Jillian Michaels Reveals ‘Freak Accident’ Back Injury, Nearly 2-Year Recovery

After being out of the public eye for a while, celebrity trainer Jillian Michaels is back. And she’s now revealing what happened to her back, back in May 2021, along with the grueling comeback that she’s had to make. This odyssey included various wrong twists and turns, both literally and figuratively, getting runarounds from the U.S. healthcare system, a rather surprising delayed diagnosis, and lots o’ pain over the past two years.

The whole ordeal began when she had just moved cross-country from sunny California to sunny Miami, Florida. One day she literally had a run-in with a bathtub. “Back in May 2021, I went running into the bathroom for something urgent,” Michaels recalled. “The floor was wet, so I slipped, my body twisted, and I came down on my lumbar spine on the edge of the bathtub. It knocked the wind out of me.” This twisting fall from what she called “a freak accident” ended up knocking much more than the wind out of her. But more on that in a Miami minute.

Remember, we’re talking about Jillian Michaels, a personal trainer who starred on the NBC TV shows The Biggest Loser and Losing It With Jillian. She has produced a fitness app, “Jillian Michaels: The Fitness App,” that’s won awards from both Apple and Google and is a black belt. So, this wasn’t some klutzy couch potato whose idea of exercise is pushing the “like” button on social media or putting relish on a hot dog.

But back to her back. This area of impact on her lower back was tender for days afterwards and continued to spasm. In the meantime, she kept trying different exercises and maneuvers to try to relieve her symptoms because after all she’s a fitness professional and “had owned a sports medicine facility back when I was 30 years old,” in her words. Her attempts included “Digging in my back, twisting and turning, everything.”

That may have been fine if this were a simple muscle strain. However, her twisting fall did have a twist that she didn’t really consider. She recalled, “In my mind, I thought that if you were to break your back, you couldn't walk.” So, months went by as her hectic schedule continued, including traveling. The pain persisted, and she did find at times that she couldn’t even “Catch my breadth.”

It took a down moment to tell her that something more serious was going on with her back. While doing yoga, she had entered into the down dog pose when “Something popped. The pain shifted from my back into my leg like a lightening bolt. I suddenly couldn't move.” As you can imagine, “couldn’t move” is not something you can just kind of walk off or say, “Otherwise, everything’s cool.”

Thus, her wife, DeShana Marie Minuto, had to take her to the Mercy Hospital emergency room in Miami. Perhaps, take is not the right word. “I was literally carried into the car,” Michaels clarified. “I was writhing in pain. They couldn't order a MRI because of some policy. So they ordered a CT. I was in so much pain that I couldn't even get into the machine.” The CT and physical exam showed evidence “impingement on a nerve so they said that I need to see an orthopedic surgeon.” The doctors also prescribed her pain medications and muscle relaxants.

So, let’s see. Patient gets a diagnosis, a referral to see a specialist, and a bunch of medication prescriptions. That’s the end of the story, where you can say, yay American healthcare system, right? Not quite. Remember, there was a twist or rather multiple twists to her fall. Michaels continued with the story: “I didn't know anyone in Miami, no doctor at mercy could see me, and no orthopedic surgeon was available for weeks.” That left her with not much more than her pain medications. “For the first time, I really got to know how people could become addicted to pain killers,” she recalled. “These medications left not a bleeping dent on my pain.” Except that she didn’t actually say the word bleeping. Instead, it was a word that began with an F and wasn’t French fries.

After struggling with such frustration, she decided to go beyond the Miami area to other parts of the country in a search for someone who could actually do something about her pain. Eventually, she got an MRI. But, as Michaels described, there was another twist. Different doctors who reviewed the MRI didn’t quite read it correctly. They saw the three herniated disks that she had but overlooked one detail that would provide, shall we say, a break in the case.

Eventually, in the Fall of 2021, she went outside the U.S. and contacted Stuart McGill, PhD, an Emeritus Professor of Kinesiology and Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Yes, Canada. She had to find someone in Canada. Michaels had learned of McGill’s reputation as an expert in spine function, injury prevention, and rehabilitation.

Michaels described how when she began meeting with McGill in October 2021, “He asked, ‘When did you fracture your spine?’ The MRI showed a black spot where I had fractured my spine at L3 and had herniated three discs at L3-4, L4-5, and L5-S1. So I had been doing everything wrong up till then [given that diagnosis].” Here’s a diagram showing where those levels are located:

Yes, that fracture of L3 was the not-so-tiny detail that others had missed that would make a big difference in how Michaels’s back was supposed to be managed. So, did McGill then advise Michaels to immediately go through a lot of vigorous physical therapy? Not exactly. Before going through the rest of her recovery, Michaels had to rest. And rest and rest. The break in her back needed a different break: rest to provide the fracture an opportunity and time to heal. Moving her back around had apparently kept the edges of the fracture from staying together and healing. Instead, she had to work on simpler things first such as standing and then walking. She could in time progress to more active physical therapy when the rest was history, so to speak.

