Troy Aikman led the team to three Super Bowl titles, and by the time he retired, he’d built a legacy worthy of being proud of. However, during the latter years of his career, and even after his retirement, Aikman’s back was a huge problem. Decades later, the veteran quarterback was able to ‘trust’ his back.

“As I get older, I realize the importance of a strong foundation,” Aikman wrote on Instagram, posting a video of working out. “Hence, more leg workouts. This was my first time doing barbell squats since injuring my back and undergoing surgery in June 1993. The weight’s not much by most athletes’ standards, but for me it was a big step. I’m still working on trusting my back, which is why I’m not getting as deep into the squat yet. That’ll come. One rep at a time.”

Aikman’s back injury goes back to 1993, when he hurt it lifting weights just weeks before training camp. He had a choice to make: rest it out or go under the knife. He picked surgery, hoping it would get him back on the field faster than waiting around would. Doctors had operated on a herniated disc in his spine, but some fragments were left behind. The plan was for him to miss at least the first half of training camp that season.

Aikman’s agent at the time, Leigh Steinberg, wasn’t worried.

“Troy by his nature has been a very fast healer, and has recovered from past surgeries much more rapidly than the projections,” he told the Los Angeles Times back then.

However, the deal was that the injury could not be aggravated further after the surgery. But with time, the pain flared up, and it began to affect Aikman in a big way. Before the Jacksonville Jaguars game in the 2000 season, Aikman was the lowest-rated quarterback in the NFC.

By the time he retired, he had to get epidural shots to ease the pain.

Even though he was in distress, Troy Aikman never stopped working out. But he avoided high-intensity lower-body routines, and instead focused on running, per FOX. His trainer, Jason Harnden, pointed out the flaw in this logic.

“The biggest mistake people make, especially runners, is thinking they don’t need to do resistance training for their legs because they run,” he told FOX in 2016, about the lack of Aikman’s core and pelvic stability before. “This is how imbalances occur.”

The former quarterback told reporters in 2000 that the pain would not “go away” on its own. To this day, he is managing the pain, according to an interview he gave Rodeo Time. Hot yoga, apparently, has been helping Aikman manage the pain.

Now, after years of working around his back instead of through it, Aikman finally looks like he trusts it again. He’s back in the weight room, squatting, lifting, building the strength he’d avoided for decades.