CrossFit

Physio In Your Pocket: Back Pain Deadlifting

Deadlifts are a commonly avoided exercise, but they shouldn’t be. They are an important part of your baseline fitness, and I recommend all my athletes do them, especially if strength is not a major component of their sport (think runner or yogi vs. CrossFit athletes). However, as with all injuries, if not done with good technique or proper attention to the number of reps and how much weight you are using, you will get injured. This is especially common with deadlifts because you should be able to lift the most amount of weight possible in this position. How do you think cars get lifted off people in heroic feats of strength and adrenaline? It’s a deadlift, albeit an insanely impressive one! Since this is your strongest lift, it’s not usually long until you realize how fun it is to lift heavy things. Once that realization kicks in, it can be tempting to sacrifice good form for lifting volume. Without these considerations, the most common injury you will sustain is a back injury. There are several back tissues and structures you can injure deadlifting, and unfortunately, they are all rehabilitated somewhat differently.

In this video, I explain how to properly deload your back after a deadlift injury.

Disclaimer: This does not cover ALL the considerations of things you can injury with deadlifts. In particular you should be wary of nerve injuries. If you have any: numbness, tingling, pins or needles, loss of sensation in you leg or foot, leg pain (especially if it is both sides), groin pain, or changes in your bowel, bladder, or sexual function, these are serious consideration and you need to consult a local health care practitioner.

For the rest of you, this will help you decide what to do during the deload phase after a deadlift injury.

Strength and Power Training for Endurance Athletes

Strength and Power Training for Endurance Athletes

In this blog I address the most common reasons why endurance athletes avoid strength training, and provide counter arguments for why they should be.

Physio In Your Pocket: Rolling the Foot to Relieve Foot Pain during CrossFit

Physio In Your Pocket: Rolling the Foot to Relieve Foot Pain during CrossFit

How to properly roll the foot to relieve foot pain or cramping from such injuries as plantar fasciitis.

Video Blog: Shoulder Pain and CrossFit

Video Blog: Shoulder Pain and CrossFit

Shoulder pain is a common complaint among CrossFit athletes.  Here is how I can help you recover from your shoulder injuries so you can keep pushing your fitness limits.

How to minimize CrossFit Shoulder Pain

How to minimize CrossFit Shoulder Pain

CrossFit requires a high level of shoulder mobility and stability to perform the workouts safely and injury free, though it is relatively uncommon to have both these attributes at the same time.  Since you probably don’t love putting in the extra time required to build a base of stability and mobility, here are the best bang for your buck exercises to make the most amount of gains in the least amount of time (15 minutes 3-4 days a week).