All along she had to practice good spine hygiene. Good spine hygiene doesn’t mean brushing and flossing your spine in front of the mirror every day. That would be a medical emergency if you could see your spine in the mirror. Rather, it meant that she had to make sure that she moved her back and body properly. “Every time you have a clean spine movement, it’s like putting a penny in the piggy bank,” Michaels explained. This eventually included doing squats while widening her stance and making sure that her glutes were engaged.

McGill’s guidance did help her condition improve. Nevertheless, “It was February 2022, Valentine's day, when I still had pain and felt like I was running around on a flat tire,” she recalled. “I felt like I was never going to have my old back back. That brought tears.” She added, “People have been saying they live with back pain every day. Eight out of 10 Americans are going to suffer acute back injury.”

Then one day, while scrolling on Instagram, Michaels saw something called the DB Method. “They were marketing it like a booty machine.” Now, Michaels wasn’t specifically searching for a “booty machine.” (By the way, searching for the words “booty” and “machine” on social media might return some very interesting things.) But she saw this as a potential “assisted squat machine,” so went ahead and ordered it. When she tried the DB Method machine, she realized that it allowed you to do, in her words, “Squat variations that takes the emphasis out of the quads. I contacted the founder of the company and asked, ‘Do you realize that this can be an amazing tool?’” She ended up becoming the celebrity spokesperson for the DB Method.

Although Michaels is not yet completely back to her previous self, she’s finally recovered enough so that her functioning is close to what is was previously. She’s talked about how she’s now riding horses, jet skis, and snowboards. Not all at once, of course.

At the same time, this whole ordeal has brought her some very valuable insights. “It was an eye opening view of the health care system,” she related. “I didn't really realize that the healthcare system treated people this way.” Even with the celebrity clout and fitness knowledge that Michaels has, she still got the runarounds and the mishaps that the U.S. healthcare system often brings. Just imagine what’s happening to all of those patients out there who don’t have the same clout or the same body of knowledge about bodies that Michaels has.

This by no means suggest that you should avoid real legitimate medical doctors and health professionals and start listening to all of the bogus, unscientific health hot dog foo-foo that’s out there. Quite the opposite. “Do not under any circumstances take matters into your own hand when you have acute pain,” Michaels urged. “When something is wrong, don't just get the massages and go to the chiropractors. Don't load yourselves with NSAIDs. If your foot is injured, don't go for a run. If you mess with the spine, could be real catastrophic.” In other words, in her words, “Get a proper diagnosis. From there get proper treatment.”

At the same time, you’ve got to “Educate yourself,” as Michaels explained. “Multiple people missed that I had fractured my spine. Consider second opinions. You’ve got to be proactive in your own recovery.” Again, her experience doesn’t mean that all medical doctors are going to miss things. Like athletes and musicians, there is a wide range of quality, expertise, and experience among doctors. So it’s important to get the right doctors. Just because a hospital seems to have a good reputation doesn’t necessarily mean that the doctors that you’ll see are the right ones.

This ordeal also gave her a new appreciation for her health and, in particular, her back health. This made her think back to how she used to think: “I was supposed to be this fitness guru, but even though I owned my own sports facility, I didn’t appreciate chronic pain.” Indeed, as she related, her good health had limited her perspective. “Previously, the worst thing that had happened to me occurred in my early 30s when I tore my infra and supraspinatus muscles,” she explained. “It bothered me for a while. I ended up getting acupuncture by a Korean trainer who was like a magician.”

And, oh brother, this prompted to make some amends with her younger brother: “My brother, who’s 15 years younger, has back issues. In my mind, previously, that generation was just weak.” Her own experience with back pain got her to “Call my brother and say, ‘I'm so sorry.’ I didn't understand and was only a true A-bleep Gen-Xer.” Again, Michaels didn’t really say bleep. Rather it was a term that rhymed with “whole.”

Now, Michaels has her own “back” story to tell. “For anyone with a back injury, it can be really scary,” Michaels emphasized. “You can't walk. You can't stand.” She actually thought, “My career is over.” However, as she has shown, “It can get better. Do not go on to the web and just read horror stories. That’s why I had zero interest in sharing my story until I knew how the story would end. You can get better and a better quality of life.” And with so many people around the country struggling with back pain, Michaels’s story is sure to get more than just zero interest.