Over the past decade, we’ve seen a story repeat itself over and over again.
While it’s almost impossible to predict injuries, there are certain patterns of behaviors that can predispose someone to injury.
There seems to be a predictable series of events that occurs in the “CrossFitter’s Journey. It’s one that starts off with an introduction to an overwhelming amount of new movements. In years 1-2 of your start of CrossFit, the majority of time is spent learning new movements.
Similar to learning how to ride a bike, you can’t open up into a full sprint if you don’t have the fundamental mechanics set in stone.
This analogy applies to exercise as well. If you don’t have a great understanding of how to execute a certain movement, you will generally be limited to how much weight you can use, how fast you can go, and how many reps of that movement you can complete.
The skill of the movement becomes a bottleneck….to a certain point.
Once the skill of a movement reaches a certain threshold, you start to become more efficient in your output. You can do more reps in a smaller amount of time. You can move more weight. You can get more done.
While this is quite literally the goal of CrossFit (to be able to do more), we run into a problem when our rate of skill increases faster than the capacity of our body.
We see injury strike JUST as athletes unlock a new skill.
They JUST start to string together butterfly pull ups and are practicing the skill daily. They are starting to do them in metcons. But with the increase in volume and practice, comes the chance to overload the tissues that are being stressed in those movements.
So, when injury strikes after unlocking a new skill – know that this is normal. We manage these injuries in two different ways.
- Build Strict Strength
- Assign a volume limit per week
Sustainability in CrossFit comes down to making good decisions when pain and injury present themself.
This means knowing how to put your ego aside and work on the things that are holding you back.
It means knowing how to remove yourself from peer pressure and work on the things you know need to work on.
It means approaching workouts differently, with the goal of feeling GOOD after the workout, not just getting through it.
Learn More about the CrossFitter’s Journey here:
Are you a CrossFitter dealing with an active injury? Reach out to our team here for a free consult: https://calendly.com/morethanmvmt/discovery
