CrossFit, Injuries and How To Avoid Them.

I have posted this as an open letter to our members on our Facebook page but thought it would equally apply to other CrossFitters and boxes so my musings might interest some of you.......

CrossFit is a great, no, scrap that, the best way of building all round functional strength and fitness that I have ever come across in over 16 years of training and coaching. It covers all your bases from strength work to cardio endurance and sprint speed to flexibility and agility in the gymnastic elements. Some of you discover CrossFit, come to us and it completely changes your life. And although that sounds pretty corny and dramatic I don't use those words lightly. You have fun, you make friends, you learn things you thought you could never do and you change your body in fantastic ways to become healthier, fitter and stronger.

However, CrossFit can and indeed does in some peoples minds have a reputation for being dangerous. The fact that pushing yourself to your limits is what makes CrossFit so fun and effective is also what can make it dangerous if you repeatedly go BEYOND your limits and don't listen to what we have to say. Whilst at Connect we always encourage you to go for every rep and lift that little bit more each time we always do so when it is SAFE to do so. We are responsible as coaches in getting the best out of you and when we think you can do more we will tell you so.

Just as a little question for our members, how often do you hear us telling people to lift heavier and how often do you hear us telling people to take the weight down? It is without doubt a lot more often the latter.

This is because you can get carried away with your own ability sometimes. You constantly want to get better (and we admire that) and you equate that with lifting heavier weights in WODs and focus sessions. Many of you have come to us having no background in lifting whatsoever and expect that in 6 months you will be lifting what the coaches are lifting and doing everything RXd on the board. Bear in mind that all of your coaches have been lifting for YEARS before they found CrossFit and have had time to develop not just the muscular strength but the strength in the ligaments, tendons and supporting tissues to be able to deal with the volume and weight of some of the WODs. Whilst we genuinely encourage you all to shoot for completing the WODS at RXd weight and lifting heavy during the focus sessions we also want you to realise it might take you years to get there. There is no rush. Much better to take things slowly, with perfect form than to rush through things and in 6 months time end up with nasty injuries which will force you to have time off. Or not come back at all.

When people call CrossFit dangerous and stupid it genuinely upsets me. With any sport or past time there is always risk of injury. Just take football, rugby or even jogging. Way more people suffer injuries doing these than have ever been hurt doing CrossFit but you wouldn't call them dangerous things to do would you? The dangerous side of it comes when coaches fail to give advice or people fail to listen to it. We will never tell you to lift more than you are capable of and I want to see you guys listening to us when we tell you you are pushing it too much.

As our membership base grows at the box we have to learn more and more about every one of you and what you are capable of doing. This is our responsibility as box owners. However, you also have a responsibility as a member to be sensible about your abilities and also LISTEN to what we tell you. We aren't trying to hold you back. We are trying to perfect your form, make you stronger and save you from hurting yourself.

The two things that constantly come up in relation to injuries we have seen at the box are pull ups and lifting too much during a WOD. 

Kipping pull ups are an absolute no-no if you are using a band for assistance. If you cannot do at least 8 - 10 strict pull ups on your own you shouldn't even be considering kipping ones. They place too much strain on shoulders that aren't strong enough to deal with the forces involved in the swing and kip. PLEASE DO NOT kip if you are using a band. From right now. Period. Using a band for assistance is a great way of getting your pull ups but keep them strict, work on them consistently and you will get your strict ones before long. Use a bigger band if needed. Yes, your WOD times might go up but I'm sure you'd prefer a larger number in your diary and strong pain free shoulders than not being able to lift your arms over your head? Swinging all over the place on a band, trying to kip will not get you stronger for your pull ups. It will just hurt you.

As for weights in WODs only a very small handful of you can complete WODs at RXd weight at the moment. We don't want to see ugly, rounded backs in WODs as this is not a nice experience and we have a duty of care to make sure you don't hurt yourself. Ask us for our advice on what to lift if you need too and we will suggest the weights for you. This is what we do, what we have done for a long time and what you also pay us for. We are in no way trying to hold you back. Leave your ego at the door and lift what you can lift well with perfect form. You will still get gassed and have a good workout, trust me. Its just you will also eliminate the possibility of hurting yourself as well.

