Built from Broken

How do you rebuild your body when it has broken down from overuse, pain, or poor movement? In Built from Broken, Scott Hogan contends that the answer is not less movement or endless therapy—it’s intelligent load. The book argues that properly applied resistance training is the most potent rehabilitation and longevity tool. Load, delivered through quality movement, is the body’s primary signal for structural healing—a process called mechanotransduction, where mechanical stress triggers cellular repair and collagen synthesis.

The book reframes resistance training from a cosmetic pursuit to a biological necessity. Joints, tendons, and connective tissue all depend on controlled stress to remain resilient. It teaches you to train smarter, not just harder—using deliberate progressions that fortify the scaffolding of your body rather than erode it.

The Biological Blueprint: Mechanotransduction

Mechanotransduction is at the core of this framework. When you apply mechanical load—say, a slow eccentric squat—your cells translate that stress into increased collagen production and improved tendon stiffness. This dose–response relationship is what helps tissue remodel, provided you respect recovery and don’t overload too quickly. As Hogan explains, the body interprets “appropriate” stress as a cue to strengthen; too little creates atrophy, and too much leads to degeneration.

Tendons in particular love heavy, slow work. Research examples cited in the book (e.g., Jill Cook, David Burris) show that tendons adapt best to high-magnitude, long-duration strain—roughly 6–8 rep loads at 70–80% of one-repetition maximum, performed with slow control. These sustained contractions stimulate collagen cross-linking far better than light, repetitive exercise.

Pain Reconsidered: Communication, Not Damage

Central to Hogan’s philosophy is a new understanding of pain. Pain doesn’t always equal damage; it’s a signal. The brain modulates pain through different pathways—nociceptive, neuropathic, and centralized—and each requires a tailored response. Chronic pain often persists because the nervous system becomes sensitized, amplifying harmless signals. The task, then, isn’t suppressing sensation but restoring accurate feedback between brain and body.

Core Insight

Pain is your nervous system’s language—it protects, adapts, and sometimes overreacts. The goal is not to silence it but to teach it to interpret movement as safe again.

Four Healing Targets

Rather than chase symptoms, the book teaches you to rebuild health around four pillars: 1) Inflammation modulation—allow acute inflammation but prevent it from becoming chronic; 2) Tendinopathy resolution via progressive load rather than anti-inflammatories; 3) Synovial fluid health—using frequent motion to self-lubricate joints; and 4) Collagen integrity—strengthened through nutrition, hydration, and load-based remodeling. Together, these drive long-term structural change instead of temporary relief.

Movement as Medicine

The human body evolved for varied, frequent movement. Studies of the Hadza and other indigenous movers reveal how small bursts of locomotion throughout the day prevent modern brittleness. Hogan urges you to replicate this pattern: frequent walking, dynamic mobility, and daily “movement snacks.” These continuous exposures maintain collagen turnover, pump synovial fluid, and keep the nervous system desensitized to pain.

Even mobility training is redefined: real mobility is not how far you can stretch but how much range you can control under load. Static stretching alone offers fleeting benefits. The real work lies in dynamic, loaded, and multi-planar control—training the body for stability before flexibility. This principle applies to everything from your rotator cuff to your hips and knees.

Training the Whole System

Hogan’s approach is a systems model: optimize connective tissue, neurology, and movement together. He provides blueprints for the “Big Three” problem zones—back, shoulders, and knees—by addressing root causes like poor hip mobility, scapular instability, or quad–glute imbalance. Combined with progressive programming and modern periodization, these routines help you rebuild rather than simply manage injury.

Ultimately, Built from Broken redefines fitness as repair. You don’t chase exhaustion—you chase adaptation. Through controlled stress, strategic rest, and precise technique, you turn pain into data, load into medicine, and strength into longevity. The promise of the book is both scientific and human: when you learn to stress your body intelligently, you don’t just recover—you evolve.

Load training, properly programmed, is the most effective therapy for joint and tendon health. Hogan demonstrates how mechanotransduction—cells responding to physical stress—underpins every successful rehabilitation method. When you lift, connective tissues sense tension, activate signaling pathways, and direct collagen remodeling. Over time, this strengthens the matrix supporting muscles, joints, and ligaments.

Why Heavier Loads Heal

Heavy slow resistance (HSR) training produces the highest tissue-level adaptations. Hogan cites research demonstrating that eccentrics at 70–80% of your maximum load—performed with slow, deliberate tempo—boost tendon stiffness and bone density. Unlike cosmetic bodybuilding, this training’s output is structural integrity. You’re not sculpting muscle; you’re rebuilding its architecture.

