Out Injured — The Inguinal Hernia That Stopped Everything

The Worst Pain I Have Ever Felt

It started around two weeks ago, low in the groin, and it did not ease off the way a strain usually does after a day or two. In over thirty years of training and coaching, I have not felt pain like it. Not the dull ache of a pulled muscle. Not the familiar soreness of a hard session that fades by the following week. Something else entirely — sharp, deep, and completely unrelenting, the kind of pain that makes lying still feel like an achievement. My body made the decision for me. There was no training through this one, and no part of me tried to argue otherwise.

I have had injuries before. I have coached people through every kind of setback for three decades. Nothing quite prepares you for the specific, singular experience of pain that does not respond to rest, to position, to anything you try. That is what told me, before any doctor did, that this was not ordinary.

What an Inguinal Hernia Actually Is

An inguinal hernia happens when part of the bowel pushes through a weak point in the muscle wall of the groin. It is more common than most people realise, and it does not announce itself the same way in everyone — plenty of people carry one for years with barely any discomfort, a mild bulge that appears when standing or straining and disappears when lying down. Mine did not behave like that.

When a hernia does hurt, it is usually because the tissue pushing through is being squeezed somewhere it should not be. In some cases, that trapped tissue can lose its blood supply entirely — what is called a strangulated hernia — and at that point it stops being a manageable inconvenience and becomes a genuine surgical emergency. The body does not politely wait for a GP appointment when that happens. It escalates fast, and it makes sure you know about it.

I am not a doctor and I am not diagnosing myself in public. But understanding the mechanism helped me make sense of what my own body was doing, and I think it is worth explaining plainly here rather than leaving it vague.

Twenty-Three Hours in A&E

Alongside the hernia pain, I also had a bad stomach ache that I genuinely could not place. I could not tell you with any confidence whether it was connected to the hernia or something else running alongside it — and that uncertainty is exactly the kind of thing that gets you sitting in an emergency department for the best part of a day while people considerably more qualified than me work through the possibilities properly.

Twenty-three hours, in the end. Good old NHS — tested, monitored, taken seriously from the moment I walked in. Nobody rushed the assessment and nobody dismissed the pain. Severe, sudden pain around a hernia is precisely the sort of presentation hospitals do not take chances with, given how quickly a trapped hernia can turn into something requiring emergency surgery. I would rather spend a day being properly checked than find out the hard way why that level of caution exists.

What Happens Now

No training for at least four to six weeks, and that is the realistic version rather than the optimistic one. Hernia repair surgery typically requires four to six weeks before a proper return to lifting and real exercise, and no abdominal strain in the meantime — no heavy lifting, no bracing under load, nothing that puts pressure back through the area that has already given way once. Every case is different, and mine may run longer than the average.

No lifting. No straining. No convincing myself that a lighter session, a gentler version, a bit of light work would somehow be fine. The body has already made its position clear on that front, and arguing with it a second time is not a conversation I intend to have.

Even the Website Has Felt It

It is not only training that has slowed down. Some days there simply has not been the energy or the focus to sit down and work on this site either — writing, updating pages, the ordinary admin of keeping it going properly. That surprised me a little, if I am honest. I expected the physical limitation. I did not expect the same fatigue to reach into the parts of my life that do not involve a barbell.

Life gets in the way. That is not a new idea on this site — it is written into the Return to Training programme, into more than one article here already. But this is the first time it has got in the way of more than just the gym, and it is worth saying plainly rather than pretending everything else carried on as normal while training paused.

Don't Let It Get You Down

This is the part that matters most, and it is the reason I am writing this at all rather than simply waiting quietly for it to pass. Injuries happen. Big ones, small ones, the kind that sideline you for a week and the kind that sideline you for two months or more. Thirty years into this, and this one still knocked me sideways completely. That is normal. It does not mean anything has gone wrong with how I train, how I look after myself, or how seriously I take any of it. It means the body, occasionally, does something none of that can prevent.

What matters is not letting it get you down. Not because the frustration is not real — it is, and pretending otherwise would not be honest — but because it passes, and there is a way back for every single person who has ever had to find one. Whether that takes four weeks, six, or longer than either, the training will still be there when I am ready for it. So will this website, whenever there is enough energy most days to get back to it properly rather than in fits and starts.

Nobody trains for thirty years without something eventually stopping them for a while. The measure was never whether that happens. It is what you do when it does.

References

1. NHS. Inguinal hernia repair. nhs.uk. Confirms recovery from inguinal hernia repair typically takes 4 to 6 weeks, with no heavy lifting or abdominal strain during that period.
2. Mayo Clinic. Inguinal hernia — Symptoms and causes. mayoclinic.org. Describes incarcerated and strangulated hernia as serious complications requiring immediate medical attention, including severe pain, nausea and vomiting.