Bad vs Good. We dont want to see the one on the left!

I love CrossFit and I love coaching CrossFit and owning a box with such an amazing bunch of people for friends and members. However, I don't like seeing people get hurt unnecessarily and I want to make sure that we continue to develop a great team of coaches and a great reputation as a safe, effective and fun place to train. Please help us out on this front by being sensible in your training, being accountable for what you are doing, taking your rest days and not over-training. That way your CrossFit journey will last a very long time and your health and fitness will know no bounds........

The Gymnastic Workshop and Our Bodyweight Ninjas

The Olympic rings. If I had to pick one piece of  training equipment that had the most versatility and effectiveness it would be these. 

Our Gymnastics Workshop went ahead full steam last Saturday and it was a great day of bodyweight tekkers by all.

Sometimes the basic bodyweight principals and movements can be overlooked in favour of more advanced Barbell Lifts and the like but really being able to control and manipulate your own body in a variety of ways is where a good portion of your training focus should lie. Not only do Gymnastic skills give you added agility, flexibility and co-ordination they also build mahoosive amounts of strength!

Not bad musculature...and not a barbell in sight in his training.

Olympic gymnasts as a general rule do not lift weights. And look how muscular they are. Gymnastic training is based on an increasing progression of harder and harder movements using your own body as a lever to create increasing resistance ie more work. As a general rule, the more tucked you are in any position the easier it will be and the more stretched out you are the harder it will be. Look at the two examples below:

Tuck Lever

Full Front Lever.

The top photo, whilst still hard to hold for the beginner, will be a whole load easier than holding the full front lever like in the second photo. The more extended you are the harder it will be.

This is only one element that can be used in order to make bodyweight exercises as hard as you want them to be. Got your press ups? Try close grip ones. Got them? Try Lever Press ups (one hand on a ball, rolling it out to the side). Got pull ups? Try wide grip pull ups. Got them? Try uneven towel hanging pull ups. Whatever level you are at you are sure to find one stage of any exercise that you cant do and therefore can practice and make gains in.

Wrist mobility drills. And when you're ready, try doing press ups like this. Insanely hard.
(Please don't actually go straight into trying these, your are likely to break your wrist! If you want to  give them a go start on your knees first)

At our Workshop we started off gauging everyones levels in the six major bodyweight moves; Push ups, Pull ups, Pistols (or one legged squats), Handstands, Bridges and Hanging Leg Raises.

These are the bread and butter gymnastic movements and ones that you should all try and become as efficient as possible in. And the great thing about them? Aside from a pull up bar you need hardly any space or any equipment. Just the knowledge of how to progress from one small achievable step to the next.

Bridges...a fantastic back and shoulder exercise.

And this brings up an important point. You shouldn't rush this learning curve. Take your time to really perfect your reps and solidify the rep amounts you are aiming for. If you are gunning for 3 sets of 15 reps of full press ups (a pretty good rep range to aim for) before moving up to the next level don't just squeeze out an ugly 14th and 15th rep and then decide you are ready for close grip push ups. Take a few weeks to really nail those 3 sets of 15 perfectly. Then move on. Your progress will be much quicker and more assured and you wont become dejected when you move up a level and cant do any!

Along with the 6 foundational movements we also introduced Olympic ring work like ring supports, front and back levers, skin the cats and muscle ups and then some static floor progressions building up towards the seemingly gravity defying planches. 

A Full Planche. Yeah..these are gonna take some work.

The four hours flew by and we had some aching muscles by the end. All our attendees had gained a much greater understanding of the bodyweight progressions, how to programme them into their training themselves and how, with small manageable steps, even the most advanced moves can be attained if you have the desire and inclination to train hard and often.

Getting inverted! Front and Back Lever work.

Our next Gymnastics Workshop will be held on Sunday 9th June at CrossFit Connect. If we do get a lot of interest we may hold one sooner than this so keep checking our FaceBook page regularly or sign up for our Newsletter.

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Until then my bodyweight ninjas..............