He emphasizes that loading mistakes, not load itself, cause injury. The “Gary” example—a middle-aged lifter who trained heavy without fixing joint mechanics—illustrates how poor form and chronic overload damage tendons. The solution is to balance heavy work with stability training, control tempo, cycle intensity, and respect recovery.

Programming for Healing

Hogan suggests prioritizing compound patterns like squats, hinges, presses, pulls, and carries. These engage functional chains rather than isolated muscles. Include corrective exercises in your sessions to target weak stabilizers—often ignored by bodybuilding-style splits. Avoid static loads or passive modalities (foam rolling without reinforcement); they don’t cause the micro-stimulus that tissues require to adapt.

Key Implementation Rule

Load must always meet ability. The heaviest sustainable weight for each pattern—lifted with perfect form—is the dose that heals rather than harms.

Pair this strategy with mental resilience. Hogan references Janine Shepherd’s recovery from paralysis as a metaphor for training mindset—accepting limits but using them as foundations to rebuild. Every load becomes both a test and a therapy, turning damaged tissue into adaptive strength.

Pain is not merely a signal of tissue harm—it’s how your nervous system protects you. Hogan distinguishes three pain types—nociceptive, neuropathic, and centralized—and explains how the brain can continue “ringing the alarm” long after tissue heals. Chronic pain reflects sensitization: your body overreacts to movement, suppressing strength in affected areas (a phenomenon called cortical inhibition).

Desensitization Through Movement

The antidote is controlled re-exposure to movement. Through slow, progressive loading and thoughtful diagnostics (movement screens, gentle tension testing), you re-teach your nervous system that it’s safe to move. Avoid catastrophizing or rigid immobilization—both worsen sensitization by confirming your brain’s fear of injury.

Practical Tactics

• Use slow repetitions—three seconds up and down—to generate safe mechanotransduction without inflammation spikes.
• Track sensations rather than chasing pain-free movement; mild, tolerable discomfort often signals constructive adaptation.
• Integrate mindfulness—focus attention on controlled breathing and alignment to calm nervous system overactivity.

Over time, this method “turns down the volume” on pain circuits. Hogan’s own car-related knee sprain story illustrates how pain can leave a permanent but positive adaptation: his motor patterns updated to protect the joint. Done right, this process transforms pain from an obstacle into a teacher.

Collagen forms the framework of your fascia, tendons, and cartilage. Hogan devotes significant attention to training and feeding these fibers. Collagen behaves like a living fabric—constantly breaking down and rebuilding. You can direct this turnover with targeted mechanical and nutritional cues.

Training to Remodel Connective Tissue

Different contraction types yield distinct collagen responses. Isometric holds reduce pain and begin adaptation. Eccentrics align collagen fibers, while heavy slow resistance increases fiber density. Once foundation strength is achieved, add controlled plyometric “energy loading” to condition the myotendinous junction—the tendon–muscle interface that stores elastic energy.

Nutrients and Timing

Collagen synthesis requires specific nutrients: vitamin C, copper, and zinc serve as enzymatic cofactors. Hogan recommends taking 5–10 grams of hydrolyzed collagen with vitamin C 30–45 minutes pre-training, so circulating amino acids coincide with tissue loading (supported by GSSI studies). Post-workout, whey protein or EAAs reinforce both muscle and connective tissue repair. He warns against chronic NSAID use and prolonged fasting, which suppress collagen formation.

Collagen Rule

Feed and load simultaneously. Nutrients + mechanical tension = maximal collagen remodeling.

Manual therapies—foam rolling, massage—can assist by reducing stiffness and improving tissue glide, but they prep the structure; only training remodels it. The combined effect of slow eccentrics, thoughtful nutrition, and regular micro-movement builds connective tissues that endure decades of use.

Mobility training in this system emphasizes active control. Flexibility—the ability to move passively—means little without strength at end-range. Hogan’s hierarchy places stability before mobility: first control your body, then expand range.

Dynamic and Loaded Mobility

Static stretching has limited evidence for injury prevention and may transiently weaken muscle if done pre-lifting. The alternatives—dynamic mobility, loaded stretching, and functional movement drills—teach your body to use range under resistance. Examples include dynamic lunges, Cossack squats, or incline dumbbell pullovers.

