The caveat is that of all athletic endeavors only CrossFit seems to have a hard time dealing with their injury profile. Sports should address the possible injuries and attempt to minimize them, understanding that an injury will halt progress and interfere with participation.

Your Mission as a CrossFit Coach

CrossFit is no longer an edgy alternative, limited to military types and the full-sleeve tat crowd. It is becoming mainstream fitness with a twist, and it is going to be your responsibility, as a coach and gym owner, to implement CrossFit in a safe way. A way that is more in keeping with the needs of the people walking in your door – soccer moms, middle age business men and women, teens, kids, and seniors.

Most of these people don’t want to get hurt and therein lies the problem. There are still boxes opening with unskilled trainers clutching a handful of CrossFit certifications believing blindly in the model and parroting things like, “If you’re afraid of getting hurt, we probably don’t want you in our ranks.” New people don’t want to get hurt and if you do hurt them they will probably leave your ranks.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to challenge the clients in your gym, get them stronger, and lead them on the path to mastery and competence without injuring them. 

The Basics of Exercise Selection

When it comes to creating workouts and programming, a good trainer or gym owner should always use the return-on-investment strategy when selecting exercises.

The criteria for excluding an exercise should be:

1. Possibility for failure
2. Necessity for advanced motor skills
3. Steepness of the learning curve

If any one of these three is present, then pick another exercise. It is also necessary to ascertain the client’s goals and then to teach them the safest and simplest exercise to achieve that end. Universal among CrossFit gyms is the idea that the workouts are universally scalable, but if the scaling is based on a lack of skill or strength, then you have missed your mark. If the client does not have the skill or strength to do an exercise, then skill and strength should be the focus.

Recommended Exercise List for Beginners

The following list of movements while by no means comprehensive can form the basis for a solid program. You will notice there are no Olympic lifts included in this list. It is unconscionable, irresponsible, and unnecessary to try to teach someone a snatch or clean if they cannot do a kettlebell swing or an air squat with good form. They will get a sense of using their hips explosively with the kettlebell swings and a sense of hip extension under load with the deadlift and squat movements.

Weighted Lifts:

• Goblet squat
• Front squat
• Back squat
• Deadlift
• Press
• Bench press

Bodyweight Exercises:

• Pull ups and variations (no kipping)
• Push ups and variations
• Dips and variations (preferably bar dips, paralette dips or box dips)
• Burpees (solid six-count burpee, not a flop)
• Bodyweight squat
• Ring rows
• Lunges (front and lateral)

Weighted Movements:

• Kettlebell swings
• Triple extension kettlebell swing
• Turkish get up
• Farmer’s walk

Other:

• Rowing
• Running
• Broad jump
• Bear crawl
• Jumping rope (singles are fine)

Core Exercises:

• Back extension
• Hanging leg raise
• Plank
• Ab wheel

Unlike other skill-level charts, in this plan there are no prescribed or recommended weights or times. This beginning level of exercises is chosen to establish motor skills and competency. Using this list of movements will build the structural strength and integrity that will allow your clients to handle more advanced movement patterns.

How to Put It Together in a Program

Workouts would be structured with the weight portion being a stand-alone. There are several programs that could be slotted in here such as Wendler’s 5/3/1, Pavel’s Power To The People, Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength or some variation of Louie Simmon’s Westside Method.

The conditioning portion could include any type of push/pull work, any type of lower/middle/upper body work, and something from the miscellaneous section. The workouts would never be designed around fatiguing a single body part or joint movement. When you program a workout like that and add in a time element to push people you exponentially increase the chances of injuring your clients.

When programming conditioning workouts it is not ideal to crush your clients. Most programs designed to enhance a person’s physical fitness have clients leaving the gym feeling as though they have been worked, not as if they have been worked over.

Sample Workout

• Strength

• Squat 2 x 5
• Skills
  • Goblet squats, pushups, and rowing
• WOD
  • 3 rounds:
  • Row 200 meters/10 push ups/5 goblet squats

You could time this for a CrossFit feel or allow 30 to 45 seconds rest between exercises and 60 seconds rest after each round. The warm up and skills should be workout specific. This model will also leave you time for mobility work, cool down, and stretching.

The Take-Away on Injury-Free CrossFit

In times of stress people will always fall back on their training. As a coach, it is your job to make sure the training is solid before introducing stress. You want durable, healthy people coming out of your gym – not an endless parade of the walking wounded.

