How To Stay Active & Avoid Injuries-Crossfit

What Is Crossfit & Why Do Chiropractors Get Involved?

We just celebrated the 2021 CrossFit Open a few weeks ago, on this occasion we give you a quick review regarding the practice of CrossFit and injuries. How you can manage them with chiropractic, in terms of prevention and treatment.

The definition of fitness Greg Glassman came up with is as complete as any that has never been : increase work capacity across broad time and modal domains.
CrossFit is: “constantly varied, high-intensity, functional movement.” It’s a core, strength and conditioning program. CrossFit is not a specialized fitness program but a deliberate attempt to optimize physical competence in each of 10 fitness domains. They are cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy.(1)

“It’s the intersection of your basic ability to move other things, to move your body and do those things in combination. It’s that overlapping of ability that exists when you have a weightlifter, a runner and a gymnast. It’s that part in the middle that intersects and the bigger that part is the more fit you are” Adrian Bozman.(2)

The body is meant to move, lifting heavy things is good we’re supposed to do that. We’re supposed to do things fast, we’re supposed to do things slow. We’re supposed to suffer a little bit so we can get better at other things and these are just part of the process.(3)

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How To Prevent Crossfit Injuries

We know that integrative neuromuscular training maintained throughout childhood and adolescence will likely improve movement biomechanics, minimize the risk of sports-related injury, and promote positive health outcomes during adulthood.(4)
Furthermore, the injury incidence rate associated with CrossFit training is low, and comparable to other forms of recreational fitness activities.(5)Now that the injury rate has been defined by a science article, we can investigate what type of injury we can encounter in the practice of CrossFit. First, it’s totally inappropriate to compare injuries between a Games athlete (Elite) and the classic member of a CrossFit affiliate.

Studies show that no cases of rhabdomyolysis were recorded. Finally, the injuries mostly affected knees,lumbar spine, shoulders and elbows. They are mainly repetitive movements and musculo-tendinous disorders rather than traumatic issues.

A large number of shoulder problems is due to an imbalance in the latissimus dorsi (back muscles). Indeed, the latissimus dorsi does not fulfill its role of buckling of the shoulder and thus the trapezium is found hyperactive. You end up with a bad posture, a shoulder higher than the other but especially a latissimus dorsi that does not stabilize your shoulder.(6)

As I mentioned before shoulder unlevel is often associated with possible muscle weaknesses: latissimus dorsi, gluteus medius, trapezius, sacrospinalis. It’s always an unilateral imbalance.(7)(8) The parallele is all found with chiropractic because the purpose of chiropractic is to restore the functional capacity of the nervous system.

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How To Get A Strong Back

To illustrate a little bit more the whole process, sometimes it’s not enough to just do special strength work in the “weak” latissimus dorsi. Simply because whenever there is a functional or pathological interference in one of the areas of the body, a chain reaction of facilitation or inhibition of all postural muscles is going to take place (from the head to the feet or vice versa).

This is why we are interested in the cause and not the symptoms in chiropractic. It’s easy to understand that if we don’t correct the origin of the problem, you will repeat the same wrong pattern.

The movement mechanic is paramount. The pyramid is mechanics, consistency and then intensity…

There are other aspects of your daily life (physical, emotional,chemical) that can impact the probability to get injured. The most fundamental thing to stay far from injuries is to have a preventive approach which could include chiropractic care.

Some good advice to finish: find a CrossFit affiliate(9) and find a chiropractor. Stay healthy.