Get Wise for CrossFit – and keep safe!

The first affiliated CrossFit (CF) gym was opened in Santa Cruz in 1995 and was founded and developed by the coach Greg Glassman.  Over his years of watching the fitness industry, his idea was to create versatile athletes (gymnastics and weightlifting) through primal movements and intense training.  It has since gained worldwide momentum and a huge following.

The typical workout or WOD may involve intense drills of weightlifting (squats, deadlifting and carrying odd objects or kettlebells etc) box jumps, burpees, sprinting and using gymnastic rings to name a few.  Most activities are all well and good and with a structured and progressive integration into your lifestyle and using the basic premise of not walking before your can crawl and not running before you walk.  This puts in place not just the neurological inputs that are needed to perform and function, but embeds some firm foundations of the chain reaction needed for movement and structural control.

I see and treat a fair amount of injuries sustained through CrossFit and whilst injury is often seen to be part of any intense exercise, I do feel some of these could be avoided.

CrossFit is massively intense and with that comes excitement and vigor and over time, a body that develops in power, coordination and agility.  But I feel that with this excitement and vigor often comes lack of care for ones self and the idea that if your push yourself harder, you get faster results.

Let me use the example of running again.  If we have a basic level of fitness, most of us assume we should be able to run.  Running is composed of lots of hops and leaps.  When treating/rehabbing athletes, I am often asked “am I ready to run yet?”…… and I ask them “can you repeatedly hop and leap?” and then depending on their answer we watch and see…… and we see if they can or if they fail.  That gives us the answer and often, they cannot hop and leap!  So surely, they should not run!

My point of this is much more about creating the foundations much deeper than you think you need.  To enable Mo Farah’s fabulous achievements at the 2012 Olympic Games, he would have run around those tracks hundreds if not thousands of times and known that if he gets a PB, it will probably be within a certain amount of time.

So doing 25 squats with 100kgs if you have only ever twice before would be foolish.  Doing 25 squats with 100kgs should ok if you are regularly doing 25 times 90kgs.

To enable good technique with power moves such as deadlifts and squats you don’t just need good technique, you really need good functional mechanics such as sufficient ankle, knee and hip movement and these need to be able to load the weight correctly.  If they cannot do this, somewhere else will take the hit….and this hit maybe your lower back, shoulder or neck!

Over the next few months I will be working with Tom and Harri Bold from CrossFit Bold and other coaches from Athletic Alliance to develop some easy strategies to enhance movement and control, which we will be sharing with all the members.  All with the idea injury avoidance!  But in the meantime, please be careful of your form and technique and keep your ego in check and don’t find yourself where you are trying to push your body to a place where it has not been before too quickly.

Ignore the figures but, think of it like an iceberg – 70% underneath and 30% on top…..

Adductor Function

I just LOVE this muscle!

It does most things other than adduct your hip!! If you lie on the ground on your side and lift you lower leg… sure… your adductors adduct your hip…..BUT during function, it does a fabulous job at not adducting your hip.

They are the adductor brevis, longus, magnus oblique and magnus vertical. The brevis and longus attach onto the posterior medial part of the femur, not just on the medial part as most people talk about.

A great and massively overlooked thing about this group of muscles is that they work with their opposite adductors. The right and left adductors are turned on in gait (differently) but at the same time.

If the right leg is forward the right adductors are stretched in the sagittal plane and they slow hip flexion. They are lengthened in the transverse plane (TP) and they help to internally rotate the femur. They are also shortened in the frontal plane (FP) with hip adduction.

As we walk, and as the left leg swings forward, the right leg becomes the back leg and the right adductors are lengthened by hip extension (posterior medial attachment). They are then lengthened in the FP by the pelvis leaning towards to the left leg causing hip adduction. It is then shortened in the TP are they externally rotate the femur. The facilitates top-down external rotation of the tibia and calcaneal inversion…. and locks out the mid tarsals ready for push off!

As I have said – both sets of adductors work as a pair…. The right adductor works with the left adductor to slow the movement of the pelvis to the left and visa versa. If the adductors and tight in any plane, they will inhibit other planes.

But they can also be responsible for other dysfunction. If the adductors are short or not permitting good function, your pelvis will be unable to move correctly in 3 planes of motion and so your lower back, mid back or neck may take the hit instead. You might end up seeing someone for your back pain all because of you adductors. This is why it is SO important to not always treat the symptom, but to go to the cause!!

If you have just injured yourself (especially after the marathon) or need to be assessed for injury or need treating, do give us a call at Back to Back on