Question of the month: what was the worst training inury you've ever had, and how id you deal with it? - Reflexions

Darrem Charles: Caribbean Champion.

"About three years after I started competing--before I turned pro in 1992--my knees began to give me a problem. It got so severe that when I trained legs, I no longer felt the exercise in the muscles. Instead, the pain in my joints was what made me finish my sets. So before I had really gotten started [in my career], I thought about hanging it up.

"Now I have a format that I use for training every bodypart. I always warm up first. For knees, I do extensions, which I never used to do before. I used to go straight to squats. I realized that even if you start light, the squatting movement is very harsh on the knees. After extensions, I go to a pressing movement. I place squats in the middle of my leg workout. I don't go very heavy anymore --the heaviest I go is 500 pounds. I do other things to make the workout harder, rather than using more weight. I rest a little less between sets, and I go a little slower on each rep. As a result, I don't feel the exercise in the joints as much as in the muscles. And that's what you want to accomplish in training."

VICKIE GATES: 2001 MS. INTERNATIONAL

"I was getting ready for the Ms. International last year, and I was well warmed up and on my last set of squats. When I went down on one of the last reps, I felt a serious cramp in one leg. I had 315 pounds on the bar, and I couldn't finish the rep. I was scared that I had torn a quad muscle. I went home and iced it down and called a therapist who was able to see me the next morning. Luckily, it hadn't been torn, but it was badly bruised. The therapist did deep-tissue massage on it, and I took a week off from training.

"I kept getting massages, even after I was able to start training again. It was wonderful. The deep-tissue therapy took out all the lactic acid that had built up; it took out all the soreness. I continued to have massages on leg-training days and all the way until the contest. I think it actually made my legs look better by the time of the show. I keep that massage therapy up today, even though I have no injuries to deal with. It's beneficial in two ways--besides the massage itself, it's just like stretching."

LEE PRIEST: TWO-TIME AUSTRALIAN CHAMPION

"I've never really injured myself badly, but when I was training for the 2000 Night Of Champions, I was in World Gym concentrating on doing incline presses. A camera crew came In to film Arnold Schwarzenegger. One of them standing nearby wasn't paying attention and leaned back on the bar I was lifting, shifting the weight to one side. I felt something like a rubber band snapping In my chest. I thought I'd torn a pec. I didn't, but I had a big bruise for a week or two. I didn't train chest, and worked around the injury for a while.

"There are times when I'm training and I'll get sore shoulders or I'll feel a twinge in my quads. I apply Ice immediately and keep putting ice on the area every couple of hours. Or I'll not train that bodypart for a time, trying to avoid aggravating it. Sometimes it's a matter of changing technique. There Isn't just one way to do an exercise. If I do flat presses, I feel them in my shoulders, but if I raise the bench lust a fraction, It takes the pressure off. If you pay attention, you'll know the difference between normal muscle pain or lactic acid burn from training and something that feels tight that shouldn't be that way. It's a matter of listening to your body."

CYNTHIA BRIDGES: 1999 NORTH AMERICAN FITNESS CHAMPION

"While practicing my routine in May 2001, I tore a piece of the gracilis muscle in my groin. From this tiny tear, it looked like a truck had hit the inside of my leg! It caused me to miss about a half year of competitions--after I was injured, I didn't compete again until November's Hungarian Pro show [where she finished fifth]. But this kind of injury is more frustrating than anything else, and I think that it's common among fitness competitors, considering the lateral movements that we do, like straddle jumps and splits.

"If I had it to do over again, I would have laid off training completely, but I kept trying to prepare for shows and doing guest posing. I didn't give it a chance to heal up. I was icing it, taking ibuprofen and going to a physical therapist for ultrasound and electrical stimulation. If I had just done the treatments, rather than trying to train and grin and bear it, it would have healed sooner. Actually, the electrical stimulation did put me on the road to recovery faster. I noticed a lot of progress after I began that treatment. Now that I'm all healed, I warm up a little extra, and I stay warm and stretched out while I'm practicing my routines. When I was injured, I don't think I was as hot and sweaty as I should have been. I learned how really important it is to be totally warmed up!"

BRANCH WARREN: 2001 NPC NATIONAL HEAVYWEIGHT WINNER

"A little over a year ago, I tore my right biceps tendon from the bone. It was a cold day, and I didn't warm up properly. I was doing heavy biceps curls, using 100-pound dumbbells. I felt a pop and a sharp pain. I went to the emergency room within an hour, and they told me it was detached. Luckily, I was referred to a good orthopedic surgeon in Dallas and had surgery. He was able to put it back and told me not to work out for four or five months. I told him I wasn't a normal person and that I had a different schedule. I was working out lightly four or five weeks later. I started out with five-pound dumbbells and worked my way back up.