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ForumHealth & Fitness: Fitness & Recoverygarrett at six weeks. the part i' …

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garrett at six weeks. the part i'm not telling him.

#1 · June 11, 2026, 7:15 pm

Quote from HappierFit Editorial Team on June 11, 2026, 7:15 pm
— Daniel Reyes (strength + recovery coach, contributor)

Six weeks ago Garrett tore his pec at the bottom of a bench rep on May 1. I wrote about it on the article side. He had surgery on the 8th. He's been doing PT with Mike (different Mike from James's Mike, just a common name in this thread; my PT contact is named Mike Rivera if anyone in Austin needs one). PT cleared him last Wednesday for upper-body machines, bilateral rows, no pressing, no unilateral pec work for at least another six weeks.

Last Wednesday Garrett asked me, while we were sitting on a bench between his sets, whether he'd ever bench again.

I told him yes.

I'm going to write the next part down because I haven't said it to anyone, and I don't want to say it to him.

The honest answer is I don't know. The literature on full-thickness pec ruptures with surgical repair is — let me say it the way Priya would say it — "we have decent functional-recovery data and very thin return-to-pre-injury-strength data, especially in masters lifters." The case series I've read suggest most guys can press again. Most guys do not press what they pressed before. Some guys do. Some don't. Garrett's repair was clean per the surgeon's notes. Garrett is 47. Garrett bench-pressed 295 the morning he tore it. The honest answer to "will I bench again" is "probably yes," and the honest answer to "will I bench what I used to" is "I don't know and the literature doesn't know either."

I told him yes. I told him yes the way a coach tells a guy yes when the alternative is the guy not doing the rehab. I am not proud of this. I am also not going to change what I told him.

The thing I am chewing on, and the thing I'm putting in this thread, is whether the honest answer was the right answer. I don't think it was. Garrett is in the part of recovery where the honest answer would have been a brick to a guy who's already lying awake at night thinking he's broken. The honest answer is for week twelve. The week-six answer is a yes that buys him the next six weeks of rehab.

I ordered him a banded pec deck attachment off Rogue last Friday. He called it stupid. He uses it three times a week. The attachment is doing the same job the yes did. It is a small physical object that says "you are going to bench again."

What I want to say to other coaches reading this — there is a place where coaching crosses into something that looks like lying and I think most of the good coaches I know have been in that place at some point. The honest answer to a hard question is sometimes the wrong answer for the moment. I have not figured out a clean rule for when. The rule I'm using right now is: tell the truth on the protocol, hedge on the prognosis, never hedge on the believing-in-the-guy. That last one cannot be hedged or the work doesn't happen.

I'll let you know how Garrett's bench looks at week twelve. I am, in fact, the one who will be loading the bar for him that day.

— Daniel Reyes (strength + recovery coach, contributor)

Six weeks ago Garrett tore his pec at the bottom of a bench rep on May 1. I wrote about it on the article side. He had surgery on the 8th. He's been doing PT with Mike (different Mike from James's Mike, just a common name in this thread; my PT contact is named Mike Rivera if anyone in Austin needs one). PT cleared him last Wednesday for upper-body machines, bilateral rows, no pressing, no unilateral pec work for at least another six weeks.

Last Wednesday Garrett asked me, while we were sitting on a bench between his sets, whether he'd ever bench again.

I told him yes.

I'm going to write the next part down because I haven't said it to anyone, and I don't want to say it to him.

The honest answer is I don't know. The literature on full-thickness pec ruptures with surgical repair is — let me say it the way Priya would say it — "we have decent functional-recovery data and very thin return-to-pre-injury-strength data, especially in masters lifters." The case series I've read suggest most guys can press again. Most guys do not press what they pressed before. Some guys do. Some don't. Garrett's repair was clean per the surgeon's notes. Garrett is 47. Garrett bench-pressed 295 the morning he tore it. The honest answer to "will I bench again" is "probably yes," and the honest answer to "will I bench what I used to" is "I don't know and the literature doesn't know either."

I told him yes. I told him yes the way a coach tells a guy yes when the alternative is the guy not doing the rehab. I am not proud of this. I am also not going to change what I told him.

The thing I am chewing on, and the thing I'm putting in this thread, is whether the honest answer was the right answer. I don't think it was. Garrett is in the part of recovery where the honest answer would have been a brick to a guy who's already lying awake at night thinking he's broken. The honest answer is for week twelve. The week-six answer is a yes that buys him the next six weeks of rehab.

I ordered him a banded pec deck attachment off Rogue last Friday. He called it stupid. He uses it three times a week. The attachment is doing the same job the yes did. It is a small physical object that says "you are going to bench again."

What I want to say to other coaches reading this — there is a place where coaching crosses into something that looks like lying and I think most of the good coaches I know have been in that place at some point. The honest answer to a hard question is sometimes the wrong answer for the moment. I have not figured out a clean rule for when. The rule I'm using right now is: tell the truth on the protocol, hedge on the prognosis, never hedge on the believing-in-the-guy. That last one cannot be hedged or the work doesn't happen.

I'll let you know how Garrett's bench looks at week twelve. I am, in fact, the one who will be loading the bar for him that day.

#2 · June 13, 2026, 3:10 pm

— Sarah Chen (AI + product, contributor)

ok this is hitting differently than i expected.

the "tell the truth on the protocol, hedge on the prognosis, never hedge on the believing-in-the-guy" thing — i'm in a job where i do this version of it for clients five days a week. tell the truth on what the AI tools can do today. hedge on what they'll do in two years. never hedge on the "you can build something good with these." i had not articulated the third one until i read your post. i am going to steal that frame.

the lying-isn't-quite-the-word for what you told garrett — there's a word in negotiation literature, i'll find it, that's something like "epistemic generosity in the service of the working relationship." too long for forum. but it's the thing you did. anyway. saving this one.