Workout this weekend on Sunday, 9 AM. Hope to see you all there.

And now for the real blog post:

Midline Stabilization Under Load

This week during CrossFit Total we revisited why it is important to hold your breath and tighten EVERYTHING before you move the bar. We practice it when grooving the movement and when going heavy. Here’s how you cement the ability to stabilize under load:

To begin, imagine your entire torso and butt in 360 degrees. You want that entire column of your body to be just that: a strong, immovable column that does not bend, does not shift, does nothing but keep your spine neutral and wedded to your hips. This happy marriage is often overlooked in the chase for extreme lumbar extension. While we initially want people who have problems with lumbar flexion to learn how to obtain a lumbar curve, we also want them to think about their entire body, and in particular their spine and hips, as one happily married piece.

In order to make this happen, do the following:

• Pull your shoulder blades down and back to stand as tall and proud as possible.
• Inhale and pretend like someone is about to deliver a life-threatening punch to your gut and you need to brace yourself for this. What you will do is contract your abs, obliques and a whole slew of muscles that make up your 360 degree torso as hard as possible. You are doing this because you are trying to protect your internal organs and your spine from any irreparable damage caused by this potential trauma. (To tighten your brace, exhale and squeeze even harder, maintain that tension and inhale again.)
• You should still be standing tall and proud – locking down your midline stabilizers should not cause your posture to change.
• Squeeze your glutes (your butt) as hard as possible. This helps to keep your spine and hips wedded together.
• Push your knees out to the sides and “spread the ground” by trying to kick your heels away from you as if you were trying to tear a piece of paper under your feet.

By this time, you should notice your whole body is about as tight as it can possibly get and you should feel like you’re working hard just to do this. This is the most extreme, dare I say ideal, bracing you can do. Aim to go through these steps in order to provide yourself minimum risk and maximum return while training. But beware, mastering the breathing takes some practice – so PRACTICE! Do it while you are warming up, going through basic movements, etc….

Just to provide yourself some individual feedback, try to do one air squat as you normally would. Now perform one air squat with the bracing process described above. You should feel more “integrated,” as if your entire body’s individual body parts are truly working in concert with each other.

Hopefully, everybody who reads this blog will learn to move their body with proper bracing and allow me to take the quotation marks off the word “integrated” in the future.

Giving credit where it is due, the majority of this blog post came from CrossFit Invictus, and they got it from whitewater paddling buddy of mine Kelly Starrett of San Francisco CrosSFit. Kudos to Kelly for putting it all together to keep us safe under large loads.

-Beth

Tendons connect muscles to bones, and ligaments connect bones to bones. When we start working out we are stressing the tendons and ligaments as well as the muscles. All the lifting, pushing, pulling and jumping we do puts micro tears in the soft tissue, which is normal. But sometimes we go too far without knowing it, and injure ourselves. There might be a sharp and searing pain, and then what do we do?

First of all let’s talk about the difference between soreness and injuries. You work out hard, you might feel cooked after the WOD, but you make it through the day. 24 to 26 hours later your muscles feel TIRED, it hurts to sit down, and you’re cursing CrossFit. This SORENESS is called DOMS, or delayed onset muscle soreness, and it is best handled with good sleep, eating well (protein and fresh veggies) and loosening up your body with movement and stretching. If it’s really severe you can even sit in an ice bath to calm those screaming muscles down. Keep coming to the workout as we will scale around your soreness.

INJURIES, on the other hand, require more attention than soreness. When you tear a muscle or tweak a joint there is swelling and pain. For the first 24-48 hours you want to apply ice to get that swelling down. We used to take HEAPS of anti-inflammatory aids, and even called them vitamin I just to make it thru the day. But now we know better. To learn more about why NOT to take Advil of Ibuprofen read this good blog post by physical therapist and CrossFit trainer Kelly Starrett. How much ICE should I apply, you might ask? 20 minutes every couple of hours. Ice massage is the most effective; rub that ice cube or a frozen dixie cup right on that sore tendon for five minutes. When you apply ice the blood is drawn away from the iced area which reduces inflammation. Once you stop icing blood rushes back to the area, which promotes healing.

Once you’re on the mend you will find that scar tissue forms in the once injured area, and this needs to be worked out. Sometimes you can get in there yourself and work out the knots, and other times it will take a masseuse, physical therapist or body worker of choice.

Watch this short video on the CrossFit Journal to learn about the stages of healing, also by Kelly Starrett. Bottom line: if you are passive about icing and taking care of your injuries then you will heal more slowly. If you are pro-active you will mend quickly.

One of the benefits of CrossFit is that it strengthens those tendons and ligaments. If you’re just getting started and feeling some pain, don’t worry as you will get stronger. As your tendon and ligament strength builds you’ll feel younger on both sides.

-Beth

Lately we have had you pull your leg toward your head with a jump rope while you simultaneously push the foot away from your head. Sometimes we get you in a lunge position so that your tail bone is tilted toward the ground and make you squeeze your glute and push your back foot into the ground. What is all this confusing instruction about anyway???

It’s PNF baby: Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation. It’s kind of a mouthful so we just called it PNF.  It’s flexibility training that involves both the stretching and contraction of the muscle group being targeted. That’s why we have you lay on your back, stretch your leg so that you find the end range of your hamstring, and then resist your foot into the jump rope. Notice how much more flexibility you have in those hammies after we get done with some PNF.

Some folks call this Resistance Stretching, ala Dara Torres and what got her ready for the Olympics, but in the end it is all the same.

Bottom line: We work hard, and our bodies need flexibility training so that the muscles don’t seize up on your drive home, or later that day. Take a few moments through-out your day to incorporate some PNF into your life. It will make all the difference in your performance. Try it out in your life and let us know what you find.

-Beth

Corey and Bruce avoiding the big "C"

The big C has touched all of us, be it personally or someone we know. There’s no question that it screws up your plans and interupts the buzz. But, the good news is that recent research shows that if we regularly practice lifting heavy things that we reduce our chances of contracting the big C. This article, published in Britain’s Telegraph, talks about how “men” reduce their chances by strength training, but I’m confident it applies to women as well.

Let us know how quickly you want to reduce your chances of the running into the big C.

-Beth