Done with days: Fishy breakfast, busted body

Monday, August 17, 2009

I slept in my own bed in my own house for the first time in two weeks last night. Felt great.
What did not feel great was coming home from CrossFit this morning and realizing that I also hadn't been grocery shopping in two weeks. I'm going to take care of that after work today. But that was no help this morning when the only paleo food I could scrounge up was a warm can of Whole Foods tuna and a plum.
I don't know if it was "Elizabeth" or the breakfast that made me want to puke more.
On another note: I've been nursing a couple injuries for about a month now. The first happened when I fucked up a hang clean. The second is a knee injury. I didn't really know the cause of that one until Saturday night when I asked my brother to take a look.
Some background: My brother is the head athletic trainer at a local college and has been on staff for several college and professional athletic teams. So he knows what he's talking about.
I asked him to take a look at my wrist and explained how I thought I injured it. Turns out, my injury isn't in my wrist at all. Apparently I strained some really small muscles in my forearm while incorrectly trying to heft up a lot of weight with them. That caused caused the tendons to swell. It was most painful in the wrist because the tendons run through a smallish tunnel on the way to my hand. When they're swollen, they've got a lot less space to run through, which amplifies the pain. (If I've got terminology for tendons and muscles wrong, forgive me. You get the gist.)
Anyway, in the process of rehabbing that injury, my brother asked to see some of the other movements we are doing in CrossFit. Generally, he's stoked on the work outs, loves Olympic lifting and the other basic exercises we do. He does have some concerns about the body's natural tendency to sacrifice form for speed in a competitive atmosphere.
And his example of that was my squatting. He could immediately tell I my left knee is injured because I was favoring my right one every time I squatted. And he said that injury likely occurred because I was squatting incorrectly in the first place.
That's no surprise to me. Every time I squat heavy weight, my knees tend to buckle in. My trainers have pointed that out and told me to stop it, but I guess I never understood the consequences of not being extra careful while following that advice. In addition, I guess the alignment of my knees (and being a woman with wide-ish hips) make me predisposed to this sort of problem. The solution is to be extra conscious of pushing out my knees (ie, pointing in the same direction as my feet) when I swat and narrowing my stance.
So usually I wouldn't write about my aches and pains -- I'm not a pansy or anything. But I guess I just realized that we have to take a higher level of personal responsibility doing these intense workouts. If something hurts, it's important to ask for help figuring out what might be the cause. The trainers at CrossFit are awesome and really knowledgeable, but they can't be everywhere and see everything all the time.
I'm really looking forward to building momentum at the box this week. How's everyone else doing on Paleo?

2 comments:

Justin Flynn said...

Jen,

I am sorry to hear about your wrist. Seems like you and Lyndsay both are having trouble with the clean. Because I dont train the morning classes why dont you approach Zach or Mike B. for some extra help on that movement? I know they would be more than stoked to help get your technique better. In regards to your brothers concerns about sacrificing form in the lifts for speed this is a common concern in people outside the CF community. Traditionally the Olympic lifts have always been done slowly and at low reps. Does this build strength and power? Absolutely! Thats why we incorporate the max effort days where max weight is the goal not time. In those days of say 7 sets of 1 (7x1) techinque would be of utmost important, afterall its only one rep!
Now where CrossFit has been pioneers is in incorporating the Olympic lifts into workouts that involve a time component, high reps, and or other movements like ring dips, running, box jumps etc. NO ONE was doing this before. Will you be able to use heavy weight for a workout that involves say (Elizabeth) 21,15,9 reps of squat cleans and ring dips? The answer is no. The weight will be relatively light. Will some breakdown occur in form if your going balls out? Yes! If your doing every rep perfectly your intensity and therefore your power output (Power=Intensity)will be lower. Remember the point on "Elizabeth" is to increase your work capacity and in doing that we are getting an unbelievable cardiovascular and stamina hit to the body. At the light weight of 135#(men) we are not emphasizing strength like we are in the slow and methodical 7x1 workout. If your form is perfect on every single rep in Elizabeth you are not working out hard enough! However if your form is so bad that you are in risk of injuring yourself then you need to back off. Some form breakdown will and does occur in CrossFit and that is a good thing. It means we are working at the edge of our capacity and thats where we want to spend our time. Check out this video of Navy SEAL and director of CF Dave Castro speak on form vs. intensity.

http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFitJournal_AFCastroTechniquePre.wmv

Paleo Jen said...

Thanks so much, Justin, for posting this. And for your really clear and specific coaching this morning during crossfit totals. It feels much better to know that, while we strive for good form and maximum range of motion, it's not going to be perfect when we're working our asses off.

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