Functional Integration

Hogan pairs these drills with proprioceptive exercises drawn from FIFA’s “11+” programs—balance and isometric drills proven to reduce athletic injuries. His principle: mobilize with intent, reinforce with stability, and rehearse multiplanar control (sagittal, frontal, transverse). Most real-world injuries occur during rotation, so you train rotation intentionally.

The mobility chapter effectively redefines flexibility culture: real mobility training demands tension, stability, and patterning. It’s not yoga poses held in stillness, but controlled movement that teaches the nervous system confidence in new ranges.

Three regions cause most recurring pain: shoulders, knees, and lower back. Hogan structures his corrective framework around them, attacking mechanical causes instead of symptoms.

Shoulder Integrity

Healthy shoulders depend on scapular control and rotator cuff endurance. The rotator cuff holds the humeral head in the socket; the scapula provides the stable platform. If your lats or traps dominate, you lose balance, causing impingement. Hogan’s go-to tool: the Band Facepull. Done frequently, this retrains posture, external rotation, and posterior endurance. He layers it with Scapular Pull-Ups, Bottoms-Up Kettlebell Presses, and thoracic mobility work.

Knee and Hip Alignment

Painful knees usually mean dysfunctional hips or feet. Train glutes and abductors (Fire Hydrants, Box Stepdowns), maintain proper patellar tracking in Split Squats, and build hamstring control with Swiss Ball Curls. Add ankle glides and calf raises to improve dorsiflexion—tight ankles often drive knee shearing. Hogan stresses “tripod feet”—heel, ball behind big toe, and ball behind pinky—to stabilize the chain.

Low-Back Protection

Your lumbar spine wants stability, not motion. Pre-activate glutes before deadlifts, train the hip hinge pattern, and reinforce deep core activation (transverse abdominis and multifidus endurance). Five minutes of daily corrective exercise—hinge-to-squat flows, Cat-Cows, Cossack squats—maintain spinal health more effectively than long therapy sessions.

Together these correctives build “structural intelligence”—teaching your body to distribute forces efficiently through joints, tendons, and stabilizers, preventing recurrence of old pain.

Traditional RICE recovery models (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) are outdated. Built from Broken embraces the PEACE & LOVE framework—Protection, Elevation, Avoid anti-inflammatories, Compression, Education, then Load, Optimism, Vascularization, and Exercise. This sequence prioritizes active recovery and mindset as much as tissue repair.

From Passive to Active Recovery

The body heals through motion, not immobility. Initial rest (24–48 hours) is brief; as soon as swelling decreases, reintroduce pain-free loading. This accelerates collagen alignment and blood flow. Avoid chronic ice or NSAID use—they suppress necessary inflammatory processes that trigger rebuilding.

Turning Off the CCTV Effect

After injury, your brain heightens surveillance (“CCTV cameras”) over the damaged area, causing hyper-sensitivity. Gradual re-exposure through graded exercise—starting with stability, then controlled mechanics—retrains reassurance and reduces neural guarding. Progress patiently; neural recalibration can take months, but it’s essential for complete recovery.

The deeper message: recovery is a dialogue between body and mind. You must balance evidence-based load progressions with optimism and education, reclaiming confidence one controlled motion at a time.

Strength and rehabilitation succeed only with structured programming. Hogan’s Built from Broken system uses four-week mesocycles combining science and simplicity. Each week targets a unique adaptation while respecting collagen recovery timelines.

Four-Week Training Block

• Week 1: Slow tempos for connective tissue remodeling (e.g., 5 seconds up, 5 down).
• Week 2: Hypertrophy through heavy slow resistance, building protective muscle mass.
• Week 3: Strength emphasis—controlled eccentrics and explosive concentrics.
• Week 4: Endurance and deload week—flush tissues and consolidate recovery.

Warm-Up, Ramp-Up, and Execution

Each session begins with a dynamic diagnostic warm-up—Cat-Cows, Glute Bridges, Band Pass-Throughs—then ramp-up sets following John Rusin’s scheme: gradually building intensity to prime the nervous system before heavy work. This process protects joints and ensures efficient loading. Tempo control (3/1/3/1) and minimum effective dose principles minimize overuse. Movement mastery—learning proper hinges, squats, and presses before max efforts—is nonnegotiable.

Repeated mesocycles, small progressive overloads, and consistent corrective work produce long-term resilience. The approach merges physiology and practicality, equipping you to train for decades without breakdown.