There are a large number of combinations that can be assembled from the above exercises and you should be able to keep people entertained for a good long time. And we all know that keeping the buggers entertained is what this is all about. (Just in case – that last bit was facetious.)

Photos courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

The post A Programming Plan for Injury Free CrossFit appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

As is usual, I notice problems with other people long before I identify things as a problem in my own life. Often my own personality or character defects show up as a glaring deficit in someone else before I am willing to see them in myself. What is now painfully clear is that I, too, am afflicted. I have what I could previously only see in others – the syndrome I call Exercise ADD.

The lack of focus and inability to follow something through to the finish is, I believe, partly due to the age in which we live. It is an age of instant gratification, 140-character Twitter feeds, Facebook posts, and thirty-second TV commercials. This onslaught carries over to every aspect of our lives. This is a convenient way to blame an external stimulus for an internal lack of intestinal integrity.

There are a lot of exercise programs out there, too many to list, and they all look fun. I have spent the last few years justifying switching programs every few months by declaring that I am process oriented. It is, as Tom Waits said, “The pursuit you see and never the arrest.” I managed to convince myself that all, not just some, but all, of these programs had validity and should be given their time in the spotlight. This, of course, absolved me of any responsibility for following anything through to the end. I never had to worry about getting to a weight that was seriously challenging because I could, being process oriented, just move on to another program and start from scratch. This, and a lack of any clear goals, allowed me to spend all my time seeking.

The obvious problem with this approach is that I will never be as strong as I could be, I will never have as much endurance as I could have, and I will never be as flexible or as mobile as I should be. Jim Wendler said, “The game of lifting isn’t an eight week pursuit, it’s a lifetime pursuit.” I could pick a new program every eight weeks and never repeat one for the rest of my life. I would then stay weak, out of breath and inflexible for the rest of my life. Being process oriented is just not a good choice if I ever want to get anywhere.

Andrew Read pointed out in his article Oog Make Fire, Man Make Fitness Cults, when discussing fitness trends, “… even more importantly, I believe, is the complete lack of ability people show in sticking to things. “ This was comforting to me. I was not alone. I grew up with people who were “changing it up” and “confusing their muscles” and none of them, including me, ever seemed to achieve any level of mastery. The key to mastery is to have a goal and stick with it. Lacking either of those will doom a person to second-rate performance.

How to solve this? First, be aware there is a problem. Second, do something about it. I believe the best advice I was ever given is, “Shut up and dance.” I have now determined that there is a difference between sifting through mountains of material to arrive at a workable program and just floating through program after program, hoping something sticks. Bruce Lee said, “One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.” I have now, after years of floating, begun to finalize a functional program that will make me stronger, develop skills, and allow me time for my current sport, which is indoor rowing.

So it appears I finally have this thing under control. I have established a program that gets me in and out of the gym in a little over an hour including some flexibility, mobility, and foam rolling. I feel good about this and it’s a great burden off my shoulders.

But wait, what’s this? Breaking Muscle. A site with more workouts than you can shake a stick at, if you’re given to shaking sticks at things. There’s so much here, there’s kettlebell workouts, bodyweight workouts, Primal Move workouts, MovNat workouts. It’s too much. I can feel myself slipping. The ground won’t support my weight. The rabbit hole is opening up and the slide begins again – but only if I let it.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post How to Diagnose and Cure Exercise ADD appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

CrossFit is no longer an edgy alternative, limited to military types and the full sleeve tat crowd. It is becoming mainstream fitness with a twist, and it is going to be your responsibility, as a coach and gym owner, to implement CrossFit in a safe way, a way that is more in keeping with the needs of the people walking in your door – soccer moms, middle age business men and women, teens, kids, and seniors. Most of them don’t want to get hurt and therein lays the problem. There are still boxes opening with unskilled trainers clutching a handful of CF Certs believing blindly in the model and parroting things like, “If you’re afraid of getting hurt, we probably don’t want you in our ranks.” New people don’t want to get hurt and if you do hurt them they will probably leave your ranks.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to challenge the client in your gym, get them stronger, and lead them on the path to mastery and competence without injuring them. A good trainer or gym owner should always use the “Return on Investment” strategy when selecting exercises. The criteria for excluding an exercise should be: possibility for failure, necessity for advanced motor skills, or a steep learning curve. If any one of these is present pick another exercise. It is also necessary to ascertain the client’s goals and then to teach them the safest and simplest exercise to achieve that end. Universal among CrossFit gyms is the idea that the workouts are universally scalable, but if the scaling is based on a lack of skill or strength then you have missed your mark. If the client does not have the skill or strength to do an exercise, then skill and strength should be the focus.

