Outside The Box- Park WOD's

 

Last Thursday a few of CrossFit Banshee's Staff got out to test out the idea of Outside the Box. Now we are inviting you to come join us!

9/18/2013 WOD

(workout of the day)

 

Warm up:

Squats/Hollow Rock Holds 

10 Min AMRAP (as many rounds as possible)
10 Toes to Bar
150m Sprint

Shoulder Press

CrossFit, being a program for general physical preparedness, gives it's athletes the opportunity to practice skills in the gym that can transfer to everyday life. Everyday life actions like holding our babies overhead and hoisting your carry-on bag into the overhead bin of the plane. These movements require a basic a shoulder to overhead movement, also known as a shoulder press.  Shoulder press being the simpler lift of the overhead presses translates to a lot of movements we do in everyday life.  It is also a movement that you will find in the weightlifting modality and also in the gymnastics modality with handstand push-ups.

Set up: It is important to begin with a good set up position to complete the shoulder press. Your stance is hip width apart. The hands are in a closed grip, thumbs around, on the bar just outside the shoulders. The bar is resting in “rack” position on the shoulders, and elbows are down and in front of the bar. Abs or midsection of body will be tight in the set up position and will remain tight throughout the entire lift.

The Press: The next step is to press the bar in a straight up path overhead. Begin by engaging the mid-section and beginning to drive the bar directly up, making sure to move your head out of the path of the bar rather than change the path of the bar around your head.  Once pressed overhead, at the top of the lift, the shoulders will be active with the shoulder angle being fully open (shoulders pressed up towards ears, armpits facing the wall in front of you). In the locked out position the bar should be located directly over the arch of the foot. Remaining in control return the bar down to the rack position following the same straight bar path.

Some common faults in executing the movement:

The bar is not directly overhead and is in the frontal plane.

The bar diverts from the straight path to move around the lifter’s head. This diversion is one reason the bar may be in the frontal plane.

The lifter is leaning back and overextending in the back due to a slack in the midsection.

The lifter is leaning back to generate power from the pectoral muscles, turning the lift into more of a bench press.

The lifter goes up on their toes when trying to fully extend and lock the bar out in the overhead position. Usually this is seen in connection with an over-arched back.

A full press or lock out overhead is not achieved due to inactive shoulders or bent elbows.

With consistent practice and continually added weight a lifter can reap the benefits of the overhead press in many ways from everyday functional movements to full range of motion hand stand push-ups or hand stand walks.

Everybody Needs Mobility and Form Work

I have been doing CrossFit for 5+ years, and I'd like to think that I'm pretty good at most movements.  I train in my own garage gym, without a coach, which means my coach is myself and what I can see in the mirror. Yes, I have mirrors in my gym, if I didn't I wouldn't be able to flex, I mean see what I'm doing :) (at least from a limited point of view). I have been cruising along for some time and decided that I needed more leg work since legs are my weakest point.  I had been working legs at least once a week...front squats, back squats, over head squats with what I thought was good form: Chest up, knees out, hip crease below patella...but I could only see from a frontal view.  I had a series of tough workouts that really hit the posterior chain hard:
Thurs: OHS 5x3
Fri: 55 C&J @ 135 + 10 Rounds of Cindy
Sat: Run 7mi
Sun: Off
Mon: Lumberjack 20 (Rxd)
Tue: Front Squat 3x5
Tuesday is when my back went out... I went down on my third set, felt a huge pop in my lower back, I stood the weight up, and that's when the pain started. Go figure: I had hit my back hard with OHS, C&J, running and Lumberjack 20...I shouldn't have been front squatting. I later found out that I had popped my SI joint out (where the sacrum attaches to the pelvis), and the only reason I didn't injury any bones or discs was because of my musculature. It was horrible: I couldn't sit, stand, or sleep because of every position hurt! I couldn't understand what had happened, my form looked good (at least from my view), I was doing a relatively light weight (and I hadn't thought about my previous workouts)....

It took a couple of weeks of PT and muscle relaxers to get my back calmed down enough that I could do light leg work in a workout again.  Once back in the gym, I mentioned to Steve that I hurt my back during squatting, so he took a look at my squat...right off the bat he knew why things went wrong.  I had no hip flexion, my right shoulder was forward, throwing my center of balance forward putting it in front of my toes...it's amazing my back didn't go out years before.  I thank Crossfit for a strong back! Not only did my strong secondary muscles save my back, but it held me together for longer than if a non-Crossfitter were doing the same thing.  Steve showed me what proper squat form was and when he set me into the correct position I literally fell over because of my inflexible hips! He showed me various mobility I could and how to do squat therapy.  The very first day I did this, the pain in my back diminished dramatically!

So fast forward several months...I've been doing squat therapy EVERY workout: hip flexion, various stretching, working against a wall to keep my back up and my butt under me...with PT, I'm mostly pain free and my squatting is dramatically better.  I've begun upping weights on my squats, but the most amazing thing is my OH Squats and how having good squat form helps.  I worked up to my previous 1RM (that was a major struggle before), and was astounded to find the weight was cake to squat! Now my shoulders couldn't hold much more...but just being able to be STABLE squatting 175# over head was a great feeling!

All in all, it really sucked popping my back out, but it was blessing in disguise: It made me 1) realize I need a coach to check my form occasionally, 2) plan my workouts better and give muscle groups a rest, 3) correct my squat form which had unexpected, yet wonderful results.  Bottom line: nobody's form is perfect and we all can use mobility and therapy.