine you for a hernia.

May be out of my lane but I had an Inguinal hernia that I am pretty sure I got while I was still in the Corps (often times as it was explained to me this can occur naturally due to a gap in the floor of your abdominal wall where your testicles drop down from during puberty and for whatever reason the gap is just too big or it gets tweaked which could explain your cookie incident). I ignored it for a while like a blunt idiot. Eventually my girlfriend forced me to go to the emergency room and what could have been a relatively non invasive procedure to place mesh over it turned into an awesome six inch scar that makes it look like I got gutted at some point, all because I was thinking the way you are about it. Point is don't risk it, fix it ASAP so you can get back to work ASAP. I was up and moving two days later (not gonna lie it hurt worse cause I waited so long) and was down for two months from serious physical activity but after that I went back to playing Rugby and working out so if you take care of it and follow the docs advice you will be ok. Don't be stubborn like me. Retreating back to my LP/OP.

I too had an inguinal hernia about 8 years ago. I had the surgery and no one in the military has ever raised an eyebrow about the doctor's note I have on the procedure.

As for this guy's training... a 2.5 mile ruck run would be a warm-up for him in SOPC. And, that would only be the tip of the iceberg. I'm not sure where he timed himself, but an 8 minute mile, rucking, is one of the fastest I've ever heard of. If that is "Dead slow" for him, maybe he is cut out for it.

Doug

OK, so after fighting with Tricare for almost 2 months, in addition to the fact that my Doc's assistant NEVER picks up her phone or returns calls, last week I finally got a lumbar MRI, and just today had a follow-up with my Doc to discuss them. It turns out, as was mentioned here before by some, that the hernia diagnosis was both pre-mature and false. The Doc said that that "pop" was most likely my back coming out of alignment. Beyond that, he said that jumping out of airplanes, rucking (the smart way, of course), and doing all that other huah-stuff will not break my back or paralyze me. It aint gonna make it better, and it may cause a little more pain than normal, but I'm not going to find myself paralyzed on some battlefield because of this. Here are the EXACT words on the "Test Results" paper from the Radiologist he gave me:

IMPRESSION: Mild degenerative disk and facet joint disease without evidence of herniated nucleus pulposus or neural impingement.

He also said that the mild degenerative disk disease is very common, pull anyone off the street and there's a good chance they have it. He said as far as the SF route goes, to knock myself out. The best thing for the pain is to exercise my back muscles (he said supermans were particularly good). Beyond that, no surgery (thank god), no rigid physical therapy program, no drugs. He said to try taking chondrotin sulfate and mesalare (hope I spelled that right, Doctors handwriting and all), which would not cure the disease, but would help slow the progression, and to take Aleve when the pain gets real bad.

OK, so now that that's out of the way and there's no hernia (again, thank god), I can again focus of SF prospects. I know for a fact that there's something I did to hurt myself: I NEVER warmed up or cooled down when I exercised, not even when I ruck-ran. I learned the hard way. Anybody who's training up, please learn form my mistake and DONT BE AN IDIOT LIKE I WAS! I was told a thousand times how important warm-ups and cool-downs are, but I never did them. I think I really shot myself in the foot with that.

So now I'm taking it slow. A few miles at a manageable pace here and there. Pushups, pullups, situps, etc. I still do to the max. I think I also might have hurt myself in that I never considered my workout/runs to be good unless I felt like I was about to die, and then pushed myself some more. Perhaps the constant over-exertion contributed as well.

So, with all that said and done, I personally feel that I can once again get back to gearing up. I've decided that I want to finish a few more semesters of college, so I have some time. Beyond that, if anyone has any more/other advice, I'd be all ears, and more than thankfull for it. Thank you all for all your contributions, and for helping me with this!

Yup, fancy radiologic words for "wear and tear".

Go forth and train, young man. And stretch, warm-up, and cool-down.

RL

Yes!!! This is exactly what I wanted to hear! Thank you!!!