Let’s Make Up Some Stuff For You to Do

This is Mike’s new M.O. with my training: just combine some stuff and see what happens.

Gimpy WOD:
5 x 5 16kg kettlebell step-ups

WTF, right? First round was on 24″ box, then moved to 20″ box so that I could fully extend my single leg before bringing the other up. Who knew there was actual skill involved in step-ups? “Put your weight in your heels!” Mike yells at me. YOU put your weight in your heels, you crazy man who invented this ridiculous “exercise” and is now “coaching” me on perfect form.

Oh, and then throw on a bonus round with 20kg bells. (Yes, this is actually a very hard exercise and I was out of breath with single leg shaking at the end of each of my sets)

But this post isn’t another to bitch about injuries, but a springboard for a discussion on Rest and smart training.

You know my shoulder injury was sort of random–I was fine, then one day did some pushups and, it just started to hurt REALLY REALLY badly, then all the sudden I had a series of microtraumas and blue Rock tape and the prescription not to do anything with my shoulder, ice like it’s my job, and pop ibuprofen. A series of microtraumas is, more or less, CrossFit.

Recently, I’ve had a lot of conversations about the big R and how to strategically do it. Jen just wrote about this too. As CrossFitters, do we go too hard too often? Is the 3-2-1-Go! mentality actually hurting us when repeated day in and day out?

For the individual, how do you plan out smart training? How do you utilize the competitive atmosphere of CrossFit if you’re training on your own? How do you know when to stop and go and rest and roll and when to seek outside help?

Are there certain things that cause more microtraumas than others? Kipping, for instance? Yes, says my doc, because anytime you use a kip in any movement, you recruit muscles to help out that weren’t initially built for the movement, so they overuse easily. MICROTRAUMA. All signs are point to me learning to do more deadhang pullups.

For group classes, how can you not 3-2-1-go! when you have no control of what athletes are doing the days they aren’t in class? How do you monitor individuals while maintaining a unified class with benchmarks and competition?

What is rest? Does trigger point count as rest? Massage? Running? Playing basketball? How do those things fit in with your CrossFit training?

For me, I’m thinking about cutting back on the hardcore training … but I’m not sure. It’s scary to back away from it. But I also haven’t played pickup basketball in two weeks, thrown a football in two months. Those are my two favorite things to do, and mixing them with Bikram yoga and walking my dog and jogging town lake and throwing a frisbee with my bro while training in CrossFit made me un-injured. CrossFitting exclusively just made me a lot of injured.

An anonymous friend of mine said, “CrossFit as a fitness is going to fizzle unless it figures out the rest thing.”

So help me, friends, figure out this rest thing.