The following list of movements, by no means comprehensive, is the basis for a solid program. You will notice there are no Olympic lifts included in this list. It is unconscionable, irresponsible, and unnecessary to try to teach someone a snatch or clean if they cannot do a kettlebell swing or an air squat with good form. They will get a sense of using their hips explosively with the kettlebell swings and a sense of hip extension under load with the deadlift and squat movements.

WEIGHTED LIFTS

• Goblet squat
• Front squat
• Back squat
• Deadlift
• Press
• Bench press

BODY WEIGHT

• Pullups and variations (no kipping)
• Pushups and variations
• Dips and variations (preferably bar dips, paralette dips or box dips)
• Burpees (solid 6 count burpee, not a flop)
• Bodyweight squat
• Ring rows
• Lunges (front and lateral)

WEIGHTED MOVEMENTS

• Kettlebell swings
• Triple extension kettlebell swing
• Turkish get up
• Farmer’s walk

MISC.

• Rowing
• Running
• Broad jump
• Bear crawl
• Jumping rope (singles are fine)

CORE

• Back extension
• Hanging leg raise
• Plank
• Ab wheel

Unlike other skill level charts there are no prescribed or recommended weights or times. The beginning level is just to establish motor skills and competency and to build the structural strength and integrity that will allow your clients to handle more advanced movement patterns. Although not specifically designed to prevent injury, CrossFit Invictus in San Diego divided their classes into the categories of fitness, performance and competition, which is a great idea. Invictus coach C.J. Martin had this to say about these levels.

Our Fitness program is comprised of fewer complex movements (no olympic lifts, muscle-ups, etc…) and higher reps performed with lower percentages of the athletes’ max load (no 1RM testing). The conditioning sessions will typically include fewer complex movements, which allows our athletes to work at a higher relative intensity than they would be able to do if they had to perform a complex movement for which they had not yet developed the skill. This program is ideal for an athlete with a body composition goal and no desire to compete in the sport of fitness.

Our Performance program uses a wider variety of movements, including complex movements such as the Olympic lifts. It is, in essence, our interpretation of traditional CrossFit. We train strength and skills, typically followed by a short, intense conditioning session that could be comprised of any number of weightlifting, gymnastics and cyclical bodyweight movements (like running, rowing, skipping rope, etc…). This is an optimal program for athletes who are looking to attain peak performance and enjoy learning new athletic skills.

Our Competition program is designed for those who have a goal of competing in the sport of fitness. There is a heavy emphasis placed on the Olympic lifts and foundational gymnastics movements. Overall, the program is less varied than our Performance program, and tailored more toward the specific needs of a CrossFit competitive athlete.

Workouts would be structured with the weight portion being a stand-alone. There are several programs that could be slotted in here such as Wendler’s 5/3/1, Pavel’s Power To The People, Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength or some variation of Louie Simmon’s Westside Method.

The conditioning portion could include any type of push/pull work, any type of lower/middle/upper body work, and something from the miscellaneous section. The workouts would never be designed around fatiguing a single body part or joint movement. When you program a workout like that and add in a time element to push people you exponentially increase the chances of injuring your clients.

When programming conditioning workouts it is not ideal to crush your clients. Most programs designed to enhance a person’s physical fitness have clients leaving the gym feeling as though they have been worked, not as if they have been worked over.

A sample workout could look like this:

• Strength
  • Squat 2 x 5
• Skills
  • Goblet squats, pushups, and rowing
• WOD
  • 3 rounds:
  • Row 200 meters/10 pushups/5 goblet squats

You could time this for a CrossFit feel or allow 30 to 45 seconds rest between exercises and 60 seconds rest after each round. The warm-up and skills should be workout specific. This model will also leave you time for mobility work, cool down, and stretching.

In times of stress people will always fall back on their training. It is your job to make sure the training is solid before introducing stress. You want durable, solid people coming out of your gym – not an endless parade of the walking wounded. There are a large number of combinations that can be assembled from the above exercises and you should be able to keep people entertained for a good long time with this. And we all know that keeping the buggers entertained is what this is all about. (Just in case – that last bit was facetious.)

Photos provided by Miguel Tapia Images and CrossFit LA.

The post How To Injury Proof Your CrossFit appeared first on Breaking Muscle.