Former BYU football player-turned-professional winter sports athlete Sam Allred has revealed that he underwent back surgery after dealing with excruciating pain.
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Allred posted the update on his Instagram page. He wrote that he had a disc slip in his spine, which crushed down on a nerve and sent shooting pain down his leg throughout the day.
"Last summer, I was doing hip thrusts and all of a sudden I felt like I got shot in the base of my spine," Allred wrote. "My leg went all tingly, and it was like in the movies when they say 'doctor I can't feel my toes!' and you know they're a goner
"It was super frustrating because I'd literally just finished recovering from hernia repair from the prior season (basically where your abdominal wall tears and they have to put mesh in to reinforce it)."
Allred added that he had the option to get surgery, but he waited until he had finished the season. This did not create an enjoyable winter. He had to deal with the pain every time he pushed the sled down the ice. He said that he didn't sleep, and he had to take 2,400MG of ibuprofen every single day.
"Good news is.... I think we got it fixed," he wrote after posting a photo of himself in a hospital gown. "For the first time in 9 months I made it through a full day, 24 hours, with no pain killers whoop! The future is bright."
Allred is a member of Team USA Bobsled and Skeleton. He earned an invite to the rookie push camps in New York in 2022, and he began learning the art of sliding headfirst down the ice on a sled.
One year later, he finished third in the Dutch Push Champs. He has since competed all around the world for Team USA, primarily in the skeleton division. This includes a sixth-place finish in the 2025 Pan American Championships.
