Story on Gabe Miller's Injury

Mavric

Mavric

Yoda
Staff member
First time I've actually seen a report of what happened.

During weight room work, Miller was squatting 315 pounds (which was down from his maximum of 400 earlier in the summer) when “the lights went out” on the right side of his lower back.


“I’ve never been in that much pain,” Miller said. “For two days I did nothing but cry.”

Nobody – not the Nebraska coaching or training staff, or Miller himself – regarded this as a catastrophic injury.

“It was two weeks before fall camp started,” Miller said. “I had put all the work in over the winter and summer. It couldn’t be wasted.”

Miller’s injury was diagnosed as a slipped disc and a bulging disc. All sorts of treatments – physical therapy, acupuncture, epidurals – were tried to relieve the pain and improve mobility.

“After you’ve had giant needles stuck in your back three times, you start to wonder what football’s all about,” Miller said.

It took a visit to Dr. Steven Volin, an orthopaedic surgeon who played football at Nebraska, for someone to finally broach the elephant in the room.

“Dr. Volin was the first person to say that playing football won’t be an option,” Miller said. “Even if the pain calmed down, it was going to happen again. If I wanted to walk when I was 30, I had to quit now.”

On Sept. 30, Miller had the career-ending surgery. The rehab from the 6 ½-hour procedure was slow and arduous. Add to the process the complication of Nebraska head coach Bo Pelini being fired after a 9-3 season, and Miller’s world had been turned upside down.
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Huh. Sounds like he needs some technique work. Properly executed squats should not do this.

 
DaveH said:
Huh. Sounds like he needs some technique work. Properly executed squats should not do this.
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Maybe. He could have tried to re-position the bar while it was still on his shoulders, too, and put his body in an awkward position.
 
DaveH said:
Huh. Sounds like he needs some technique work. Properly executed squats should not do this.
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My guess is he most likely had some back problems before. Could it just up and happen squatting all of a sudden? I spose but likely something was already going on.

 
C N Red said:
DaveH said:
Huh. Sounds like he needs some technique work. Properly executed squats should not do this.
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My guess is he most likely had some back problems before. Could it just up and happen squatting all of a sudden? I spose but likely something was already going on.
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I'd wager that this was true. It just happened to occur during a squat.

 
Eric the Red said:
Glad they kept his scholarship until he graduates. Does he have a time limit to graduate
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Typically in the case of career ending sports injuries, the scholarships convert over to general academic for the duration of the four years. They no longer count to the scholarship limit, but get to continue with their degree work.

 
strigori said:
Eric the Red said:
Glad they kept his scholarship until he graduates. Does he have a time limit to graduate
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Typically in the case of career ending sports injuries, the scholarships convert over to general academic for the duration of the four years. They no longer count to the scholarship limit, but get to continue with their degree work.
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Doesn't Nebraska have some sort of scholarship for ex-football players? If an ex-player comes back and wants to finish their degree they can? Not sure if that's the situation here though. Since we're talking about an injury rather than someone who just left the program.

Also, to a small extent I can identify with Gabe. I injured my back last month and lost nearly two weeks of work. Since I'm self employed this is a direct hit to my bottom line. Ouch. Then again, I didn't have to go under the knife. And it didn't affect my prospects of playing pro football either. lol

 
I had a bout of lower back pain about a month ago and it only seemed to hit me when I would squat and DL and would last a couple days. I went to the chiropractor and that didn't help much so I talked to a friend of mine that is an Athletic Trainer and powerlifter and he told me that my hamstrings were to tight and that is why my lower back was hurting. Said to stretch them 3-4x/day by doing long stride lunges and foam roll them before lifting and after. I did that and within a week, my pain went away and hasn't returned.

 
DaveH said:
Huh. Sounds like he needs some technique work. Properly executed squats should not do this.
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A strong core helps with protecting the lower back, if you have a weak core you can have a perfect technique and still get injured. I'm at a crossroads right now in my lifting hobby/career. Just found out a week ago I have a bulging disk and a herniated disk. If I continue lifting there's a chance I could really screw things up, need more information before I make a decision from multiple sources. And when I say really screw things up, I mean losing control of your bowels type of mistakes. I may take up other athletic hobbies outside of weight lifting, but it isn't going to be an easy decision as I love lifting weights. Haven't decided between surgery or injections as injections only cover up the problem, not solve it. I know exactly what he's went through as I've went through physical therapy for several months, not been able to walk very much, been in so much pain you're shaking and nothing touches it. You can do all the right things and still have problems no matter what you do or try, it's a very frustrating feeling that technique will never fix.

 
Stumpy1 said:
I had a bout of lower back pain about a month ago and it only seemed to hit me when I would squat and DL and would last a couple days. I went to the chiropractor and that didn't help much so I talked to a friend of mine that is an Athletic Trainer and powerlifter and he told me that my hamstrings were to tight and that is why my lower back was hurting. Said to stretch them 3-4x/day by doing long stride lunges and foam roll them before lifting and after. I did that and within a week, my pain went away and hasn't returned.
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Tight hamstrings have caused me problems on squat and deadlift too. They also cause knee pain and tighten up worse in cold weather. If Gabe had bad form I'm disappointed the staff didn't catch it. 5x5 Stronglift guy has a good article on it and mentions ruptured discs if lower back is rounded when squatting.
 
How frustrating must this have been, all that work to wrap a scholie as a long snapper and boom you have to stop playing due to an injury,

 
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