How Are You Preparing For The CrossFit Open?
It is that time of the year when all CrossFit athletes from around the world join each other in what is the first stage of the sport’s competitive season. Starting February 29th, all athletes will have the opportunity to compete in a worldwide virtual competition. Participating athletes from all over the world will complete 3 workouts at their local gym over the span of 3 weeks. These scores will then be submitted to the CrossFit games database and athletes will be able to compare scores across the world. Whether you are a seasoned athlete that is trying to make it to the next level or an average Joe who is trying to get their daily work out in, these workouts will typically challenge you and push you beyond your comfort zone. It is important to ensure that our bodies are ready for this challenge.
How do you plan to prepare for the CrossFit Games Open and what steps are you taking to prevent injuries?
As a Doctor of Physical Therapy, I have always pushed health and longevity. As a CrossFit athlete, I have also pushed myself to my limits and know how eager I can get on the competition floor and disregard important aspects of the sport. My education in rehabilitation and experience in the sport has helped me combine the two worlds to educate and help athletes become the best version of themselves. CrossFit athletes are notorious for pushing themselves beyond their comfort zone. However, without the proper training, preparation, or coaching, some athletes may get carried away and push too hard. In the instance an athlete is injured, it is important to look back at what may have been a culprit leading up to that injury. As the CrossFit Games season approaches, many athletes are expecting to give it their all and push through every workout regardless of how their bodies feel. Whether this is your 10th year doing the open or first day doing CrossFit, it is always important to make sure your body is ready for the demands of the workout.
How are you preparing for the CrossFit Open? Common complaints in any gym are pain in the shoulders, knees and hips. These joints are responsible for large movements in the body and typically have increased amounts of stress placed on them. The muscles surrounding these joints produce large amounts of force in a quick amount of time. During workouts, our bodies need to be ready to complete these movements not only when we are fresh, but also when we are fatigued. Incorporating regular warm ups and routine accessory work will help promote stability and longevity in these joints. A simple analogy I commonly use is our muscles are like sponges. If a dry sponge is stretched, it will likely tear. However, once the sponge is filled with water it becomes more pliable and is able to tolerate more stretch. This can be applied to muscles in the sense that a muscle with increased blood flow will perform better than a muscle with no blood flow. As a result, active and specific warm ups are always essential to do prior to your workout.
The shoulder joint is surrounded by many muscles and other ligamentous structures. The largest and most prevalent shoulder muscle is the deltoid. Everyone loves going to the gym for shoulder day and seeing a huge pump. The deltoids tend to be our attractive muscles and are trained regularly. However, there are many other muscles that should be regularly trained. Our rotator cuff muscles are essential to shoulder stability. There are four muscles that make up the rotator cuff. These muscles have individual actions such as shoulder abduction, external, and internal rotation. However, what they do as a whole is stabilize the head of the humerus in the glenoid fossa. In more simple terms, imagine the ball of your shoulder as a softball. This softball sits on a golf tee, which is the big hole attached to the shoulder. Our rotator cuff muscles secure that softball on top of that golf tee. Obviously the softball is much larger than the golf tee so these rotator cuff muscles have to work very hard to secure that stability. Now picture yourself completing 10 repetitions of bench press and your trying to secure that softball on the golf tee while your rotator cuff muscles are inactive. It is crucial that we warm up these muscles and prime them before doing our large multi-joint exercises. When we warm up our smaller stabilizing muscles, they are more active during the heavy compound lifts that we love to push ourselves on. Athletes should use specific exercises to prime individual muscles prior to doing heavier, more complex exercises. These warm up exercises should be applicable to what you are doing in the workout. For example, if I see the workout of the day includes hand stand push-ups, I am not going to warm up with bicep curls. Instead, I will do a banded shoulder press with light dumbbells to engage my rotator cuff muscles and increase blood flow to the area prior to the workout.
The same principle applies to the hip and knee. Our hip joint is a major factor in stability down the chain. Our hip joint provides stability in many planes of movement and when it is weak it is common to see fault movement patterns in joints below the hip. There are multiple muscles that attach to the hip and cause external rotation, abduction, extension, etc. It is important that these muscles are strong and efficient so that our knees are stable and ready for exercise. The strength of our hips has a large influence on the direction of our knee during squatting and running. For example, weak or inactive hip abductors will result in genu valgus, or the collapse of the knee inward. To prevent this stress on the medial knee compartment, the hip abductors must be adequately trained. In my experience as a Physical Therapist, it is very common to find athletes with knee pain squatting with their knees going inward. To address this issue, prime the external rotators and abductors of the hip prior to squatting. For example, the athlete will perform 2-3 hip activation exercises, then complete another squat with a band around their knees. Performing specific exercises prior to completing the large compound movement have now primed our hip muscles to work better during our squat, resulting in a more functional movement. Similar to the shoulder, these smaller muscles must be active during larger multi-joint movements so that the joint is stable and other nearby joints, such as the knee, have less stress on them.
As you begin your training for The Open, try warming up with specific exercises that replicate movements similar to those in the workout. Engage smaller, inactive, muscles so that they are primed and ready to support the larger muscles. Apply this principle as you ramp up your training for the CrossFit Games Open so that those larger joints are ready for the demand that is going to be placed on them! Adding this to your daily routine will increase strength in those smaller stabilizing muscles and will also help support the joint, decreasing risk of injury.
